Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
Indeed, I'm thinking of using 2 CompactFlash ATA disks. One fully read only with just a small partition writable that will keep /etc/asterisk (astlinux mounts read-only always and only mounts read-write if you need to change/save the config). No worries about unclean shutdown. The second disk I will use for voicemail, and I can swap it every year before it wears down. Better than that, mirror the disk. Then when one drive fails Linux will automatically use the other disk. You can go one step more and define a third disk as a hot spare then after Linux detects the drive failure and switches to the surviving twin it will also bring up the hot spare and begin building a replacement for the dead twin. You can then swap out the dead drive with no need to power down the server and declare the new drive as the new hot spare I would mirror the read-only patition also It you truely want 5 nines you have to set things up so that you can do normal maintanance (swapping out drives, power supplies and the like without powering down. I thought of that but that's not much use with flash disks. Flash can only be written to a number of times. If I would do raid1 on two flash drives and they reach that limit they might die shortly after each other. Raid1 is a good solution when doing real harddrives. I may consider doing raid1 with two laptop harddiscs. laptop drives do not consume a lot of power nor do they produce any heat. Alternatively I could consider hardware raid1 with one ATA flash drive and one laptop drive, chances of them dying both at the same time are slim. I will do some testing on the behaviour of * when the partition where voicemail is stored is failing. If * will just skip voicemail that would be good enough for me, I don't care about voicemail being unavailable, i just dont want it to bring the whole box down. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
Asterisk is software installed on linux installed in a PC with a hard drive. When I say it might not come up after a power failure I don't mean Asterisk, I mean Linux. The hard drive might fail and you can kiss you system good bye. Legacy PBXs don't have that problem. The configuration there is on NVRAM or Flash, and when the power comes back up it just loads and keeps working. A UPS for legacy PBX means that if the power outage is two minutes long, you can keep talking as if nothing happened. For Asterisk it's a must. -Original Message- From: David Brodbeck [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 9:55 PM To: 'Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion' Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk -Original Message- From: Shoval Tomer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] That's not a problem. The question is what happens when the power's restored. Can you go ahead and just start working or do you need to call the technicians to come reconfigure the whole thing? It comes back up on its own, of course. If it just works, you have something asterisk without UPS can't give you. Really? Surely Asterisk can be configured to start itself up when the system boots. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. MailScanner thanks transtec Computers for their support. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
OK. You're wearing me out. IF linux boots Asterisk can surely load automatically. What if linux DOES NOT boot after a power failure? -Original Message- From: Brian Capouch [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 10:52 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk David Brodbeck wrote: It comes back up on its own, of course. If it just works, you have something asterisk without UPS can't give you. Really? Surely Asterisk can be configured to start itself up when the system boots. Absolutely. Where did the notion ever come from that it could not? B. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. MailScanner thanks transtec Computers for their support. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
:) Get an APC power switch, hook it up to a network in the vicinity of your * box and make sure you can reach it from the outside. If the box fails to boot you can remotely power cycle it. If you need a rocksolid solution have a look at astlinux that can boot * from a compact flash card in read only mode which makes it very hard to break :) On Wed, 26 Jan 2005, Shoval Tomer wrote: OK. You're wearing me out. IF linux boots Asterisk can surely load automatically. What if linux DOES NOT boot after a power failure? -Original Message- From: Brian Capouch [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 10:52 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk David Brodbeck wrote: It comes back up on its own, of course. If it just works, you have something asterisk without UPS can't give you. Really? Surely Asterisk can be configured to start itself up when the system boots. Absolutely. Where did the notion ever come from that it could not? B. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
If you need a rocksolid solution have a look at astlinux that can boot * from a compact flash card in read only mode which makes it very hard to break :) You should be able to boot Asterisk using slackware as a base from a 64M CF card or even from a 64M bootable USB memory key. If you use ReiserFS or something similar for the drive that stores all your voicemail, etc then it should come back without a problem as well. Of course you want to make sure the system shuts down cleanly too... ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
