XenServer and APC UPS protection
-
So this topic here outlines what needs to be done to power off your VM's and host.
Sadly it requires a physical installation of Windows, with XenCenter, and APCs PowerChute software to operate. This to me seems insane.
So what are others doing to shutdown your VM's and hosts using your UPS?
-
I know XO has the emergency shutdown function, but there has to be some way (besides the above) to be able to do this.
-
apcupsd should handle this for you. It's worked for me with a number of different UPS brands, on XenServer.
You'll might need to get fix the base yum repo fixed to get dependencies installed, it's been a while so I'm not remembering what issues I had if any.
-
@DustinB3403 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
So this topic here outlines what needs to be done to power off your VM's and host.
Sadly it requires a physical installation of Windows, with XenCenter, and APCs PowerChute software to operate. This to me seems insane.
So what are others doing to shutdown your VM's and hosts using your UPS?
My config just shuts down the host with 10 minutes of battery power left. XenServer tries to shut down any guests nicely before turning off. The standard wait time is 3 minutes for shutting down the guests, which is why I start it at the 10 minute mark.
-
I wonder if this could be integrated into XO some how.. . .
-
@DustinB3403 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
I wonder if this could be integrated into XO some how.. . .
Ah, here we go the Mint repos have apcupsd-cgi. Which is a web interface. Even if it's not already implemented, it shouldn't be to hard to integrate it as an add on.
-
Hrm... I'll take a look into it.
-
I wonder if APCUPSD works with networked UPS as well..
As that would be the goal, completely skip USB integration and go to the network.
-
@DustinB3403 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
I wonder if APCUPSD works with networked UPS as well..
As that would be the goal, completely skip USB integration and go to the network.
I think it can, but I haven't set that up. Would be silly to me if it couldn't, but I've seen to many silly missing things in my life already, one more wouldn't be a surprise.
-
Yeah.. my issue is that XS integration with USB means you either have to grant all VM's access to the device, or nothing at all.
Which is what I'd want to avoid. Having to dedicate a Windows system just to operate XC in the event of losing power, while simple, seems really stupid and expensive, not to mention dangerous has you have to have a system connected to your hosts using the root credentials through XC, but it most likely would be completely un-monitored.
XO's emergency mode is a good solution, but it requires action from an administrator.
-
@DustinB3403 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
Yeah.. my issue is that XS integration with USB means you either have to grant all VM's access to the device, or nothing at all.
Which is what I'd want to avoid. Having to dedicate a Windows system just to operate XC in the event of losing power, while simple, seems really stupid and expensive, not to mention dangerous has you have to have a system connected to your hosts using the root credentials through XC, but it most likely would be completely un-monitored.
XO's emergency mode is a good solution, but it requires action from an administrator.
Either you completely missed my point, or I wasn't very clear.
XenServer shuts down the guests for you, no need for them all to have access to the usb.
-
@travisdh1 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
@DustinB3403 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
Yeah.. my issue is that XS integration with USB means you either have to grant all VM's access to the device, or nothing at all.
Which is what I'd want to avoid. Having to dedicate a Windows system just to operate XC in the event of losing power, while simple, seems really stupid and expensive, not to mention dangerous has you have to have a system connected to your hosts using the root credentials through XC, but it most likely would be completely un-monitored.
XO's emergency mode is a good solution, but it requires action from an administrator.
Either you completely missed my point, or I wasn't very clear.
XenServer shuts down the guests for you, no need for them all to have access to the usb.
Right, you tell the hypervisor to shut down. Its normal process should already be setup to handle graceful shutdown of the guests.
-
@DustinB3403 also depending on the model of your UPS, you could go with an Raspberry Pi and either NUT or APCUPSD to monitor the UPS and send the shutdown command to XS.
-
@travisdh1 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
@DustinB3403 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
Yeah.. my issue is that XS integration with USB means you either have to grant all VM's access to the device, or nothing at all.
Which is what I'd want to avoid. Having to dedicate a Windows system just to operate XC in the event of losing power, while simple, seems really stupid and expensive, not to mention dangerous has you have to have a system connected to your hosts using the root credentials through XC, but it most likely would be completely un-monitored.
XO's emergency mode is a good solution, but it requires action from an administrator.
Either you completely missed my point, or I wasn't very clear.
XenServer shuts down the guests for you, no need for them all to have access to the usb.
