[Nottingham] Restarting my server

[chris]

Graeme Fowler wrote:

>On Sat, 25 Sep 2004, chris wrote:
>  
>
>>This might be a problem with ACPI or APM...
>>what does "dmesg | grep ACPI" and "dmesg | grep APM" output ?
>>also, what does "lsmod" say ?
>>the computer WILL fail to power-down unless a power management kernel 
>>module is loaded..
>>    
>>
>
>I might be opening myself up to a beating here (having consumed the best part 
>of a decent Cabernet!) however...
>
>My first experiences of a Linux installation were of the old MKLinux on a
>PowerMac 6100. I can assure you that APM or ACPI weren't involved there, due
>to the lack of a BIOS (as you might know it). Yet the machines involved
>rebooted from the command line first time, every time. APM and ACPI not
>involved at all - which could prove to be telling...
>
>Subsequently, having been found out too many times by shonky motherboards
>which aren't quite APM or ACPI compliant I have a tendency to set LILO or Grub
>to boot with kernel options "noprobe" or "noacpi" where problems are
>manifesting themselves. I also turn off APM - always - as I rarely install a
>Linux machine which is intended to be turned off.
>
>My long-running (and long-suffering!) server at home contains the following 
>telltale in /var/log/dmesg:
>
>[graeme at server graeme]$ egrep -i 'a(cpi|pm)' /var/log/dmesg
>apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.16)
>apm: disabled - APM is not SMP safe.
>
>...and apmd isn't running.
>
>If I were you, I'd do one of the following:
>
>1. make sure you have no power management daemons running or set to start 
>after boot, and do a clean reboot (shutdown and power cycle)
>
>2. set your bootloader kernel line to have the option "no acpi". And possibly 
>"noapic noprobe", just to be double sure - it's always good to have a 
>fallback, basic, emergency kernel (especially if you're in the habit of 
>experimenting with hardware or CPU tweaks).
>
>And then see what happens. It feels to me like this is a compatibility problem 
>rather than anything else.
>
>Graeme
>
>PS. Before anyone comments on the "beating" line above... I have just
>completed the installation of a new clustered/load balanced system for my
>employer.  Whilst a minority of the system is running W2K3, at least 30 of the
>installed systems are running FC2. Not a single one runs a power management
>daemon - they all auto-load an acpi module (unless I set noprobe or noacpi),
>but if I manually remove it (or reboot with it explicitly disabled via
>bootloader or BIOS) they reboot fine. They have to - all the machines are in 
>Docklands, and bugger the thought of a cold restart every time one of them 
>needs a reboot :)
>
>
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>
>  
>
You may be right.... yes with distro's like fedora core or redhat the 
power management seems to be transparent and function nomatter what you 
do.. but with less magical distro's like Linux From Scratch (LFS) the 
machine will not shutdown or restart without a power management kernel 
module loaded.