On 08/29/12 15:55, Roswyne wrote:
I don't think a "physical" phone line is likely to be practical at this
point (due to the extra cost), though I'll admit it would have other
advantages. (You can't use the VOIP phone at the space to tell Colin
that internet access is out, for example.)
But would it be possible to "relay" a signal received over the internet
connection to the RS232 port to trigger a soft shutdown remotely?
I mentioned that as a yes, but it's not as good as what Chris suggests.
Normally on a sever you run a login daemon on the serial (RS232) port as
a backup if regular remote access isn't up. So if you connect to that
you got a login prompt and then a command prompt and then can type
"reboot" or "halt".
But, that's a lot of user space processes that still have to be able to
work correctly. There could (in theory) be a situation where those
processes don't respond, but a userspace daemon in charge of picking up
the button press is able to respond and perform a soft shutdown.
Having remote access to the serial port is most useful for the situation
where you've screwed up your network configuration on the server and
need to get into it another way.
The only other way to guarantee the ability to attempt a soft reboot
without installing an embedded system inside the computer (like the card
Chris mentions) would be to contruct a robot/machine that goes up to the
button and presses it.
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