[TriLUG] Re: remote hardware management

[Aaron S. Joyner]

Chris Bullock wrote:

>I know this will not help you now, but we are ordering all of our new HP servers with the Advanced ILO, pack.  It gives you console access, virtual power, media, etc.  I just got 2 servers, put them in my rack, plugged in my ILO and came back to my desk.  From my desk I installed RHEL 4.3 and haven't seen the server since.
>
>Good luck
>Chris
>i'm reaching the point where i have a significant number of servers at my 
>colo facility.  it has become evident that i could use two things:
>
>1. a way to access multiple hosts via serial, that way i can communicate 
>with them even when networking fails, or i iptables myself out by mistake, 
>or sshd dies, etc.  something that takes up only 1u of space, can provide 
>serial access to ~16 machines, and accepts ssh connections.  the other 
>option is an IP kvm switch but that seems like a clunky alternative.
>  
>
I can't say a lot here, but suffice to say that I have a lot of 
experience in this area.  Cyclades (recently bought by Avocent) makes a 
great serial console product that runs Linux, boots from flash, is 
*highly* customizable, and very functional.  They'll be intuitively 
familiar to anyone comfortable at a Linux command line, and just about 
everything about the device can be configured with a single flat text 
file.  The only down side I can point out is they're not the least 
expensive thing on the market.  The smaller models won't eat you out of 
house and home, rack mount nicely in 1U, and provide pretty solid 
performance.  The ACS model is now the preferred way to go, it comes in 
a lot of hardware configurations from something tiny like 2 ports, 
through things like 8, 6, 24 and 48 ports.  These things do not suck.

>2. a way to power cycle hardware in a worst case scenario.  something like 
>an intelligent power strip that can be accessed via ssh or serial that 
>allow 
>individual control of outlets.
>  
>
Some good choices here include Server Technologies, APC and Baytech, 
depending on the scale of what you need.  I'd say check out Server 
Technologies as a first choice, they're very responsive and helpful.  
They support direct serial and SSH access to the power strip via 
Ethernet, and will soon be coming along with some snazzier features that 
I can't talk about yet.  It doesn't run Linux, but it's menu system 
isn't overly tedious, and you can do just about anything in a single 
operation from the first prompt you get (unlike most other common power 
vendors).  This makes things like STONITH or virtually any other 
scripting tasks relatively trivial to implement.

Aaron S. Joyner


>i know these devices exist, i just don't have any firsthand experience 
>with 
>them to know what works well and what doesn't.  any suggestions or 
>recommendations would be welcome.
>  
>