-Original Message- From: Michael 'Moose' Dinn [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] You should be able to boot Asterisk using slackware as a base from a 64M CF card or even from a 64M bootable USB memory key. If you use ReiserFS or something similar for the drive that stores all your voicemail, etc then it should come back without a problem as well. Of course you want to make sure the system shuts down cleanly too... Or use a journalling filesystem. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
On Wed, 26 Jan 2005, Michael 'Moose' Dinn wrote: If you need a rocksolid solution have a look at astlinux that can boot * from a compact flash card in read only mode which makes it very hard to break :) You should be able to boot Asterisk using slackware as a base from a 64M CF card or even from a 64M bootable USB memory key. If you use ReiserFS or something similar for the drive that stores all your voicemail, etc then it should come back without a problem as well. Indeed, I'm thinking of using 2 CompactFlash ATA disks. One fully read only with just a small partition writable that will keep /etc/asterisk (astlinux mounts read-only always and only mounts read-write if you need to change/save the config). No worries about unclean shutdown. The second disk I will use for voicemail, and I can swap it every year before it wears down. It's probably possible to do it with another distro too but astlinux is already pretty much finished :) And the cost of 512 Mb or 1 GB ATA flash is not much more than a McDonalds meal anyways (1GB is about USD 100 now) For voicemail I could also use a microdrive but I'm not sure what will happen if it breaks and * tries to read/write from it. If that would bring the box down it's no solution. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
Remco Barende wrote: It's probably possible to do it with another distro too but astlinux is already pretty much finished :) And the cost of 512 Mb or 1 GB ATA flash is not much more than a McDonalds meal anyways (1GB is about USD 100 now) Damn! McDonalds is expensive where you live! (Or you eat a lot) :) -- Cheers, Matt Riddell ___ http://www.sineapps.com/news.php (Daily Asterisk News - html) http://www.sineapps.com/rssfeed.php (Daily Asterisk News - rss) ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
--- Remco Barende [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 26 Jan 2005, Michael 'Moose' Dinn wrote: If you need a rocksolid solution have a look at astlinux that can boot * from a compact flash card in read only mode which makes it very hard to break :) You should be able to boot Asterisk using slackware as a base from a 64M CF card or even from a 64M bootable USB memory key. If you use ReiserFS or something similar for the drive that stores all your voicemail, etc then it should come back without a problem as well. Indeed, I'm thinking of using 2 CompactFlash ATA disks. One fully read only with just a small partition writable that will keep /etc/asterisk (astlinux mounts read-only always and only mounts read-write if you need to change/save the config). No worries about unclean shutdown. The second disk I will use for voicemail, and I can swap it every year before it wears down. Better than that, mirror the disk. Then when one drive fails Linux will automatically use the other disk. You can go one step more and define a third disk as a hot spare then after Linux detects the drive failure and switches to the surviving twin it will also bring up the hot spare and begin building a replacement for the dead twin. You can then swap out the dead drive with no need to power down the server and declare the new drive as the new hot spare I would mirror the read-only patition also It you truely want 5 nines you have to set things up so that you can do normal maintanance (swapping out drives, power supplies and the like without powering down. It's probably possible to do it with another distro too but astlinux is already pretty much finished :) And the cost of 512 Mb or 1 GB ATA flash is not much more than a McDonalds meal anyways (1GB is about USD 100 now) For voicemail I could also use a microdrive but I'm not sure what will happen if it breaks and * tries to read/write from it. If that would bring the box down it's no solution. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users = Chris Albertson Home: 310-376-1029 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cell: 310-990-7550 Office: 310-336-5189 [EMAIL PROTECTED] KG6OMK __ Do you Yahoo!? Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
Can you please take the 30 seconds or less that is required to properly trim your responses? It makes reading these threads easier for everyone -- all 8000+ list subscribers. On January 26, 2005 08:40 pm, Chris Albertson wrote: It you truely want 5 nines you have to set things up so that you can do normal maintanance (swapping out drives, power supplies and the like without powering down. What, you can't swap out a power supply in 5 minutes and 15 and a half seconds? :-) Not to mention to achieve five nines you'll also need redundant switches, redundant routers and multiple links to the internet... -A. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
