Any command line utility to manage device with ASF protocol

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Wed, 10/28/2009 - 17:01

Quoting - sayantan_majumdar I am not sure if this is the right forum to ask this question. But still asking it with the hope that someone might be able to come with an answer.
Is there any command line tool available to manage devices via ASF. I want to send Power on/ off requests via command line tools to a device that supports ASF as managebility protocol. I found that RemoteControl.exe in Intel SDK does the same job for AMT enabled devices. So wandering if there is any such tool for ASF protocol.

Sayantan, great question!

Intel had available an ASF SDK, that included, between other things a Magement Console application the sample was GUI based, not Command Line, but once you've got the SDK making it a command line should be easy.

I can't find it available for download, for some reason (maybe it is too old :), you should move to Intel AMT ;)). I'm asking a bit, to see if we can find where to download it from.
I'll post the link here if I find it.

Ps> See this series for information on the differences between ASF and Intel AMT. It may help you decide which one is preferrable for your context.

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sayantan_majumdar

Wed, 10/28/2009 - 17:30

Quoting - Shmuel Gershon (Intel)
Sayantan, great question!

Intel had available an ASF SDK, that included, between other things a Magement Console application the sample was GUI based, not Command Line, but once you've got the SDK making it a command line should be easy.

I can't find it available for download, for some reason (maybe it is too old :), you should move to Intel AMT ;)). I'm asking a bit, to see if we can find where to download it from.
I'll post the link here if I find it.

Ps> See this series for information on the differences between ASF and Intel AMT. It may help you decide which one is preferrable for your context.

Hi Shmuel,

Thanks for your quick response.
I understand that ASF is quite old. But we have to support remote control (mainly power off, on reset etc) of quite a few old systems those supports only ASF. We already have an AMT setup for new systems. But for the old systems we dont have any choice left other than going for ASF. Thats why I was up for the remote controller tool.

It will be really helpful if you could point me to the location of ASF SDK, so that I can build the command line utlity based on the GUI management console utility behavior.

Thanks a lot. Waiting for your response.

Regards,
Sayantan

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Shmuel Gershon (Intel)

Wed, 10/28/2009 - 17:35

Quoting - sayantan_majumdar I understand that ASF is quite old. But we have to support remote control (mainly power off, on reset etc) of quite a few old systems those supports only ASF. We already have an AMT setup for new systems. But for the old systems we dont have any choice left other than going for ASF. Thats why I was up for the remote controller tool.
It will be really helpful if you could point me to the location of ASF SDK, so that I can build the command line utlity based on the GUI management console utility behavior.

Sure, don't get me wrong -- I like ASF very much, was the first manageability I ever worked with... very harm feelings :).

It is great thaht you have Intel AMT for the new fleet and are still mantaining the old ones with ASF -- that shows a very nice operation.

Sayantan, I hope to have answer about the SDK download until next week.

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sayantan_majumdar

Wed, 10/28/2009 - 17:43

Quoting - Shmuel Gershon (Intel)
Sure, don't get me wrong -- I like ASF very much, was the first manageability I ever worked with... very harm feelings :).

It is great thaht you have Intel AMT for the new fleet and are still mantaining the old ones with ASF -- that shows a very nice operation.

Sayantan, I hope to have answer about the SDK download until next week.

Thanks a lot.

Hope for the best. :)

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sayantan_majumdar

Thu, 10/29/2009 - 10:33

Quoting - Shmuel Gershon (Intel) Sure, don't get me wrong -- I like ASF very much, was the first manageability I ever worked with... very harm feelings :).
It is great thaht you have Intel AMT for the new fleet and are still mantaining the old ones with ASF -- that shows a very nice operation.

Sayantan, I hope to have answer about the SDK download until next week.

I was wandering if the RemoteControl.exe in AMT SDK be able to send Power Up/ Down command to ASF devics. But I am unable to get the paramaters for that. Could anyone confirm if the RemoteControl.exe will be able to send the request to any ASF device? And if yes then what should be the parameter. Becasue I can see that it takes special commands for ASF devices.

Regards,
Sayantan

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Andrew Schiestl (Intel)

Thu, 10/29/2009 - 11:05

Quoting - sayantan_majumdar
I was wandering if the RemoteControl.exe in AMT SDK be able to send Power Up/ Down command to ASF devics. But I am unable to get the paramaters for that. Could anyone confirm if the RemoteControl.exe will be able to send the request to any ASF device? And if yes then what should be the parameter. Becasue I can see that it takes special commands for ASF devices.

Regards,
Sayantan

I'm pretty sure the Remote Control example in the SDK won't work with ASF devices, since the communications stack for ASF is fundamentally different than AMT (the Remote Management and Control Protocol stack for ASF is built on top of UDP instead of TCP for one). But I might be mistaken on that, Shmuel can you correct me if I'm wrong?

Andy

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sayantan_majumdar

Thu, 10/29/2009 - 11:18

Quoting - Andrew Schiestl (Intel)
I'm pretty sure the Remote Control example in the SDK won't work with ASF devices, since the communications stack for ASF is fundamentally different than AMT (the Remote Management and Control Protocol stack for ASF is built on top of UDP instead of TCP for one). But I might be mistaken on that, Shmuel can you correct me if I'm wrong?
Andy

Thanks Andy.

