[Wolves] Remote Power Management

[Don Cockman]

Hi Ad,

You can do all sorts of 'useful' stuff with the service processors.

Accessing them via ssh you can redirect the console to the SP, meaning you can 
login and do all the linux-y things that you could do from the command line.
You can stop/start/restart the OS, or power on/off/cycle the main box

They'll even allow you to logon when he main server is powered off and let you
power it on (if it's plugged into the power of course!)
I believe the v40z service processor also includes a basic web server where you
can interrogate all of the things via a web browser.

Hope that's of some use.

Don

--- Don Cockman <don at hauraki.co.uk <https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/wolves>> wrote:

Hi Don,

>/ The service processors are very useful for remote
/>/ management and
/>/ troubleshooting purposes
/
So are these devices designed for hardware monitoring
and/or remote shutdown/reboot? I'm thinking here of
dealing with a kernel panic remotely when I can't get
in via SSH. It looks in this an IP KVM would be useful
for viewing the servers while looking at the BIOS, or
boot procedure. But, supposing the machine kernel
panics or otherwise dies in such a way that it's still
on, but not responding, can you still access the card?
And how do you talk to them?

>/ The main problem I've found with the Sun boxes
/>/ running anything other
/>/ than Solaris is that the error reporting (system
/>/ crashes, over
/>/ temperature alarms and the suchlike) is somewhat
/>/ lacking compared to
/>/ what you'd expect from a Solaris based system. Most
/>/ of the problems I've
/>/ come across have meant delving into the service
/>/ processor logs and
/>/ calling Sun to get them to decipher them..
/
I can deal with crap reporting from lmsensors and
whatnot. What I really need is the ability to get into
the BIOS, the grub command line and watch the boot
process for errors and use fsck when a disk
inconsistency occurs etc, so that sounds like an IP
KVM job. I also need to be able to shutdown and reboot
remotely when a machine won't let me in. Do these
cards allow you to do that? What do these cards allow
you to do? Do they work when the system isn't
responding? Do they work when the OS isn't running? Do
they work when the system is powered off?

Sorry, all I have is more questions. I need to google
more.

Thanks a lot :)

Ad

>/ Adam Sweet wrote:
/>/ > Hi all
/>/ >
/>/ > I'm looking at putting some machines (a few
/>/ initially,
/>/ > possibly lots eventually) into a data centre and
/>/ > managing remotely. I can do everything over SSH
/>/ except
/>/ > shut the machines down or reboot them when they're
/>/ > dead and I don't know a great deal about this kind
/>/ of
/>/ > thing.
/>/ >
/>/ > Does anyone have recommendations for devices and
/>/ > suppliers suitable for this kind of job. Price
/>/ isn't
/>/ > an enormous issue, provided it doesn't run into
/>/ > thousands, but I need to know what I'm looking at
/>/ and
/>/ > the price/features trade offs.
/>/ >
/>/ > I have 2 choices in mind, either a some standard
/>/ > x86/x86-64 servers and something like this (from a
/>/ > quick google):
/>/ >
/>/ >
/>/
/http://www.kvmpartnership.co.uk/remote-power-control.htm
>/ >
/>/ > Or some Sun servers with a System Management
/>/ Daughter
/>/ > Card or "Service processor with embedded Lights
/>/ Out
/>/ > Management (LOM) standard". Does anyone have any
/>/ > experience of using these under Linux? Are they
/>/ any
/>/ > good? Can you recommend any?
/>/ >
/>/ > Would I want an IP KVM? Why? What do they do that
/>/ I
/>/ > couldn't do remotely over SSH, or locally using a
/>/ > regular KVM (should I need to go on-site)?
/>/ >
/>/ > I guess I'm going to have to get used to using
/>/ screen
/>/ > as well...
/>/ >
/>/ > Can anyone guide me towards making the right
/>/ choice,
/>/ > I'm in uncharted territory?
/>/ >
/>/ > Yours hopefully,
/>/ >
/>/ > Ad
/>/ >
/>/ >   
/>/ 
/>/ 
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