Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 07:51:31 -0500 From: Yubyub Bird <yubyub@j51.com> To: "'freebsd-questions@freebsd.org'" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: Remote power cycle Message-ID: <01BD1B41.1214A910@tcpc54.tcam.com>
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> I want to remotely power cycle machines at our colocation because > they tend to hang on reboots because of zombies or just hang. > I don't want to use a phone line to connect to a device which can > power cycle machines. I would prefer to telnet into either a FreeBSD > box which does nothing or the power cycling device if that is > possible. Here's another hardware approach. I know you said you didn't want a box, but I figured I'd throw in my two cents anyway. I have constructed such a device from a small processor and a few relays/transistors. I used a Basic stamp for the brains of the unit (it's self contained, already contains serial I/O, and can handle a wide enough variety of tasks for this application). Basically, it's rigged so that I can reset or power cycle any of my boxes from my master (fatal flaw: what if the master dies???). I suppose it could be easily extended to provide access from any of the boxes. Anyway, just gather the reset pins from each box, gate it via a trans, and you're all set. I used the power relays to cutoff the actual power to each machine. The house line was connected to the NC contacts on the relays (so that if the device lost power, my machines didn't necessarialy). It seems to work for now... I suppose it would be possible to write a few utils (or even expect scripts) to control the thing, but for now it has a simple prompt interface.
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