remote power control

thierry itty thierry.itty at besancon.org
Tue Jul 18 15:43:13 UTC 2006


Hello

On small sites, we have servers (linux rh 8, 9, or fc 4) acting as 
internet routers, with a lan on one nic and an ethernet dsl modem on 
another nic.
Sometimes the internet connection is lost and there no way to get it 
back but to reset the modem (even rebooting the server doesn't make it, 
it's really a modem frozen problem)
Instead of paying somebody to drive there and pull the AC plug from the 
socket then push it in again, I decided to find some Remote Power 
Control device which could allow the server to do that by itself when it 
decides the modem is frozen.
I found some sort of such devices on the net :
- iBoot : http://www.connectworld.net/data_center/remote_reboot.HTM
- Sentry : 
http://www.servertech.com/products/RemotePowerManagement/SentryIPM-2/
- Sensatronics : http://www.openxtra.co.uk/product.php/34/1/
- Adder : http://www.adder.com/main.asp?id=508_2075_23632&mode=Description

Basically they seem to fit my needs, there are some important 
requirements though :
- the device must handle 220V/50Hz AC
- the device must be able to be connected to the linux server, either 
via ethernet ip, serial rs232 or usb and handled by it
- the device must accept commands via linux script (being as simple as 
some "echo value > /dev/ttySx" or as complex as some "wget 
http://device-ip-address/cgi/power?state=on") and must not require a 
browser with a java applet or whatever that can't be scripted

I'd appreciate any advice and experience about such solutions, or other 
for those who had addressed the same problem in a different way

TIA

Thierry





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