-Original Message- From: Peter Svensson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] The SmartUPS ups's from APC that are = 1kVA seem to be of a lot better quality then their smaller siblings. We have lost none of the 1kVA or larger ups:es while several of the smaller ones have died of electronics failures. The larger ups's seem to have 5-year batteries while the smaller ones have 3-year batteries. Just a counterexample -- the batteries in our 3 kW rack-mount SmartUPS only lasted three years before one of them failed. They were a real pain to get out, too -- the failed battery had swelled up and wedged itself in the battery compartment. The rack-mount UPS runs around 120 degrees F inside and that seems to shorten the battery life. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
That's not a problem. The question is what happens when the power's restored. Can you go ahead and just start working or do you need to call the technicians to come reconfigure the whole thing? If it just works, you have something asterisk without UPS can't give you. -Original Message- From: David Brodbeck [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 5:50 PM To: 'Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion' Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk -Original Message- From: Shoval Tomer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On the other hand, telephony down time is unacceptable. PBXs have a counter part. Plain old PBXs are expected to run 24x7. real 24x7, with uptimes of 99.999. And if you think about it, they actually do. That would be news to the people who installed our (non-Asterisk) PBX. It has no battery backup at all. When the power goes out, so do all our phones. (Except for the fax machines, which don't go through the PBX.) ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. MailScanner thanks transtec Computers for their support. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
-Original Message- From: Shoval Tomer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] That's not a problem. The question is what happens when the power's restored. Can you go ahead and just start working or do you need to call the technicians to come reconfigure the whole thing? It comes back up on its own, of course. If it just works, you have something asterisk without UPS can't give you. Really? Surely Asterisk can be configured to start itself up when the system boots. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
David Brodbeck wrote: It comes back up on its own, of course. If it just works, you have something asterisk without UPS can't give you. Really? Surely Asterisk can be configured to start itself up when the system boots. Absolutely. Where did the notion ever come from that it could not? B. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
On Tue, 25 Jan 2005, David Brodbeck wrote: From: Peter Svensson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] The SmartUPS ups's from APC that are = 1kVA seem to be of a lot better quality then their smaller siblings. We have lost none of the 1kVA or larger ups:es while several of the smaller ones have died of electronics failures. The larger ups's seem to have 5-year batteries while the smaller ones have 3-year batteries. Just a counterexample -- the batteries in our 3 kW rack-mount SmartUPS only lasted three years before one of them failed. They were a real pain to get out, too -- the failed battery had swelled up and wedged itself in the battery compartment. The rack-mount UPS runs around 120 degrees F inside and that seems to shorten the battery life. The rackmount models indeed run way too hot and they do have a shorter lifespan. Some of the non-rackmount models have fans as well. I was thinking more of the electronics quality than the batteries. The small APC units are not as well made as the larger ones. According to our supplier for large ups:es a raise from 25 degrees C to 35 degrees C halves the battery lifespan for the regular batteries. Peter ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
I have several Linux machines some running on really old hardware and some on brand new, some run old distros (RedHat 6) and some new (FC3 or CentOS). All of them experienced power failure more then once, none of them has failed to load after a reboot. BUT, Asterisk is running your PBX. Your PBX isn't your proxy server, it isn't your web server, mail server, firewall, or whatever you're used to run on linux. Even though it would seem that down time on all of these production machines is bad, these are all systems that have no counter part in the legacy world, and that we all agree may have some downtime along the road. On the other hand, telephony down time is unacceptable. PBXs have a counter part. Plain old PBXs are expected to run 24x7. real 24x7, with uptimes of 99.999. And if you think about it, they actually do. So people will expect your asterisk installation to do the same. Besides, when a mail server goes down for ten minutes, when it comes back up you still get your mail. This is not true for your PBX. Our asterisk installation has software RAID, has a UPS, has recover CDs burnt and ready to be used (http://www.builderau.com.au/architect/sdi/0,39024602,20269582,00.htm) And still, my knees are shaking. In short, GET 100$ and BUY A