[gentoo-user] Nut and networked UPS config

[gentoo-user] Nut and networked UPS config

[Tanstaafl]

Hello all,

I have a network accessible UPS (Powerware 9150 with the network option 
installed), so am looking for tips on how to properly configure a gentoo 
VM running on ESXi to initiate a safe shutdown during an extended power 
outage via this network card.

Looks like nut has full support for this UPS, so hopefully it won't be 
too difficult...

The host is a Dell R515, which does have an iDRAC6 Enterprise card in 
it, but I'm not sure if I can utilize the BCM to talk to guest VMs 
running under ESXi?

Would appreciate any suggestions...

Re: [gentoo-user] Nut and networked UPS config

[Daniel Frey]

On 12/13/2013 10:56 AM, Tanstaafl wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I have a network accessible UPS (Powerware 9150 with the network option
> installed), so am looking for tips on how to properly configure a gentoo
> VM running on ESXi to initiate a safe shutdown during an extended power
> outage via this network card.

I have an APC UPS and am currently going through this myself. (ESXi 5.1,
but I don't believe that matters.)

Generally the proper way to do this is have the monitoring tools
installed on a vMA VM monitoring the host. It doesn't look like
Powerware has anything to work directly with vMA VM. APC does have this
tool. It appears it tells the host to shut down the VMs running then the
host itself. This does require that the Power Off method on VMs are set
to 'Guest shutdown' and that vmware-tools is running on all virtual
machines, and that the Virtual Machine startup/shutdown sequence is
enabled and configured.

> Looks like nut has full support for this UPS, so hopefully it won't be
> too difficult...

It looks like it has full USB support but experimental snmp support. It
may not work at all.


> The host is a Dell R515, which does have an iDRAC6 Enterprise card in
> it, but I'm not sure if I can utilize the BCM to talk to guest VMs
> running under ESXi?

From what I've read that card is like a remote console, so I don't think
it can be used in that manner.

> 
> Would appreciate any suggestions...
> 

I haven't tried this myself, but if you can get the Gentoo VM to listen
to the UPS via snmp you may be able to enable ssh on the host itself and
send the host a halt command to shut down (there are security risks
leaving ssh running on the host!) and not actually doing anything on the
local VM at all, and letting the host shut the system down. This still
requires the Power Off methods are set & Virtual Machine
startup/shutdown sequence enabled and configured and vmware-tools are
installed on all virtual machines. If you don't install vmware-tools on
everything it's possible those VMs will not shut down properly and
possibly get corrupted.

You can test it with no VMs running at first (well, except the one
monitoring the UPS, make sure you have a backup) to make sure the host
shuts down, if that works, test it with a few running. Just make sure
you have backups of your virtual machines!

Dan

Re: [gentoo-user] Nut and networked UPS config

[Nick Cameo]

What you gents are talking about it stonith. At the UPS and Host
level, it's everything off or everything on. If you like individual
STONITH per host, it's been a while however, this is done at the PDU
and Host level. As for VM, I use Xen, and there we use libvirt and/or
fence_virt.

There we have STONITH at the HOST (via PDU and Iron) and VM level (via
PDU and virtual machine library)