RHEL 6.5: Unexpected Reboots Associated with freeipmi Watchdog

Symptom and case analysis

The source records irregular reboots and the following error roughly ten to twenty minutes beforehand:

/usr/sbin/bmc-watchdog[xxxx]: fiid_obj_get: 'present_countdown_value': data not available

It attributes the incident to a RHEL6.5/freeipmi bug that prevents the watchdog from being reset, allowing the timer to expire and the BMC to request a reboot. Red Hat’s matching English solution identifies the same RHEL6.5 reset case; full remediation details can require a subscription.

Option A in the source: remove affected packages

Inspect installed packages:

rpm -qa | grep freeipmi
rpm -qa | grep watchdog

The source then removes four exact package builds using dependency bypass. Its printed typographic dash is corrected to two ASCII hyphens below. This can break package dependencies and disable intentional watchdog protection; review the affected service/dependencies and vendor-approved workaround rather than applying it generally:

rpm -e --nodeps freeipmi-1.2.1-3.el6.x86_64
rpm -e --nodeps freeipmi-bmc-watchdog-1.2.1-3.el6.x86_64
rpm -e --nodeps freeipmi-ipmidetectd-1.2.1-3.el6.x86_64
rpm -e --nodeps watchdog-5.6-2.el6.x86_64

Option B in the source: update freeipmi

The historical note specifies freeipmi-1.2.1-6.el6_5 or later in the relevant branch:

yum update freeipmi

The old source URL maps to Red Hat RHBA-2013:1795. Its public advisory confirms the1.2.1-6.el6_5 packages and an early module-alias/probing correction for reboots when IPMI modules were not loaded. Use the compatible package from the actual vendor channel.

After updating, its local root procedure adds these module aliases to /etc/modprobe.d/watchdog-reboot-workaround.conf:

alias acpi:IPI000*:* ipmi_si
alias acpi:IPI000*:* ipmi_devintf
alias acpi:IPI000*:* ipmi_msghandler

The advisory says the update supplies module-alias configuration. The manual file below is retained as the source workaround, not a requirement to duplicate package-managed configuration. The source then loads modules and conditionally restarts the service:

modprobe ipmi_devintf
modprobe ipmi_msghandler
modprobe ipmi_si
service bmc-watchdog condrestart

Hyphens in the filename/service above are normalized to ASCII. Confirm the intended watchdog policy, available modules and service behavior for that host. This is a historical RHEL6.5 case, not instructions to remove watchdog packages on every server.