UPS. It's worth it. -Original Message- From: Nick Bachmann [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 5:30 AM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk Andrew Kohlsmith wrote: On January 23, 2005 04:04 pm, Mike Sander wrote: Is the harddisk activity on a standard asterisk install such that I don't really have to worry if the power cuts?? Not typically; there isn't much writing going on, this is true. Are you that cash strapped that a $75 UPS with a serial port is out of your budget? No kidding... the cost of a server than won't come up again is much more substantial than the countermeasure... the $75 (you can get a 350 Va for $45 even!) and a slightly less energy efficient system. If you can afford to spend more, a decent active UPS would keep your power conditioned as well... As I understand, if HD activity is minimal, the probability of HD failure is significantly reduced. HDDs don't fail because they lose power. Unless the heads crash, which can happen if power fails. I know HDD manufacturers have done head unloading and such recently, but the risk is still higher if power is suddenly lost during a write. Nick ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. MailScanner thanks transtec Computers for their support. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
-Original Message- From: Shoval Tomer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On the other hand, telephony down time is unacceptable. PBXs have a counter part. Plain old PBXs are expected to run 24x7. real 24x7, with uptimes of 99.999. And if you think about it, they actually do. That would be news to the people who installed our (non-Asterisk) PBX. It has no battery backup at all. When the power goes out, so do all our phones. (Except for the fax machines, which don't go through the PBX.) ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
-Original Message- From: Jon Radon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Why risk it? Just go snag a cheap UPS from your local store. Just get something with enough run time to shut the system down gracefully. Don't go *too* cheap, though. I had a couple of really cheap (under $40) CyberPower UPS's that ended up causing more outages than they protected against. I've had good luck with APC, but keep in mind that the batteries have a finite lifespan. On SmartUPS and BackUPS Pro models, you'll get a warning that the battery needs replacing, but on regular BackUPS models the first hint you get that the battery is bad is when the power goes out and the UPS doesn't work. This is sometimes okay for workstation use, but I'd hesitate to put one of those on a server. I find that the batteries in our APC UPS's generally last four to five years for stand-alone units, three years for rack-mount ones. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
Why would the heads come in contact with the platters on a powerfail? The arms are very rigid -- the heads only float a few thousandths of an inch over the platters -- something that I don't believe has anything to do with the platters spinning (that may *help* but I don't think the heads will contact Search google on Bernoulli Effect ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
On Monday 24 January 2005 02:52, Peter Svensson wrote: On Sun, 23 Jan 2005, Andrew Kohlsmith wrote: Why would the heads come in contact with the platters on a powerfail? The arms are very rigid -- the heads only float a few thousandths of an inch Well, I'm sorry but I find this whole discussion on why you should have a UPS a bit silly. Electronics are sensitive to ... electricity. May it come in sudden drops just as the data is only in cache someplace, or pulsing power going on and off and back on. Never mind spikes. Fortunately we have pretty good equipment these days that can handle a lot of abuse. But why would anyone argue against it? Either you have the money for it or not. The chance of loosing equipment is there either way. Buy a good UPS and use it if you can. Period. The days of shoddy UPS's are long gone, unless you always buy the cheapest stuff you can find all the time. In which case you might be able to find something crappy. APC gives good support and make decent UPS's at a decent price. -- Steve Szmidt They that would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
One word of caution in case you have X10 equipment. I recently found out the hard way that some of APC's newest UPS models will cause interference with X10 signals going over the powerline. I'm not talking about the X10 signal not going through the UPC - that would be expected. I'm saying that in my case it interfered with X10 signals elsewhere in the circuit the UPC was on. Plugging the UPC into an X10 noise filter solved the problem. Steve steve szmidt wrote: The days of shoddy UPS's are long gone, unless you always buy the cheapest stuff you can find all the time. In which case you might be able to find something crappy. APC gives good support and make decent UPS's at a decent price. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
