From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Jan 6 22:30:32 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA16557 for questions-outgoing; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 22:30:32 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions) Received: from implode.root.com (implode.root.com [198.145.90.17]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA16441; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 22:29:04 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from root@implode.root.com) Received: from implode.root.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by implode.root.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA07983; Tue, 6 Jan 1998 22:28:22 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199801070628.WAA07983@implode.root.com> To: Dave Smith cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-smp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Remote power cycle In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 06 Jan 1998 19:42:42 PST." From: David Greenman Reply-To: dg@root.com Date: Tue, 06 Jan 1998 22:28:22 -0800 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >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