Bitcoin Forum

My mining operation is starting to get quite a bit larger, and in a few days I'll have my rigs on a separate power meter to take advantage of commercial rates within my residence (Still so damn expensive in California!!).

It hasn't been a problem yet, outside of testing systems for overclock potential, but I would like to know if anybody here has experience with hard rebooting computers remotely by turning the power on/off.  I know in large data centers there is the capability to actually shut the power off through an internet interface (normally via SSH/telnet), even when the computer itself has locked up to the point it cannot be accessed.

At this time, I'd probably need 2 that can hook up 4 devices each, or one device that has it's own power circuits and can draw power from two different outlets and split it among 8 devices.

BUMP

I have the same problem. One of my rig is not responding via SSH. I want to reboot the machine from a remote location.

Can I buy a device that can short the reset or power pins on the motherboard via a remote call or something ?

Honestly the cheapest way is probably to build something yourself with an Arduino & xbee.  A relay to close the pins is all you need, and you'd have plenty of pins available with even a standard arduino. 

You could probably get someone to build something for you cheaper than buying an off the shelf product.

Your options are basically
1) UPS with remote control capability to remote switch off power ports.  Without a high end unit, this will be done through USB and still require a controlling computer to manage it.  I'm not even sure how expensive a unit with this capability would be
2) get server motherboards with remote management (IPMI) that allows you to control the unit directly.  These are likely only going to have 1 PCIe 16x slot and will be much more expensive than similarly priced consumer-level hardware
3) roll your own

unless your OS hangs constantly(which it shouldn't, even Win7 is quite stable and can run for months without problem), I don't think it's worth it. Just set your BIOS to auto reboot on power loss.

Some motherboards (server ones) have an IPMI interface that can be used to connect to the m/b on a out of band channel, reset or power cycle it.
You can also connect when the server is powered off!

I know that you can add IPMI addons to some m/b but I don't know the details.
Since I've only used them on (wonderful) servers and I love them I would be interested in knowing if someone knows if they can be added to regular motherboards.

How about something like this: http://www.amazon.com/NP-0801D-Switchable-manufactured-Temperature-Monitoring/dp/B002WLQ6ZI/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1307994398&sr=8-3

The Avocent Direct_PDU is perfect.

http://www.avocent.com/Products/Category/Power_Distribution_Units/Direct_PDU.aspx


I don't know of any way to combine circuits like that.

I use 1U PDU from APC.  You can control individual ports over SNMP, switching on, switching off, or rebooting.

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=5506.msg154011#msg154011 (http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=5506.msg154011#msg154011)

this...

or any other manufacturer of them.. APC being higher end.
i was going to dig one out of the storage area here at work to use on my miner...

I've been very happy with the APC AP9211 and similar units.  They're often available used on eBay for less than $100 including the Ethernet interface.  You can connect via https, telnet, and several other methods.  Personally I just have a VPN set up so I can get to the network, and connect via the web interface to reboot machines.  They can be scripted to do fancy stuff like STONITH when setting up clusters, but the web interface has been more than enough for my needs in both mining and managing the office servers.

You can also get switches that automatically ping device and hard reset if ping doesn't respond. Will try to find some and post them.

oh hai

http://www.opengear.com/product-IP-KVM-ordering.html

Alternatively, you could invest in watchdog hardware or use a kernel with a software watchdog.

http://www.berkprod.com/Product_Web_Pages/external_serial_pc_watchdog.aspx

Or build one, as someone suggested...

I think I find a solution.

1 - buy this network controlled power switch for $78 +shipping http://www.amazon.com/IP-Power-9258T-Network-Controller/dp/B001E03KRU/ref=cm_cmu_pg_t

2 - enable wake on lan on your mining machines.

3 - if a machine does not respond. I can reset the power for this machine with the power switch. After I can boot the machine with WOL on my router. DD-WRT and tomato can do it.



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I like this one alot:
http://amzn.to/lhspnX

I may pick one up myself soon!