Having worked in the telephone equipment business for years, I've found that there are those customers who want the cheapest possible solution -- a refurbished PBX running on the same circuit breaker that the rest of the stuff in the janitor's closet does. And there are those customers who see that the real cost savings is in having a reliable phone system. Those customers put the PBX into as controlled an environment as possible. At a bare minimum, they purchase a good-quality UPS; preferred would be an environment that would support a finicky main frame computer -- air conditioning, humidity control, etc. Businesses get what they pay for. But, if they use Asterisk, they can take the savings they have realized over buying a traditional PBX, buy a decent UPS, and still have a chunk of change left over. From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of David Brodbeck Sent: Mon 1/24/2005 9:49 AM To: 'Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion' Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk -Original Message- From: Shoval Tomer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On the other hand, telephony down time is unacceptable. PBXs have a counter part. Plain old PBXs are expected to run 24x7. real 24x7, with uptimes of 99.999. And if you think about it, they actually do. That would be news to the people who installed our (non-Asterisk) PBX. It has no battery backup at all. When the power goes out, so do all our phones. (Except for the fax machines, which don't go through the PBX.) ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users winmail.dat___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
On Monday 24 January 2005 12:12, Steve Prior wrote: One word of caution in case you have X10 equipment. I recently found out the hard way that some of APC's newest UPS models will cause interference with X10 signals going over the powerline. I'm not talking about the X10 signal not going through the UPC - that would be expected. I'm saying that in my case it interfered with X10 signals elsewhere in the circuit the UPC was on. Plugging the UPC into an X10 noise filter solved the problem. Steve steve szmidt wrote: The days of shoddy UPS's are long gone, unless you always buy the cheapest stuff you can find all the time. In which case you might be able to find something crappy. APC gives good support and make decent UPS's at a decent price. That's interesting. Good fix too! I suspect that might not be all too uncommon as they all generate tones for the frequence. Have you tried it with a few different UPS's? -- Steve Szmidt They that would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
Steve Prior wrote: One word of caution in case you have X10 equipment. I recently found out the hard way that some of APC's newest UPS models will cause interference with X10 signals going over the powerline. I'm not talking about the X10 signal not going through the UPC - that would be expected. I'm saying that in my case it interfered with X10 signals elsewhere in the circuit the UPC was on. Plugging the UPC into an X10 noise filter solved the problem. I have an X10 dimmer switch in my bedroom. Initially, it operated fine, no troulbe to speak of. Then, all of a sudden, it started randomly turning on the main room light in the middle of the night. I didn't notice this for a while, mainly because it doesn't bother me unless I'm already awake. But my wife mentioned that it wakes her up and she has to get up to turn it off. (The remote switch seems to have give out, but that could be the battery.) I am remembering now, that one day I got mad at the power blinking out so I brought in a heavy duty (well, at least heavy, two part, average geek would only want to move one piece at a time) UPS for my asterisk box. Could this be a symptom of the interference you spoke of? What filters have you used? Thanks. -- Andrew Thompson http://aktzero.com/ http://dev.asteriskdocs.org/ ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
I've had good luck with CyberPower, what was your issue? Not having hot swap batteries kinda sucks, but besides that I don't have any issues. CyberPower has also been very good to me. A couple times batteries went dead just out of warranty and they sent me fresh ones no questions asked. On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 10:53:29 -0500, David Brodbeck [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Don't go *too* cheap, though. I had a couple of really cheap (under $40) CyberPower UPS's that ended up causing more outages than they protected against. I've had good luck with APC, but keep in mind that the batteries have a finite lifespan. On SmartUPS and BackUPS Pro models, you'll get a warning that the battery needs replacing, but on regular BackUPS models the first hint you get that the battery is bad is when the power goes out and the UPS doesn't work. This is sometimes okay for workstation use, but I'd hesitate to put one of those on a server. I find that the batteries in our APC UPS's generally last four to five years for stand-alone units, three years for rack-mount ones. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users -- Is it something someone said, was it something someone said? ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
