At Embedded Linux Conference 2016, Facebook’s Tian Fang presented OpenBMC as a customized Linux distribution for baseboard management controllers (BMCs). The talk’s central design idea was to share common software while keeping system-on-chip (SoC) support and board-specific customization in separate Yocto layers. Its Wedge walkthrough showed firmware replacement, sensor and fan readings, and a REST response as examples from the presentation—not as claims about every OpenBMC platform today.
What is OpenBMC?
In his ELC 2016 presentation, Fang described OpenBMC as a “customized Linux distribution” and said it “treats BMC as a regular server.” The slides depict a BMC as a Linux-based system with an upstream kernel and hardware support beneath its software stack. IPMI and RESTful interfaces appear in the architecture diagrams as ways to manage the system. View the ELC 2016 OpenBMC slide deck.
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A BMC provides management functions for hardware independently of the host operating system. Fang’s framing matters because it presents BMC software as a system that can use familiar Linux development and management approaches, rather than as a single-purpose controller with an entirely separate software model.
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How did OpenBMC use Yocto layers?
The presentation’s source-code section describes a Yocto-based project organized into three layers. The division separates what can be reused across systems from what depends on a particular BMC SoC or board.
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| Layer | Role in the ELC 2016 presentation |
|---|---|
| Common | Shared recipes and packages used across the project. |
| BMC SoC | SoC-specific drivers and tools. |
| Board-specific | Board customization, initialization, and tools. |
The deck illustrates board layers for Facebook’s Lightning, Wedge, Wedge100, and Yosemite hardware. The architectural trade-off is straightforward: put broadly reusable components in the common layer, hardware-family dependencies in the SoC layer, and board-specific behavior in the board layer. This supports reuse without pretending that different boards have identical hardware or setup requirements.
What did the Wedge walkthrough show?
The presentation uses Wedge to make the architecture concrete. These are demonstrations captured in the slides; they are not independent performance tests, a hardware audit, or proof that every platform behaves the same way.
Firmware replacement
The upgrade workflow copies kernel and root-filesystem images, writes them to flash partitions, verifies the writes, and reboots. It offers a snapshot of the process shown for Wedge in the 2016 talk, not a current installation procedure to apply to other devices.
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Sensor and fan telemetry
The slides show sample sensor values and fan RPM readings. They illustrate the kind of hardware information available through the management software, but the readings are examples rather than general specifications or benchmarks.
REST response
A sample REST request returns FRU (Field Replaceable Unit) data. This demonstrates a REST-facing management interface in the presentation; it does not establish the current API surface or behavior of OpenBMC implementations.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What challenges and next steps did the talk identify?
Fang’s “Next steps” slide named three challenges: driver stability, better development, provisioning, and monitoring tools, and hardware availability. It also proposed an OpenBMC developer platform built around an AST2500 BMC and COM Express connectivity, pointing to a Portwell COMe OpenBMC carrier board. These are proposals and concerns recorded in a 2016 presentation, not confirmation that the board is available now.
Why was OpenBMC relevant to Facebook in 2016?
In a March 9, 2016 engineering article, Facebook described OpenBMC as low-level board-management software intended to give the company flexibility and speed up feature development. Facebook said Wedge was the first hardware in its data centers to use OpenBMC, followed by a modular switch, and described support extending to servers and storage. Those are Facebook’s contemporaneous account of its own deployment, not independently measured adoption figures. Read Facebook’s 2016 OpenBMC article.
Where can I find the ELC 2016 slides or video?
The conference archive dates ELC 2016 in San Diego, California, to April 4–6, 2016. Its slide deck is credited to Tian Fang of Facebook. Linux.com’s session index identifies the talk as “OpenBMC – A Customized Linux Distribution Running on BMC” and links a recording. Find the talk through Linux.com’s ELC 2016 video index. The archive also lists embedded Linux development and Yocto Project training, though the listing does not establish current course availability. See the ELC 2016 archive.
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