These are basically IPMI cards; They plug into a PCI slot and provide remote on/off/reset, KVM-over-IP, and virtual media (either over IP or by putting ISO images on a USB stick plugged into the card).
http://www.kvm-switches-online.com/eric-g4.html $400. This is one thing I don't think we should do a DIY project for (i.e. the management card). Either we should get a KVM over IP and an IP-PDU bar, or, just get one of these cards. The features we will not be able to do with a DIY solution: - "safe" power on-off (press the power button and wait for shutdown, rather than hard power off - external modem connection (we could hook up a 56k dialup server to use this server as an access point to dial in and troubleshoot ISP or router issues) - Virtual Media --- LOCAL virtual media (we can proably find a way to do virtual-media-over-ip, but this could be horrendously slow; It'd be much better to FTP ISO images to the USB key in this card, then run the boot sequence from there). - 15 concurrent views of the same console (so we can troubleshoot in groups/etc...) -- Chris On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 9:38 PM, Mark Jenkins <m...@parit.ca> wrote: > Chris wrote: > > I see it has a Core 2 Q8200 in it. I have a Core 2 Q9550 laying > > around I would trade 1:1 for. > > Great to hear that this offer is still being made -- not quite sure how > our wires got crossed the last time I tried to follow up on it. > > But, I think we'll be moving on to a new motherboard right away. Kenny has > kindly offered us a DDR3 based motherboard and CPU that he has with 8G > (2x4G) of RAM, with 4 DDR3 sockets which is upgradable to 32 or 64G, so I > think it now makes sense for us to switch to that. If his CPU isn't VT > capable we'll buy one and then start looking to bring it up to 16G and > beyond. > > I hope to partially support those part costs by selling off the current > board after the switch: > > * Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 @ 2.33Ghz] with 4M shared L2 cache > * Gigabyte-EP45-UD3L motherboard > * 2x2G + 2x4G (2G total) of DDR2 RAM in dual channel configuration, can > upgraded to 4x4G (16G) > > What do folks imagine the market value of those three parts is (Perhaps > $400?) What's the best marketplace for it? Does it make sense to break them > up or sell them together? Would anyone like to volunteer to be in charge of > the sale once we have it available? [such as Adrian, an acomplished ebayer] > > Any other funds we need to complete this upgrade beyond our estimated sale > price for the old board I'll try to fundraise from the members and or beg > the organization to allocate. > > Does anyone have 2G or larger DDR3 sticks lying around to donate? > > -------------- > > I remain confident that we could consolidate *all* of the non > infinite/indefinite stuff in the server room with this. > > There are 12 machines right now, only 9 are powered on. (including the VM > server) > > Two of the 3 powered off are in decomission mode and just need to be > pulled from the racks. The project aleph server is the third one that's off > and is only powered on when that project is using it. (well done Mak and > Colin -- I thought it was on at one point tonight one because of one little > green LED but I'm an idiot for thinking that) > > 2 of the 9 machines powered on are prime hunters. > (Andrew, in light of the fact that we no longer have free electicity, I'm > wondering if you'd consider taking these offline? I'm not sure how they're > really serving the members or even further your personal hacking endevours?) > > One of the 9 machines is Ayecee's Freenet server, which I think is a very > worthwhile service to have available to the members. It's on a dedicated > server and should probably remain on one for now because there are bugs in > the Freenet application which cause it to chew up max CPU, which I find > pretty surprising for a network application. > > I'm considering doing some analysis on Freenet's cpu ussage for the Free > Software Day Bug Squash event (September 16 hackathon) to see if those bugs > can be either squashed or at least profiled enough to help the Freenet > developers nick it in the bud. > > One of the nine is the VM server itself. > > > So that leaves only *5* other servers that aren't obviously on > infinte/indifinte high loads and just need to be assessed to be sure and > then undergo consolidation negotiations. > > Justin's web server is of those 5 and I now have the go-ahead from him to > migrate it tomorrow night. Thank you Justin. > All it was running was > http://takaji.ca > and > http://takaji.ca/blog > > Serriously, I'm only going to give that 256 or 512M -- and such a thing > will take up even less someday if we we launch an internal shared hosting > service to cover cases like these that don't actually need a dedicated > virtual machine. > (A wordpress php process only takes up 40M) > > Ben's server is another one of the 5 and we're already in discussions on > the possibility of him moving over. > > The remaining three are: > * 2x Jackal/Craig > * 1x Vobster / Mak / Dave (runs FreeBSD, so we'll need VT extensions > before I can even give them a donstration pitch ["look at how much faster > your ports compile on here"] ) > > I'll try to initiate discussions these folks to understand thier loads, > but I imagine they're not super high CPU and RAM wise. (let me know?) > > Both systems may have large storage needs as well (let me know?) -- I > notice that Craig seems to already have a NAS present -- if it made sense > in both cases I think it would be cool to demonstrate that a one-two punch > of VM server + NAS could cover the needs of folks who need always on > storage but not a crazy amount of CPU and RAM to serve it up. (that is, in > ways that the NAS can't serve up directly) > > > I'm still looking forward to having a debate night or two with Chris on > what we should aim for in the next generation system. Someday (not now!) we > will want more than this board that Kenny has offered and I think $2500 > isn't an inconcievable fundraising goal over the course of a year or so. > > One thing Chris mentioned was lights out / IPMI ish stuff. I'm in full > agreement on that -- remote power control and remote virtual serial ports > are super awesem for the worst case scenarios when all other remote access > daemons on the host OS drop off. When I price out a truely high end, > non-blade $2,500 system for that debate I'll try include that feature. > > Perhaps we could even do the equivilient on the cheap for this 2nd > generation system that Kenny is donating. Does anyone know if there are > there uninterupped power supplies or power bars out there that that allow > you to turn the power on and off toa a device via RS232 or USB? If so, we > could buy some kind of really small embedded system like a Raspberry PI, a > wall plug computer, or single board system like an Alix or beagleboard to > control this. Such a thing could also have a dedicated RS232 or USB link to > the VM server as a backup serial console. > (but this backup serial console feature would only work with the > bootloader [GRUB] and the operating syste -- you need a special > firmware/bios/CMOS to have support for controlling firmware features via a > serial port -- lights out / IPMI systems come with that) > > Guerrilla baby! > > > Mark > ______________________________**_________________ > SkullSpace Discuss Mailing List > Help: > http://www.skullspace.ca/wiki/**index.php/Mailing_List#Discuss<http://www.skullspace.ca/wiki/index.php/Mailing_List#Discuss> > Archive: > https://groups.google.com/**group/skullspace-discuss-**archive/<https://groups.google.com/group/skullspace-discuss-archive/> >
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