Andrew Thompson wrote: Steve Prior wrote: I have an X10 dimmer switch in my bedroom. Initially, it operated fine, no troulbe to speak of. Then, all of a sudden, it started randomly turning on the main room light in the middle of the night. I didn't notice this for a while, mainly because it doesn't bother me unless I'm already awake. But my wife mentioned that it wakes her up and she has to get up to turn it off. (The remote switch seems to have give out, but that could be the battery.) I am remembering now, that one day I got mad at the power blinking out so I brought in a heavy duty (well, at least heavy, two part, average geek would only want to move one piece at a time) UPS for my asterisk box. Could this be a symptom of the interference you spoke of? What filters have you used? Thanks. My problem was of the modules aren't receiving signals anymore variety which would indicate that something (in this case the UPS) was putting out noise on the power lines, not what you experienced. You might have a module that's getting flaky or something else is generating signals. The filter I used had been siting in my closet for a few years, but I probably bought it from smarthome.com and they have a couple of them. Steve ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
Woohoo, something I know something about. If you experience lights turning on randomly, that's usually not a sign of interference as produced by a UPS or somesuch. It would indicate stray signals, for example from a neighbor using X10 on the same housecode. Change your house-code and see if the problem persists. If there's no neighbor in sight, check your -- gasp -- garage door opener. Some older Stanley models will actually generate an X10 signal to turn on an interior light with the garage light. Quite a surprise to me as well, when I first detected this a few years back. That said, a decent noise-filter for any HF equipment (UPS/PCs/Monitors/TV) is a good idea. If you're planning on extending your X10, a whole-house filter and a phase-coupler are also good investments. -Original Message- From: Andrew Thompson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 1:49 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk Steve Prior wrote: One word of caution in case you have X10 equipment. I recently found out the hard way that some of APC's newest UPS models will cause interference with X10 signals going over the powerline. I'm not talking about the X10 signal not going through the UPC - that would be expected. I'm saying that in my case it interfered with X10 signals elsewhere in the circuit the UPC was on. Plugging the UPC into an X10 noise filter solved the problem. I have an X10 dimmer switch in my bedroom. Initially, it operated fine, no troulbe to speak of. Then, all of a sudden, it started randomly turning on the main room light in the middle of the night. I didn't notice this for a while, mainly because it doesn't bother me unless I'm already awake. But my wife mentioned that it wakes her up and she has to get up to turn it off. (The remote switch seems to have give out, but that could be the battery.) I am remembering now, that one day I got mad at the power blinking out so I brought in a heavy duty (well, at least heavy, two part, average geek would only want to move one piece at a time) UPS for my asterisk box. Could this be a symptom of the interference you spoke of? What filters have you used? Thanks. -- Andrew Thompson http://aktzero.com/ http://dev.asteriskdocs.org/ ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/aster isk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
steve szmidt wrote: On Monday 24 January 2005 12:12, Steve Prior wrote: One word of caution in case you have X10 equipment. I recently found out the hard way that some of APC's newest UPS models will cause interference with X10 signals going over the powerline. I'm not talking about the X10 signal not going through the UPC - that would be expected. I'm saying that in my case it interfered with X10 signals elsewhere in the circuit the UPC was on. Plugging the UPC into an X10 noise filter solved the problem. Steve That's interesting. Good fix too! I suspect that might not be all too uncommon as they all generate tones for the frequence. Have you tried it with a few different UPS's? I do have other UPS's in the house that didn't cause a problem, but there are lots of factors (X10 is a pretty hard thing to make reliable on a good day). I've had all sorts of stuff cause noise on the line including a breadmaker and some old IBM displays. If you're serious about X10 for home automation it's a good idea to have a few noise filters around for things that come up. I only mentioned this on this list because I thought the same sort of person who might put a PBX in their house probably has some X10 there too unless they did something else very high end. Steve ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
-Original Message- From: Jon Radon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] I've had good luck with CyberPower, what was your issue? I had two of them. The first one, after about a year, would just randomly switch off or glitch, causing the computer connected to it to reboot. The second one lasted two or three years, then suddenly started acting like the incoming power was off, even when it wasn't. It did this briefly, intermittently for a couple of months, and then the condition became permanent and it would no longer switch to the AC line or charge its batteries. I gave up on the brand at that point, figuring an unreliable UPS was even worse than none at all. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
