[mythtv-users] [OT] UPS's and 24x7 MythBoxen...
Hey all, This is kinda off-topic, but pertains to my MythBox, and i figured others may have run into this as well... i currently have one MythBox up and running in our home production environment. :) now that the new season of SG-1, Atlantis Battlestar Galactica has started i freak out whenever there is a blip in the power at our house. in the past week our neighborhood has lost power at least four times shakes-fist damn you Com-Ed /shakes-fist and i've had to go downstairs and restart the MythBox and check the partitions. so far this hasn't happened in the middle of a recording or caused a loss of data or any type of corruption. so, i was wondering what types of UPS systems are other MythUsers using? and what would you recommend? thanks a bunch! andy ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] [OT] UPS's and 24x7 MythBoxen...
so, i was wondering what types of UPS systems are other MythUsers using? and what would you recommend? I use a large APC SmartUPS 2200RM on my backend (and fileserver, and pbx...), and a BackUPS pro 300 on each of my 2 frontends. Really any of the better-known brands (Liebert, Tripplite, etc) are good. APC's linux support is OK, and there's a freeware monitor/shutdown daemon available (google it) if you don't want to use APC's Java-based utility. All of mine are connected to their respective machines serially. I've never tried a USB one under Linux. They work great. Robyn ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] [OT] UPS's and 24x7 MythBoxen...
On 7/27/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Jul 27, 2005 at 11:18:58AM -0500, Andrew Close wrote: so, i was wondering what types of UPS systems are other MythUsers using? and what would you recommend? I am using an APC Back-UPS ES 725. It talks to the Linux box via USB cable so that the box is always aware of the UPS battery capacity and will automatically perform an orderly shutdown when the batteries reach 5% remaining capacity or the UPS says there is only 3 minutes left. When line power is back, the UPS automatically turns itself back on when the batteries reach 15% charge, and the BIOS in my computer is set to turn on when power is restored. sweet, that sounds like what i'm looking for! is turning the computer back on a common option in newer BIOS's? or is it something that i have to look for specifically when buying a new MoBo? are there any specific kernel modules you need compiled in for this to work (APC)? thanks, andy ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
RE: [mythtv-users] [OT] UPS's and 24x7 MythBoxen...
Common in mobo's for a while now. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andrew Close Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2005 12:45 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Discussion about mythtv Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] [OT] UPS's and 24x7 MythBoxen... On 7/27/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Jul 27, 2005 at 11:18:58AM -0500, Andrew Close wrote: so, i was wondering what types of UPS systems are other MythUsers using? and what would you recommend? I am using an APC Back-UPS ES 725. It talks to the Linux box via USB cable so that the box is always aware of the UPS battery capacity and will automatically perform an orderly shutdown when the batteries reach 5% remaining capacity or the UPS says there is only 3 minutes left. When line power is back, the UPS automatically turns itself back on when the batteries reach 15% charge, and the BIOS in my computer is set to turn on when power is restored. sweet, that sounds like what i'm looking for! is turning the computer back on a common option in newer BIOS's? or is it something that i have to look for specifically when buying a new MoBo? are there any specific kernel modules you need compiled in for this to work (APC)? thanks, andy ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] [OT] UPS's and 24x7 MythBoxen...
On Wed, Jul 27, 2005 at 11:45:15AM -0500, Andrew Close wrote: On 7/27/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am using an APC Back-UPS ES 725. It talks to the Linux box via USB cable so that the box is always aware of the UPS battery capacity and will automatically perform an orderly shutdown when the batteries reach 5% remaining capacity or the UPS says there is only 3 minutes left. When line power is back, the UPS automatically turns itself back on when the batteries reach 15% charge, and the BIOS in my computer is set to turn on when power is restored. sweet, that sounds like what i'm looking for! is turning the computer back on a common option in newer BIOS's? or is it something that i have to look for specifically when buying a new MoBo? are there any specific kernel modules you need compiled in for this to work (APC)? I think most computers made in the last two years or so can turn themselves on automatically at a preset time or when power is applied. No special kernel modules are required other than whatever you need to get USB working as the ups is just a simple serial device. The daemon and control programs run in user-space. All you need is the apcupsd package and some patience with the config file. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] [OT] UPS's and 24x7 MythBoxen...
