[gentoo-user] Remote administration of a server

[gentoo-user] Remote administration of a server

[Daniel van Ham Colchete]

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Hello yall,

first, this is a kind of "half-topic" issue, but I'll be using Gentoo and
the matter is on the interest of this list.

I'll be building a Gentoo Cluster soon in a datacenter 6000 miles (9600 km)
away from me... This project has to be as cost efficient as possible. A lot
of research was made in this heading: the best cost effective solution.

Everything I'll be redundant and scalable. Somethings have three levels of
fail safeness (like my storage). So everything can fail. Every single item
on the cluster can fail and my service will still be online.

Right now I'm concerned with how I'm going to fix software problems when
they arrive. I'm thinking about a situation where I have a kernel panic or
when the Linux won't boot for any reason (incorrect kernel upgrade, hard
drive failure, etc...).

To solve this, I'm seeing 2 options right now. The first would be buying a
KVM-over-IP unit. But, a KVM-over-IP unit with the number of ports I need is
expensive, almost as expensive as the servers it will be connected.

The second option would be having another server acting as a USB Guest. This
usb-guest-server would be connected to every other server through a USB
cable and would be seen as a pen drive with a Gentoo rescue disk inside.
Them, if something goes wrong, I can activate the virtual pen drive,
remotely reboot the troubled server and it will boot the pen drive. There is
a howto about this at http://www.linux-usb.org/gadget/file_storage.html. But
I can't find the necessary hardware to do this. Has anyone been able to do
anything like this?

Thinking about other options, does anyone have any other tip for me? Am I
going in the right direction? For the obvious answer: I know it's better to
be closer to the datacenter, but that's not an option for me right now and I
know I'll have a remote-hands service, but it can be very time inefficient
sometimes and I'm trying to avoid it as much as possible.

Thank you all.

Best regards,
Daniel Colchete

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Re: [gentoo-user] Remote administration of a server

[Mike Williams]

On Monday 14 May 2007 19:42:45 Daniel van Ham Colchete wrote:
> To solve this, I'm seeing 2 options right now. The first would be buying a
> KVM-over-IP unit. But, a KVM-over-IP unit with the number of ports I need
> is expensive, almost as expensive as the servers it will be connected.

We use a Belkin KVM-IP box with 2 sets of ports. One set for a local 
keyboard/monitor/mouse, and one to a 16 port Belkin KVM.
The IP box can handle upto 64 KVM ports, and the KVM can daisy chain to an 
extent I don't know.
You don't say how many servers, but 64 is quite a lot.
I believe Belkin do a 4 channel IP box too.
Total cost was, I think, ~£700. To remotely manage >16 servers, peanuts.

> Thinking about other options, does anyone have any other tip for me? Am I
> going in the right direction? For the obvious answer: I know it's better to
> be closer to the datacenter, but that's not an option for me right now and
> I know I'll have a remote-hands service, but it can be very time
> inefficient sometimes and I'm trying to avoid it as much as possible.

Remotely managed PDUs?
Very very useful to be able to power cycle remotely too!

-- 
Mike Williams
--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Remote administration of a server

[Daniel van Ham Colchete]

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On 5/13/07, Mike Williams <mike@gaima.co.uk> wrote:
>
> On Monday 14 May 2007 19:42:45 Daniel van Ham Colchete wrote:
> > To solve this, I'm seeing 2 options right now. The first would be buying
> a
> > KVM-over-IP unit. But, a KVM-over-IP unit with the number of ports I
> need
> > is expensive, almost as expensive as the servers it will be connected.
>
> We use a Belkin KVM-IP box with 2 sets of ports. One set for a local
> keyboard/monitor/mouse, and one to a 16 port Belkin KVM.
> The IP box can handle upto 64 KVM ports, and the KVM can daisy chain to an
> extent I don't know.
> You don't say how many servers, but 64 is quite a lot.
> I believe Belkin do a 4 channel IP box too.
> Total cost was, I think, ~£700. To remotely manage >16 servers, peanuts.


That's cheap! I'm looking at their page right now. And 64 is enough for sure
(at least during the first year).

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Re: [gentoo-user] Remote administration of a server

[Randy Barlow]

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Daniel van Ham Colchete wrote:
> Thinking about other options, does anyone have any other tip for me?

How about a robot and a USB keyboard?  Sorry, couldn't resist :)

R

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Re: [gentoo-user] Remote administration of a server

[Hans-Werner Hilse]

Hi,

On Mon, 14 May 2007 15:42:45 -0300
"Daniel van Ham Colchete" <daniel.colchete@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thinking about other options, does anyone have any other tip for me? Am I
> going in the right direction?

The two options you've mentioned are quite different. One gives console
access, the other basically cures HD fails. The latter is clearly a job
for your hosting company, I think. And there's an old, proven way for
the task "console access": forget about that graphics output on that
computer and learn to trust in good ol' serial connections :-)
certainly cheaper than KVM-over-IP.

Another option would be for the servers to default to netbooting and
fall back to HD on boot. Then you were able to switch on the service
offering the netboot images on some fall-back servers on-demand. I
think this is somewhat like your USB idea. Or generally use netboot (w/
redundant servers) and forget about the HD fails alltogether (i.e.,
have some remote login program in your initrd).

All these options still won't give you the opportunity to power-cycle
your machines, which might be the only option left under some
circumstances. A hw watchdog can probably reduce the impact of that
problem a lot.

-hwh
-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] Remote administration of a server

[Daniel van Ham Colchete]

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On 5/14/07, Hans-Werner Hilse <hilse@web.de> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> On Mon, 14 May 2007 15:42:45 -0300
> "Daniel van Ham Colchete" <daniel.colchete@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Thinking about other options, does anyone have any other tip for me? Am
> I
> > going in the right direction?
>
> The two options you've mentioned are quite different. One gives console
> access, the other basically cures HD fails. The latter is clearly a job
> for your hosting company, I think. And there's an old, proven way for
> the task "console access": forget about that graphics output on that
> computer and learn to trust in good ol' serial connections :-)
> certainly cheaper than KVM-over-IP.
>
> Another option would be for the servers to default to netbooting and
> fall back to HD on boot. Then you were able to switch on the service
> offering the netboot images on some fall-back servers on-demand. I
> think this is somewhat like your USB idea. Or generally use netboot (w/
> redundant servers) and forget about the HD fails alltogether (i.e.,
> have some remote login program in your initrd).
>
> All these options still won't give you the opportunity to power-cycle
> your machines, which might be the only option left under some
> circumstances. A hw watchdog can probably reduce the impact of that
> problem a lot.
>
> -hwh
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>
Hi Hans!

Yeah! Direct netboot is a very nice idea too... I can't to it with one kind
of server I'll have but with the clustered ones that I'll be nice! To
improve reliability I could make a copy of a healthy image to the node's
hard drive every time it boots, so it's not dependent on a NFS server all
the time (just to boot).


Best
Daniel

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