On Mon, 24 Jan 2005, steve szmidt wrote: The days of shoddy UPS's are long gone, unless you always buy the cheapest stuff you can find all the time. In which case you might be able to find something crappy. APC gives good support and make decent UPS's at a decent price. The SmartUPS ups's from APC that are = 1kVA seem to be of a lot better quality then their smaller siblings. We have lost none of the 1kVA or larger ups:es while several of the smaller ones have died of electronics failures. The larger ups's seem to have 5-year batteries while the smaller ones have 3-year batteries. APC use delta conversion technology which means that they are efficient, but cannot correct some errors and have to fall back to the batteries. This trade off may be good or bad. As usual do your research before buying. Peter ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
The usual setup for a computer is hosting a critical functions is to use a server that has two (or more) power supplies with an A/C power cord comming from each. You then connect each cord to it's own UPS. I typical small PC server would have two internal power suppies and two UPSes. With this kind of setup even the cruddy UPS describbed below would be just an annoyance and the system would not go down. --- David Brodbeck [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -Original Message- From: Jon Radon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] I've had good luck with CyberPower, what was your issue? I had two of them. The first one, after about a year, would just randomly switch off or glitch, causing the computer connected to it to reboot. The second one lasted two or three years, then suddenly started acting like the incoming power was off, even when it wasn't. It did this briefly, intermittently for a couple of months, and then the condition became permanent and it would no longer switch to the AC line or charge its batteries. I gave up on the brand at that point, figuring an unreliable UPS was even worse than none at all. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users = Chris Albertson Home: 310-376-1029 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cell: 310-990-7550 Office: 310-336-5189 [EMAIL PROTECTED] KG6OMK __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
[Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
I'd considering an UPS backup system for my Asterisk server. I understand this is a linux issue, not a * issue, except for the following... Is the harddisk activity on a standard asterisk install such that I don't really have to worry if the power cuts?? As I understand, if HD activity is minimal, the probability of HD failure is significantly reduced. P.S. Power regulation is not needed, only protection against instantaneous power loss. Mike Sander -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.2 - Release Date: 21/01/2005 ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
Why risk it? Just go snag a cheap UPS from your local store. Just get something with enough run time to shut the system down gracefully. On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 08:04:36 +1100, Mike Sander [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'd considering an UPS backup system for my Asterisk server. I understand this is a linux issue, not a * issue, except for the following... Is the harddisk activity on a standard asterisk install such that I don't really have to worry if the power cuts?? As I understand, if HD activity is minimal, the probability of HD failure is significantly reduced. P.S. Power regulation is not needed, only protection against instantaneous power loss. Mike Sander -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.2 - Release Date: 21/01/2005 ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users -- Is it something someone said, was it something someone said? ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
On January 23, 2005 04:04 pm, Mike Sander wrote: Is the harddisk activity on a standard asterisk install such that I don't really have to worry if the power cuts?? Not typically; there isn't much writing going on, this is true. Are you that cash strapped that a $75 UPS with a serial port is out of your budget? As I understand, if HD activity is minimal, the probability of HD failure is significantly reduced. HDDs don't fail because they lose power. You get data corruption when writing and losing power, and you get filesystem corruption if the filesystem/OS is postponing writes to increase write performance. That's not HDD failure. -A. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
Andrew Kohlsmith wrote: On January 23, 2005 04:04 pm, Mike Sander wrote: Is the harddisk activity on a standard asterisk install such that I don't really have to worry if the power cuts?? Not typically; there isn't much writing going on, this is true. Are you that cash strapped that a $75 UPS with a serial port is out of your budget? No kidding... the cost of a server than won't come up again is much more substantial than the countermeasure... the $75 (you can get a 350 Va for $45 even!) and a slightly less energy efficient system. If you can afford to spend more, a decent active UPS would keep your power conditioned as well... As I understand, if HD activity is minimal, the probability of HD failure is significantly reduced. HDDs don't fail because they lose power. Unless the heads crash, which can happen if power fails. I know HDD manufacturers have done head unloading and such recently, but the risk is still higher if power is suddenly lost during a write. Nick ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