On Jul 27, 2005, at 11:18 AM, Andrew Close wrote: i currently have one MythBox up and running in our home production environment. :) now that the new season of SG-1, Atlantis Battlestar Galactica has started i freak out whenever there is a blip in the power at our house. in the past week our neighborhood has lost power at least four times shakes-fist damn you Com-Ed /shakes-fist and i've had to go downstairs and restart the MythBox and check the partitions. so far this hasn't happened in the middle of a recording or caused a loss of data or any type of corruption. I see you have already had some good responses from the UPS side, so I'll just add my nod to the APC products on that front. My suggestion to you would be in addition to adding UPS, clean up your system so it does not require user intervention when it is restarted. I had been having spontaneous reboots on my myth backend, which was a huge bummer, but it only took the machine about a minute to fully reboot, and when myth restarted, it continued recording. I am using ext3 on my system disks, and JFS on my video storage disks, and they have so far (knock on wood) always managed to straighten themselves out on their own very quickly after an unclean reboot. -Michael ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] [OT] UPS's and 24x7 MythBoxen...
On 7/27/05, Michael Carland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Jul 27, 2005, at 11:18 AM, Andrew Close wrote: i currently have one MythBox up and running in our home production environment. :) now that the new season of SG-1, Atlantis Battlestar Galactica has started i freak out whenever there is a blip in the power at our house. in the past week our neighborhood has lost power at least four times shakes-fist damn you Com-Ed /shakes-fist and i've had to go downstairs and restart the MythBox and check the partitions. so far this hasn't happened in the middle of a recording or caused a loss of data or any type of corruption. I see you have already had some good responses from the UPS side, so I'll just add my nod to the APC products on that front. My suggestion to you would be in addition to adding UPS, clean up your system so it does not require user intervention when it is restarted. I had been having spontaneous reboots on my myth backend, which was a huge bummer, but it only took the machine about a minute to fully reboot, and when myth restarted, it continued recording. I am using ext3 on my system disks, and JFS on my video storage disks, and they have so far (knock on wood) always managed to straighten themselves out on their own very quickly after an unclean reboot. thanks for the tip Michael. i'm using ext3 on system partitions and XFS on all others so i 'should' be safe (as safe as can be). but since i haven't had to deal with system shutdowns on a system i 'cared' about in the past i wanted to be sure and double check the partitions for any damage. so far things have started up clean with no problems. i think most of the mature journaling filesystems are probably pretty good in this respect. andy ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] [OT] UPS's and 24x7 MythBoxen...
On 7/27/05, Andrew Close [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 7/27/05, Michael Carland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Jul 27, 2005, at 11:18 AM, Andrew Close wrote: i currently have one MythBox up and running in our home production environment. :) now that the new season of SG-1, Atlantis Battlestar Galactica has started i freak out whenever there is a blip in the power at our house. in the past week our neighborhood has lost power at least four times shakes-fist damn you Com-Ed /shakes-fist and i've had to go downstairs and restart the MythBox and check the partitions. so far this hasn't happened in the middle of a recording or caused a loss of data or any type of corruption. I see you have already had some good responses from the UPS side, so I'll just add my nod to the APC products on that front. My suggestion to you would be in addition to adding UPS, clean up your system so it does not require user intervention when it is restarted. I had been having spontaneous reboots on my myth backend, which was a huge bummer, but it only took the machine about a minute to fully reboot, and when myth restarted, it continued recording. I am using ext3 on my system disks, and JFS on my video storage disks, and they have so far (knock on wood) always managed to straighten themselves out on their own very quickly after an unclean reboot. thanks for the tip Michael. i'm using ext3 on system partitions and XFS on all others so i 'should' be safe (as safe as can be). but since i haven't had to deal with system shutdowns on a system i 'cared' about in the past i wanted to be sure and double check the partitions for any damage. so far things have started up clean with no problems. i think most of the mature journaling filesystems are probably pretty good in this respect. andy ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users The software that you want to google for is apcupsd. It's better than the official APC software in my opinion. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] [OT] UPS's and 24x7 MythBoxen...
i'm using ext3 on system partitions and XFS on all others so i 'should' be safe (as safe as can be). but since i haven't had to deal with system shutdowns on a system i 'cared' about in the past i wanted to be sure and double check the partitions for any damage. so far things have started up clean with no problems. i think most of the mature journaling filesystems are probably pretty good in this respect. When I setup my most recent mythbox, I set all the non-volatile partitions (/, /boot, /usr) to use synchronous writes, further reducing the risk of corruption. It hasn't hurt performance at all (after all, I don't write to these partitions very often) and it gives me another 0.01% chance of having a bootable system, so why not? If you were really keen, you could mount some partitions read-only and remount them read-write only when you want to change something. There's not a lot you can do with the XFS partition. Obviously, it's going to be busy, so you're bound to lose some data if you get a bump. On the other hand, it's just data living there and your system will survive it's loss. BTW: I'll second the opinion that apcupsd is better than the apc power* software. -- We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different! -- Kurt Vonnegut ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] [OT] UPS's and 24x7 MythBoxen...
