I'm putting my servers in modestly out-of-the-way places, so my natural sloth makes me want to manage them remotely for the times they have to be managed. Remote shells are nice, web management is nicer, but sometimes you have to push the buttons.
Accordingly, I've been messing with a rough-and-ready form of Lights-Out Management for the home server. I've chronicled some of this in my blog.
Right now I'm after doing reset and power-on button pressing by LAN. I've discovered a cheap way to do this, beyond the IP Power AC power control box I found.
WIZNET, a Korean company, is making some very nice LAN-to-other-stuff boards at hardware hacker friendly prices. I'm going to use their LAN-to-digital I/O card ($34, Saelig) for the second server.
If you want to put your server in a closet, attic, or garage, I recommend looking this up.
Eventually, I want to take an old PCI interface card and "neuter" it by cutting all the traces to the card-edge fingers and removing all the components. I'll use this as a physical holder for putting the WIZNET card into the server, letting the LAN connector show through the back. The card will be powered by the +5V standby power on the PCI buss. It will also contain the circuitry to manipulate the power-on switch and reset switch inside the server.
I'll post more as the design progresses.
Accordingly, I've been messing with a rough-and-ready form of Lights-Out Management for the home server. I've chronicled some of this in my blog.
Right now I'm after doing reset and power-on button pressing by LAN. I've discovered a cheap way to do this, beyond the IP Power AC power control box I found.
WIZNET, a Korean company, is making some very nice LAN-to-other-stuff boards at hardware hacker friendly prices. I'm going to use their LAN-to-digital I/O card ($34, Saelig) for the second server.
If you want to put your server in a closet, attic, or garage, I recommend looking this up.
Eventually, I want to take an old PCI interface card and "neuter" it by cutting all the traces to the card-edge fingers and removing all the components. I'll use this as a physical holder for putting the WIZNET card into the server, letting the LAN connector show through the back. The card will be powered by the +5V standby power on the PCI buss. It will also contain the circuitry to manipulate the power-on switch and reset switch inside the server.
I'll post more as the design progresses.
