On Mon, Sep 13, 2004 at 06:27:46AM +0200, Martin Husemann wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 12, 2004 at 11:33:03PM -0400, Sean Davis wrote:
> > Would ups-nut be a better solution?
> 
> I use it for exactly that setup. It has a server (running on the machine
> connected to the serial cable of the UPS) and clients (on the other machines).
> The clients shut down first, then the server.
> 
> On sparc64 machines I configure it to do "shutdown -h", since a "shutdown -p"
> makes the machine remember it's gracefully turned off and not switch back
> on when mains return. On i386 machines I have it do "shutdown -p" and make
> sure the bios is configured to power on the machine when power returns (most
> PC bios default to stay off in that situation).
> 

Hmm. For one of the PCs (the NFS server) that is doable - however, the other
p3 (the 600mhz) is a blade rackmountable thingie that will only turn off if
you flip the switch on the front. I figure having it halted (shutdown -h) is
good enough, though. I wasn't planning on having any of the machines
actually turn themselves off; just halt so that if the UPS does have to kill
power, they come back up.

> Unfortunately this leaves a short window between the shutdown and the actual
> shut off of the UPS where the sparc64 machines are at the OF prompt - and
> don't reboot if line power is restored. Ups-nut offers a command to forcefully

Hmm, I halted my Ultra 1 the day before yesterday (specifically to test
whether they come back after power failure) and (with serial console
connected) pulled the line power to it. It came back fine. Perhaps that only
applies to newer Ultras, or certain versions of OBP? I've got the latest for
the Ultra 1E Model 170 on mine...

> power of the UPS (even with remaining battery) after the machine connected to
> it has unmounted all discs, but I never found a good way to insert a script
> to do that in our rc.d system.

Hmm. Well, according to my apcaccess output, my UPS will come back after a
power failure even if it's battery is at 0% - apcaccess reports that apcupsd
will shut down the master machine if the UPS is saying there are only 2
minutes left, but as I'm going to switch to ups-nut, that is neither here
nor there. However, I don't expect to *need* the UPS to power things down -
I just want to make sure that if it ever does, they survive the process ;-)
Blackouts here typically last for a maximum of five seconds, and that's the
thing I'm most concerned about - one of those killed my Alpha a while back.
(I suspect a voltage regulator died, or something along those lines, because
it was sending WAY too much power from the psu to the motherboard - burned
out every pci card, the cpu, srom, etc. poor machine.)

Thanks for your input. I'll be going with ups-nut :)

-Sean

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