On Jan 23, 2005, at 7:30 PM, Nick Bachmann wrote: As I understand, if HD activity is minimal, the probability of HD failure is significantly reduced. HDDs don't fail because they lose power. Unless the heads crash, which can happen if power fails. I know HDD manufacturers have done head unloading and such recently, but the risk is still higher if power is suddenly lost during a write. And, in fact, some drives *do* have problems with sudden outages. Some recent IBM drives will interpret sectors that were only partially written when the power failed as bad blocks and refuse to read or write to them when the power comes back on. I wouldn't be surprised if other drives have similar problems. FWIW, we have a drive in a test system at work that started developing problems immediately after a power outage a couple months ago. It might be just a coincidence, but the timing was right--the power went out in the afternoon, and the evening SMART media check found bad sectors. Scott ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
And, in fact, some drives *do* have problems with sudden outages. Some Relative to the cost of a cheap UPS, downtime is much much much more expensive. You can power pretty much any single server you want for ~$150 CDN, and shut it down cleanly when the power goes out. Compare $150 with the cost of rebuilding the machine and it's money well spent. That doesn't even consider the screaming customers. Every machine I have in the field with a hard disk has a UPS - sometimes only a 350VA UPS, but a UPS none the less. The machines that boot from CF cards are a different story... ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
On January 23, 2005 10:30 pm, Nick Bachmann wrote: HDDs don't fail because they lose power. Unless the heads crash, which can happen if power fails. I know HDD manufacturers have done head unloading and such recently, but the risk is still higher if power is suddenly lost during a write. Why would the heads come in contact with the platters on a powerfail? The arms are very rigid -- the heads only float a few thousandths of an inch over the platters -- something that I don't believe has anything to do with the platters spinning (that may *help* but I don't think the heads will contact the platters if they're not spinning) and besides -- any drive manufactured in the last 5 years will autopark on power fail... There's an awful lot of energy stored up in the spindle motor that is used to slam the heads into the parking zone... -A. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
On 24/01/2005, at 3:26 PM, Andrew Kohlsmith wrote: On January 23, 2005 10:30 pm, Nick Bachmann wrote: HDDs don't fail because they lose power. Unless the heads crash, which can happen if power fails. I know HDD manufacturers have done head unloading and such recently, but the risk is still higher if power is suddenly lost during a write. Why would the heads come in contact with the platters on a powerfail? The arms are very rigid -- the heads only float a few thousandths of an inch over the platters -- something that I don't believe has anything to do with the platters spinning (that may *help* but I don't think the heads will contact the platters if they're not spinning) and besides -- any drive manufactured in the last 5 years will autopark on power fail... There's an awful lot of energy stored up in the spindle motor that is used to slam the heads into the parking zone... Yet it is still a problem, and still happens. In fact, I've had three machines in the last three months. It was enough to convince the cusotmers that a UPS was indeed what they needed to protect their investment. A UPS is a good investment. It protects hardware against anything going wrong, and allows for those rare, but painful blackouts that sometimes occur. Andrew ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] UPS for Asterisk
On Sun, 23 Jan 2005, Andrew Kohlsmith wrote: Why would the heads come in contact with the platters on a powerfail? The arms are very rigid -- the heads only float a few thousandths of an inch over the platters -- something that I don't believe has anything to do with the platters spinning (that may *help* but I don't think the heads will contact the platters if they're not spinning) and besides -- any drive manufactured in the last 5 years will autopark on power fail... There's an awful lot of energy stored up in the spindle motor that is used to slam the heads into the parking zone... Actually, the only thing that keeps the heads off the platter is the fact that they are spinning. The movement of the platters cause an airstream which the heads float on. This airstream is what keeps the heads at just the right distance. The arms are not very rigid at all in the axis direction of the disks. This has been the standard design in hard disks since a very long time. The comment about autopark is correct. Actually, with the voice coils used on modern disks the energy needed to retract the heads is already stored in the return spring. The platter energy is sometimes used to complete any sector write that is in progress. Some hard disks did not do this and those generated bad sectors every time they were powered down in mid-write. Peter ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
