Although we have moved a significant number of our servers onto ESX we now have the issue of shutting down these servers using the Powerchute Network Shutdown, all the windows servers have been done but there is a 'VMWare aware' version of the client for ESX servers to allow them time to shutdown there virtual servers and then shut themselves down.
Powerchute Network Shutdown is available from HERE.
With instructions available HERE.
The story doesn't end there though as during my searching of information regarding the ESX server version I came across this handy post from a fellow blogger.
In short you need to run the following at the ESX server command line:
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-firewall -o 80,tcp,out,http
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-firewall -o 3052,tcp,in,PowerChute
The first line opens port 80 outwards to allow the Powerchute Network Shutdown client to register its IP onto the APC management card. You could of course do this by hand in the web interface of the card.
The second line allows the UPS to talk to the client on port 3052 to give it commands for shutting down etc.
When you have finished completing the setup you can close the port 80 outbound:
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-firewall -c 80,tcp,out,http
We did all this user WinSCP to copy over the client followed by Putty to connect and run the required commands.
Also worth noting, the default phrase for the APC management cards is 'admin user phrase', having not set these at original setup finding this out took longer than installing the client!
Wednesday, 22 August 2007
Tuesday, 21 August 2007
Powerchute
A few weeks ago we had a powercut that lasted several hours. During that time the UPS's depleted to zero and were useless when the power finally came back after being off over 2 hours.
Following on from that we had several small drops in power which meant that the UPS's didn't have time to recharge themselves in order to prevent another system failure. Although Powerchute wouldnt have saved us from the power failures it would have prevented the untidy shutdowns on many of the systems as the UPS connected to them simply stopped working.
With that in mind we decided to sort out the UPS software, in the past this was never an issue but the risk of losing a server meant that putting this into place was more important than before as the infrastructure of the system on the whole had got bigger and with that the UPS's were under more strain than before.
Installation is easy with the Powerchute Network Shutdown that is free from http://www.apc.com. Install the software on each of the clients connected to the UPS in question then go to the IP address of the network card in your browser.
Installing the client should have added it to the list of IP addresses to shutdown when required, check that this is the case in the network management website. A simple fix to what could have been a painful problem.
Following on from that we had several small drops in power which meant that the UPS's didn't have time to recharge themselves in order to prevent another system failure. Although Powerchute wouldnt have saved us from the power failures it would have prevented the untidy shutdowns on many of the systems as the UPS connected to them simply stopped working.
With that in mind we decided to sort out the UPS software, in the past this was never an issue but the risk of losing a server meant that putting this into place was more important than before as the infrastructure of the system on the whole had got bigger and with that the UPS's were under more strain than before.
Installation is easy with the Powerchute Network Shutdown that is free from http://www.apc.com. Install the software on each of the clients connected to the UPS in question then go to the IP address of the network card in your browser.
Installing the client should have added it to the list of IP addresses to shutdown when required, check that this is the case in the network management website. A simple fix to what could have been a painful problem.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)