When I execute the command RemoteControl.exe -r -user -pass
http://:16992/RemoteControlService < powerup.txt, I get a response:

Please specify the following parameters

Command
=======
Possible values:
16 (Reset)
17 (PowerUp)
18 (PowerDown)
19 (PowerCycleReset)
33 (SetBootOptions)
>
Iana OEM Number
===============
Possible values:
343 (IntelIanaNumber)
4542 (ASFIanaNumber)
>
Special Command
===============
Possible values:
-1 (No Special Command)
0 (NOP)
1 (ForcePxeBoot)
2 (ForceHardDriveBoot)
3 (ForceHardDriveSafeModeBoot)
4 (ForceDiagnosticsBoot)
5 (ForceCdOrDvdBoot)
193 (IntelOemCommand)
>
Special Command Parameters
==========================
Possible values:
Special command not equal to 193
See ASF specification for the Special Command Parameter legal values

-1 (No Special Command Parameter)
>
Boot Options
============
Possible values:
-1 (No boot options)
2 (LockPowerButton)
4 (LockResetButton)
32 (LockKeyboard)
64 (LockSleepButton)
2048 (UserPasswordBypass)
4096 (ForceProgressEvents)

Firmware Verbosity Options:
---------------------------
0 (FirmwareVerbositySystemDefault)
8192 (FirmwareVerbosityQuiet)
16384 (FirmwareVerbosityVerbose)
24576 (FirmwareVerbosityScreen)

32768 (ConfigurationDataReset)

You can choose several options by using bitwise OR operation

Here I can see that it can take ASFIanaNumber as input and special commands for ASF. That's why I was thinking if there is a way to send ASF commands.

Regards,
Sayantan

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Shmuel Gershon (Intel)

Thu, 10/29/2009 - 11:53

Quoting - sayantan_majumdar When I execute the command RemoteControl.exe -r -user -pass
http://:16992/RemoteControlService < powerup.txt, I get a response:
<-snipped->
Please specify the following parameters
Iana OEM Number
===============
Possible values:
343 (IntelIanaNumber)
4542 (ASFIanaNumber)

Special Command Parameters
==========================
Possible values:
Special command not equal to 193
See ASF specification for the Special Command Parameter legal values

-1 (No Special Command Parameter)

Here I can see that it can take ASFIanaNumber as input and special commands for ASF. That's why I was thinking if there is a way to send ASF commands.

Sayantan, as Intel AMT is derived from the ASF standard, it kept the values used by the industry in the ASF standard. This makes it easy to build systems that work accross different technologies, and it keeps consistency between different systems.
Apart from the name/number/order of these parameters, the protocols used by ASF and Intel AMT are very different (see these post for more info).

Regarding the SDK: There is noASF SDK available as a download in Intel's site.

We can suggest using one of the commercial products that know how to manage ASF devices, such as the Altiris consoles or one of the consoles distributed by OEMs (Dell, HP...).
Alternatively, as the ASF is an open standard, there is a full description of the packets and how the protocol works in the DMTF ASF Standard document. Unfortunately, it comes without sample code, but if you have code that can send UDP packets, then you can send ASF commands.

I hope this helps a bit...

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sayantan_majumdar

Thu, 10/29/2009 - 12:15

Quoting - Shmuel Gershon (Intel)
Sayantan, as Intel AMT is derived from the ASF standard, it kept the values used by the industry in the ASF standard. This makes it easy to build systems that work accross different technologies, and it keeps consistency between different systems.
Apart from the name/number/order of these parameters, the protocols used by ASF and Intel AMT are very different (see these post for more info).

Regarding the SDK: There is noASF SDK available as a download in Intel's site.

We can suggest using one of the commercial products that know how to manage ASF devices, such as the Altiris consoles or one of the consoles distributed by OEMs (Dell, HP...).
Alternatively, as the ASF is an open standard, there is a full description of the packets and how the protocol works in the DMTF ASF Standard document. Unfortunately, it comes without sample code, but if you have code that can send UDP packets, then you can send ASF commands.

I hope this helps a bit...

Thank you Shmuel for your valuable inputs.
DMFT ASF standards document might be helpful for me. Thanks again.

Regards,
Sayantan

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Andrew Schiestl (Intel)

Thu, 10/29/2009 - 13:42

Quoting - sayantan_majumdar
Thank you Shmuel for your valuable inputs.
DMFT ASF standards document might be helpful for me. Thanks again.
Regards,
Sayantan

That I believe I can help with.I believe this is the latest ASFstandard: http://www.dmtf.org/standards/documents/ASF/DSP0136.pdf .

Andy

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Shmuel Gershon (Intel)

Fri, 10/30/2009 - 02:15

Quoting - Andrew Schiestl (Intel) I believe this is the latest ASFstandard: http://www.dmtf.org/standards/documents/ASF/DSP0136.pdf.

Yes, that's the latest one, version 2.0.

Intel® Developer Zone

Any command line utility to manage device with ASF protocol

Any command line utility to manage device with ASF protocol

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