On Wed, Jul 27, 2005 at 07:50:35PM -0300, Paul Pick wrote: BTW: I'll second the opinion that apcupsd is better than the apc power* software. Heh. I didn't even know that APC had their own Linux software. The only complaint I have with the apcupsd package is that I have a laser printer that causes brown-outs on the basement circuit, so every time someone in the house prints anything I get about 6 broadcasts and a bunch of email messages. Every time the apcupsd package is updated I have to go back in there and comment out the wall calls. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] [OT] UPS's and 24x7 MythBoxen...
On 7/27/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Heh. I didn't even know that APC had their own Linux software. The only complaint I have with the apcupsd package is that I have a laser printer that causes brown-outs on the basement circuit, so every time someone in the house prints anything I get about 6 broadcasts and a bunch of email messages. Every time the apcupsd package is updated I have to go back in there and comment out the wall calls. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users I believe there is a way to configure when the APC transfers to battery. You should be able to make it not so sensitive to line fluxuations. Of course, if the voltage is sagging below 90 volts, then I don't think there is much you can do. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] [OT] UPS's and 24x7 MythBoxen...
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Jul 27, 2005 at 07:50:35PM -0300, Paul Pick wrote: BTW: I'll second the opinion that apcupsd is better than the apc power* software. Heh. I didn't even know that APC had their own Linux software. The only complaint I have with the apcupsd package is that I have a laser printer that causes brown-outs on the basement circuit, so every time someone in the house prints anything I get about 6 broadcasts and a bunch of email messages. Every time the apcupsd package is updated I have to go back in there and comment out the wall calls. That's not a problem with apcupsd, that's a problem with your printer or your service. If it's a new-ish printer, then I'd look at your service box to see if you have a problem. A printer starting up should not draw that much current. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] [OT] UPS's and 24x7 MythBoxen...
The software that you want to google for is apcupsd. It's better than the official APC software in my opinion. I obviously know nothing about UPS's, so my question is why is software required at all? I thought how a UPS worked was that it monitored the power supply itself and if it detected a drop it would kick in power from its batteries, and that this would all be semaless to the PC that was plugged into it. The PC would never know there'd been a power cut unless the UPS batteries ran out. So why does the PC need any software? Regards, Phill ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
RE: [mythtv-users] [OT] UPS's and 24x7 MythBoxen...
So that if your battery goes dead, the machine can shut itself down cleanly... Thus protecting your data :) -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Phill Edwards Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2005 9:20 PM To: John Clabaugh; Discussion about mythtv Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] [OT] UPS's and 24x7 MythBoxen... The software that you want to google for is apcupsd. It's better than the official APC software in my opinion. I obviously know nothing about UPS's, so my question is why is software required at all? I thought how a UPS worked was that it monitored the power supply itself and if it detected a drop it would kick in power from its batteries, and that this would all be semaless to the PC that was plugged into it. The PC would never know there'd been a power cut unless the UPS batteries ran out. So why does the PC need any software? Regards, Phill ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] [OT] UPS's and 24x7 MythBoxen...
Phill Edwards wrote: to the PC that was plugged into it. The PC would never know there'd been a power cut unless the UPS batteries ran out. So why does the PC When the UPS is about to run out of batteries it needs to tell the PC to shutdown gracefully. Much nicer than just cutting the power. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] [OT] UPS's and 24x7 MythBoxen...
Gavin Haslett wrote: So that if your battery goes dead, the machine can shut itself down cleanly... Thus protecting your data :) If you get one smart ups (one that can tell your host about the batteries) then run a network based ups monitoring tool such as nut you can add dumb upses (much cheaper) to other hosts and have them query the power status from the host connected to the smart ups over the network. My wifes computer is plugged into a $25 300 watt ups, and it does down gracefully because it is asking the server every 5 seconds what the power status is. schu ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] [OT] UPS's and 24x7 MythBoxen...
John Clabaugh wrote: The software that you want to google for is apcupsd. It's better than the official APC software in my opinion. Another good one is NUT (Network UPS Tools): http://www.networkupstools.org/ It works with the APCs (I have a bunch of them at work), but also with other brands. There's a web interface you can use to check it and set UPS parameters. A big thing for me is that it doesn't make the assumption that one UPS=one computer - I like to use a big UPS to power several computers when I have them in one location (cheaper in the long run). With NUT you hook the UPS up to one machine, and run the UPS monitor on each computer to watch the UPS. When the UPS is running out of power, the master machine (where the UPS is connected) makes sure that all of the clients shut down, and then shuts down itself. -- Matt White [EMAIL PROTECTED] Arts and Science Computer Labs University of Saskatchewan ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
