| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| tahir |
Remote rebootsIs there a way of rebooting remote servers? Our servers are split over two sites and it's always a pain in the rear to get the remote ones rebooted. |
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| Bugs |
Ooh. One I know the answer to. Kinda. Yes, because we have such a set-up, and it's virtually foolproof, because I've done it a few times when I get in early and suddenly find we don't have a website or indeed any documents to work on any more  .
Not surprisingly I know nothing about how it works but I know a man who does. I'm sure someone else here will help more quickly but I'll give him a prod just in case if you like |
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| tahir |
That would be handy, ta 
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| Bugs |
Duly prodded. Just off to wash my hands and wait for an answer. | ||||||
| tahir |
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| jema |
Setting up a web service that would to a remote reboot would be easy. If you can run a web server, I can give you remote reboot code. | ||||||
| tahir |
Doesn't the server have to be at least partly up for that to function? I need a solution that can reboot even a blue screened machine. | ||||||
| Treacodactyl |
What do you do when you realise you've left a floppy disk in the drive? | ||||||
| jema |
Blue Screened  is this windows then?
on unix boxes it is pretty rare for a machine to be so dead you can not connect to it at all. |
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| tahir |
We've only got one Linux server, the other 4 are all Windows | ||||||
| tahir |
Floppies? Can't think of the last time we used any of them. |
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| Northern_Lad |
If it's a full-blooded techie then you might want to get your jabs topped up too. |
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| Treacodactyl |
I'm a bit of a techie, sort of a vaccine. All the harmful techie bits are no longer useable. |
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| Northern_Lad |
Cue Behemoth, and some reference to TD inoculating Bugs... |
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| jema |
back on topic a bit, you can get remote relays that will cut the power, but this is for desparate measures only.
I'd certainly want to try a softer approach with a simple service listening on a port that could be remotely triggered. The code is quite trivial. |
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| tahir |
I'll have a look around | ||||||
| jema |
I may also, i'm tempted to give you a quote  but surely this has been done loads of times in the public domain.
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| tahir |
Let me know if you find anything. | ||||||
| jema |
This seems close at a glance.
http://www.newobjects.com/product.asp?Category=27 |
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| sean |
Oh, stop flirting you two. It'll just upset jonnyboy. | ||||||
| tahir |
It's not even pinging right now, that'd make that tool useless, it's a TCP based thingie. Does sound good for not so serious crashes though, and it's freeware | ||||||
| Bugs |
I think the open aspect is what keeps the sparkle in it for them....although discussing pinging is probably taking advantage of the situation 
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| tahir |
There's another similar freeware product here:
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/PsTools.html I like the look of this but it means opening up the servers: http://www.servprise.com/info/ |
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| tahir |
The hardware solution needs the servers to be running Java, I'm not sure I've got that on any of them | ||||||
| jema |
Presumably though they are all password protected. No one would be able to reboot without a password. | ||||||
| tahir |
Yup, shame though cos I really don't want to be installing Java too. | ||||||
| JB |
For those occasionally required windows reboots something like this could work. | ||||||
| tahir |
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| tahir |
Just been and had a look at the iffy server, it's a hardware problem, just beeping on boot-up, nothing to screen at all. Engineer booked. | ||||||
| dougal |
If you have the manuals, you could look up the codes for the POST beeps and find out what it was trying to tell you... could be bad ram or a duff video card... the sort of thing anyone might be capable of swapping out? Re remote reboots. I think you need a triple pronged strategy. 1/ If its still behaving more or less sanely, a software solution should allow a remote operator to instruct it to restart. 2/ If its locked up solid, a hardware/software watchdog could interrupt the power. I'm thinking of a simple script running regularly (on the minute?) to reset a countdown timer. If not reset the counter would time out, and either interrupt power (could be done externally) or generate a hardware reset (the button is just going to link to a couple of pins on the logic board - so why not another relay/SSswitch in parallel with the front panel one?) 3/ But when it won't respond to remote requests, but the software watchdog keeps running, you need a human to go round and kick the thing. Shouldn't happen too often...
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| tahir |
That's where I fell down today, there was no-one on site that I could risk having in the computer room, had to go round and kick it myself. |