[ale] Running a hands off remote Linux installation

[Michael H. Warfield]

On Tue, 2012-07-31 at 15:01 -0400, Jim Lynch wrote:
> On 07/31/2012 11:38 AM, Michael H. Warfield wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, 2012-07-31 at 10:21 -0400, Jim Lynch wrote:
> > > On 07/31/2012 09:45 AM, Matthew wrote:
> > > > a PDU with power rebooter is what you need.
> > > How does that solve the need to press the power button to power the 
> > > system back on when you've done a shutdown?
> > Depending heavily on the system and the BIO, you may have 3 "Power
> > Recovery" options when coming back from a power failure.
> > 
> > * Power Off
> > * Last State
> > * Always Power On
> > 
> > Sounds like you need option #3 if your system supports it.
> It's an elderly ATX box (mini tower) that has a relatively new MB and
> PS.

> Sounds like I'll have to test it.  It has that option.  My only
> concern is "how does the computer know the power is back?"  It's
> connected to a UPS, I shut it down orderly and power off and the power
> to the computer is never interrupted unless the UPS battery runs down.
> I'd have to shut the UPS off too.

Interesting catch-22.  But, yeah, you can shut the power down to the
UPS.  My newer APC units have USB cables and communicate with a power
daemon.  The computer can begin a shutdown and trigger a power off on
the UPS.  Everything SHOULD come back up when power is restored.  Like
you say, you'll have to test.

> > Is this a rack mount server or are you sticking a desktop / tower system
> > somewhere?
> > 
> > Someone mentioned the AMT module.  That's the Intel Active Management
> > Technology module.  A lot of modern rack mount equipment has these
> > things but, most of the time, they haven't been enabled.  There's all
> > kinds of gotcha's in setting them up securely for distant remote
> > control, however, and it's generally recommended they be accessible only
> > from the local network.
> > 
> > Another option if your server doesn't have an AMT, and doesn't support
> > the Always Power On BIO option, would be to drop a little firmware based
> > device, like a cheap Linux based router or a Rasberry Pie or something,
> > that doesn't need to be on backup but will recover when power recovers
> > and can be connected to remotely.  Then you use it with Wake-On-Lan,
> > which a tower or a rack server SHOULD support, especially if it has on
> > MB network interfaces.  
> I'm surprised it doesn't have wake-on-lan.  Other systems I have here
> do.
> > Power comes back on, you just connect into your
> > little interface and use ether-wake to wake up your server.  Wake-On-Lan
> > uses a non-routable packet so you have to have some sort of minimal live
> > device on the local network to the interface that has Wake-On-Lan
> > enabled.
> > 
> > The little box could, if it has a serial port (or USB port that will
> > take a serial dongle), double as a serial console for when you really
> > get things hosed up.  :-P  You could get away under $100 that way.
> > 
> > Another option is that some servers and BIOS support timed wakeups.
> > You'll have to explore your BIOS for that and I've never played with it
> > personally.
> > 
> > OTOH...  If your box you want to remote doesn't even support Wake-On-Lan
> > (which has to be enabled in the BIOS as well) you probably should look
> > at a better box.  Champagne taste on a beer budget only goes so far.
> If I hadn't just recently put this together, I'd agree.
> > 
> > Regards,
> > Mike
> >  
> > > Thanks,
> > > Jim.

Regards,
Mike
-- 
Michael H. Warfield (AI4NB) | (770) 985-6132 |  mhw at WittsEnd.com
   /\/\|=mhw=|\/\/          | (678) 463-0932 |  http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/
   NIC whois: MHW9          | An optimist believes we live in the best of all
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