Date: Tue, 06 Jan 1998 22:28:22 -0800 From: David Greenman <dg@root.com> To: Dave Smith <dpsmith@xoom.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, freebsd-smp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Remote power cycle Message-ID: <199801070628.WAA07983@implode.root.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 06 Jan 1998 19:42:42 PST." <Pine.BSF.3.96.980106191628.4373B-100000@mail1.xoom.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.
>
>They are FreeBSD 3.0 and 2.2.5 boxes. Our colocation has a good power supply
>with a backup generator so an UPS is kind of redundant.
>
>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.
>
>Why? Because we will be moving from our current colocation to a new
>colocation in the next few weeks and it would be a waste of time and
>would probably take a few weeks to get the phone line installed.
>
>Granted telneting into a FreeBSD box which might itself hang
>is a single point of failure, but I can live with it.
>
>All help, ideas, suggestions would be much appreciated.
>
>I've looked around the archives and could only find
>some advice for a device which one dials into, to remotely
>power cycle machines.
I wrote this recently:
...
For wcarchive, I use the BOOT_FORCE_COMCONSOLE make option. I run gettys
on the vga virtual ttys so I can log in when I'm sitting in front of the
machine, but the console is always on the serial port. The console serial
port is connected to another PC (the "remote console" machine). I always have
an rlogin/kermit session open on the console in an xterm here with the xterm
configured to log all output to a logfile. When I need to use the console
while physically in front of the machine, I just plug the serial cable into
a laptop. The remote console machine also has an internal modem that I hacked
to function as a reset switch whenever it goes off hook to dial - I use this
to reset wcarchive if necessary. I have a watchdog process running on the
remote console which pings wcarchive every minute or so, and if the pings
start failing, wcarchive is automatically reset (I have a kermit dialout
script for this :-)).
...
It's never been necessary to power cycle the machine, and considering how
much hardware is involved, that's a good thing. :-)
-DG
David Greenman
Core-team/Principal Architect, The FreeBSD Project
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