[clug] Fwd: Re: remote power cycling many machines

[Robert Edwards]

(reposting - sorry forgot to include list...)

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Re: [clug] remote power cycling many machines
Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2020 07:31:54 +1000
From: Robert Edwards <bob at cs.anu.edu.au>
To: Andrew Janke <a.janke at gmail.com>

On 4/4/20 8:31 pm, Andrew Janke wrote:
> 
> Turn them all off and migrate to something like RONIN/AWS  or 
> Cyclecloud/Azure? :)
> 
> a (working for me).
> 

Thanks Andrew.

Some of our researchers did some pricing on this and the general
consensus was that a $20k equipment grant could buy a machine that
would run for 4 years or more, or pay for approx. 6 months of
GPU + CPU + Storage time on Azure... They don't add in the cost of
me running around power cycling the things...

cheers,
Bob Edwards

> 
> On Sat, 4 Apr 2020 at 20:17, Robert Edwards via linux 
> <linux at lists.samba.org <mailto:linux at lists.samba.org>> wrote:
> 
>     Hi all,
> 
>     Hope you are all keeping safe and healthy.
> 
>     During these strange times, I find myself responsible for a larger
>     than expected cohort of random machines spread across multiple
>     buildings in various peoples offices, which they are no longer
>     permitted physical access to.
> 
>     These machines have been left running but seem to randomly need to
>     be power cycled for various reasons - some are running 'doze and
>     others, running Linux, seem to get randomly shutdown by various
>     remote users for whatever reason.
> 
>     Many of the servers in machine rooms that I am responsible for
>     have various forms of Lights Out Management (LOM), such as iDRAC
>     or BMC etc., so can be remotely managed, as required (generally
>     don't need it, though).
> 
>     So, for this vast array of random machines in offices, I have been
>     researching various generic options for LOM and/or remote power
>     control.
> 
>     There used to be some PCI cards that could do much of this (eg.
>     https://www.startech.com/support/SV1110IPPCI) but seem to be largely
>     discontinued. These days Remote KVM over IP seems to be the
>     preferred option, but generally has no provision for power
>     control/cycling.
> 
>     There are instructions on the web to set up, eg., a RaspPi to do
>     this, but making up 20 or more seems like a big job (eg.
>     https://github.com/Fmstrat/diy-ipmi).
> 
>     I could go for "smart" power-boards, but need a wired way to
>     control them (I don't want to rely on WiFi or other wireless
>     technologies).
> 
>     What have others tried/can recommend?
> 
>     cheers,
>     Bob Edwards
> 
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