Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 22:25:57 -0800 (PST) From: Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com> To: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: ups recommendations... Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.3.93.961202220719.3292O-100000@sidhe.memra.com> In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19961203053206.006b76e4@mail.jump.net>
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On Mon, 2 Dec 1996, Lee Crites wrote: > I have some questions concerning power problems, and how y'all (the Texas > non-gender specific pronoun) might be handling them. I'm open to any level > of assistance you can provide on any/all questions (flames happily ignored). Don't know about power problems but perhaps I can help on the grammar. Y'all is the plural second person pronoun, not a non-gender specific pronoun since English and all other Indo-European languages do not specify gender on either first or second person pronouns. 300 years ago we had singular/plural second person pronouns (thou/you) but eventually the second person pronoun took over both jobs. Now in many dialects of English "you" is being narrowed into the singular only and new forms like y'all, you'all, youse and yuz are being used as the plural. > 1) At this time I have a ups on each machine. Various makes and models and > capablilities mixed and (mis)matched. I'd like to change to a single ups > with a warning to one of the freebsd boxes when time is short. You used to be bale to get UPS's that simply closed a circuit between two external connectors as a warning. Since no current flowed between these connectors it was easy to connect pins two and three together and build a shell script that did stuff like cat </dev/ttyxx >a-file & junk=$$ cat >/dev/ttyxx <<EOF Help! EOF if [ -s a-file ] then . . . fi kill $junk > 2) When something *does* happen, and for some unknown reason things need to > be rebooted, I'd like to be able to do that remotely. I've been told of a > handly dandy little box which you plug into a phone line. You enter a code > of some variety (via the touch-pad), and it will signal the machine to This is the kind of stuff that you should look for in Radio Shack > 3) I have an gas-powered electric generator. It has a slot for a starter > (it's the manual pull chord right now). Anyone set up a generator on their > system? What kind of starter interface works? I called some of the local > briggs&straton dealers and they acted like I was speaking some ancient > swahili dialect. The fire marshal will shut you down if you have any quantity of gasoline near your office. Get a diesel generator and an approved diesel storage tank. > 4) I was told to keep my router off of the ups completely. The logic was > if my router was still up and the telephone company was down then it would > be more difficult for the router to reconnect. I don't quite follow this > line of thinking. After all the CO has power backups out the wazoo, so it > stands to reason it would be up. Anyway, what thoughts do you have on this > point? Keep the router on the ups or off? Keep it on. All your leased line customers with UPSes will be happy and some of your dialup customers will have UPSes or else their power will not be out so they will be happy that they can continue surfing. Consider keeping a 386 laptop running a RADIUS server on the UPS as well with the screen disconnected (install a switch). When the UPS runs out, the laptop battery will keep it going for another few hours. Michael Dillon - ISP & Internet Consulting Memra Software Inc. - Fax: +1-604-546-3049 http://www.memra.com - E-mail: michael@memra.com
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