[WBEL-users] Power failures and Sending sms from server

[John Morris]

On Wed, 2005-03-09 at 11:36, Simone wrote:
> Hi, just yesterday night we had a power failure.  The mailfiltering 
> "server" (Compaq 4420EA PC) is WBEL, and after running a while on ups it 
> shut down cleanly (NUT over a MGE Ellipse ups). The problem is that it 
> doesn't really shut down the machine but it stays with a "Power down" 
> message, and when the power comes back it doesn't restart. I tried 
> passing apm=power_off, apm=power-off or acpi=on arguments to the kernel 
> in the grub.conf with no success. I was wondering if there's a way to 
> solve this, or a way around it.

Then I'd say Linux isn't going to be able to reliably shut the box off. 
Even if you find a magic boot option that works today, you won't
remember to retest on every kernel rev and will get bit again someday
when something changes.

So why not attack the problem at the UPS by having it switch off the AC
current?  Most 'smart' UPSes can at least shutdown entirely, many can
control power to each outlet or pair of outlets.  Add a line into the
shutdown script to have the UPS kill the power right before the line
that does it via apm/acpi.  Bit more of a pain in the rear to get it
working but probably more reliable longterm.

-- 
John M.      http://www.beau.org/~jmorris     This post is 100% M$Free!
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