No I didn't miss the point, the official way to do this from Citrix is to dedicate a physical windows system. That was my point.
-
@JaredBusch said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
@DustinB3403 also depending on the model of your UPS, you could go with an Raspberry Pi and either NUT or APCUPSD to monitor the UPS and send the shutdown command to XS.
I considered this, but don't have any to work with.
-
@DustinB3403 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
@travisdh1 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
@DustinB3403 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
Yeah.. my issue is that XS integration with USB means you either have to grant all VM's access to the device, or nothing at all.
Which is what I'd want to avoid. Having to dedicate a Windows system just to operate XC in the event of losing power, while simple, seems really stupid and expensive, not to mention dangerous has you have to have a system connected to your hosts using the root credentials through XC, but it most likely would be completely un-monitored.
XO's emergency mode is a good solution, but it requires action from an administrator.
Either you completely missed my point, or I wasn't very clear.
XenServer shuts down the guests for you, no need for them all to have access to the usb.
No I didn't miss the point, the official way to do this from Citrix is to dedicate a physical windows system. That was my point.
They must have a reason for it, but, why? Just, why? Is this another "Software RAID is bad" scenario from them?
-
@travisdh1 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
@DustinB3403 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
@travisdh1 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
@DustinB3403 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
Yeah.. my issue is that XS integration with USB means you either have to grant all VM's access to the device, or nothing at all.
Which is what I'd want to avoid. Having to dedicate a Windows system just to operate XC in the event of losing power, while simple, seems really stupid and expensive, not to mention dangerous has you have to have a system connected to your hosts using the root credentials through XC, but it most likely would be completely un-monitored.
XO's emergency mode is a good solution, but it requires action from an administrator.
Either you completely missed my point, or I wasn't very clear.
XenServer shuts down the guests for you, no need for them all to have access to the usb.
No I didn't miss the point, the official way to do this from Citrix is to dedicate a physical windows system. That was my point.
They must have a reason for it, but, why? Just, why? Is this another "Software RAID is bad" scenario from them?
Yeah I don't know, the ups monitoring solution is use a Windows system, install the software and connect xencenter to your servers.
-
@DustinB3403 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
@travisdh1 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
@DustinB3403 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
@travisdh1 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
@DustinB3403 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
Yeah.. my issue is that XS integration with USB means you either have to grant all VM's access to the device, or nothing at all.
Which is what I'd want to avoid. Having to dedicate a Windows system just to operate XC in the event of losing power, while simple, seems really stupid and expensive, not to mention dangerous has you have to have a system connected to your hosts using the root credentials through XC, but it most likely would be completely un-monitored.
XO's emergency mode is a good solution, but it requires action from an administrator.
Either you completely missed my point, or I wasn't very clear.
XenServer shuts down the guests for you, no need for them all to have access to the usb.
No I didn't miss the point, the official way to do this from Citrix is to dedicate a physical windows system. That was my point.
They must have a reason for it, but, why? Just, why? Is this another "Software RAID is bad" scenario from them?
Yeah I don't know, the ups monitoring solution is use a Windows system, install the software and connect xencenter to your servers.
Which to me seems insane, the hypervisor should support this without the need to use a Windows system.
Although it's simple, it just seems like a poor solution.
-
@DustinB3403 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
@DustinB3403 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
@travisdh1 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
@DustinB3403 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
@travisdh1 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
@DustinB3403 said in XenServer and APC UPS protection:
Yeah.. my issue is that XS integration with USB means you either have to grant all VM's access to the device, or nothing at all.
Which is what I'd want to avoid. Having to dedicate a Windows system just to operate XC in the event of losing power, while simple, seems really stupid and expensive, not to mention dangerous has you have to have a system connected to your hosts using the root credentials through XC, but it most likely would be completely un-monitored.
XO's emergency mode is a good solution, but it requires action from an administrator.
Either you completely missed my point, or I wasn't very clear.
XenServer shuts down the guests for you, no need for them all to have access to the usb.
No I didn't miss the point, the official way to do this from Citrix is to dedicate a physical windows system. That was my point.
They must have a reason for it, but, why? Just, why? Is this another "Software RAID is bad" scenario from them?
Yeah I don't know, the ups monitoring solution is use a Windows system, install the software and connect xencenter to your servers.
Which to me seems insane, the hypervisor should support this without the need to use a Windows system.
Although it's simple, it just seems like a poor solution.
Does a shutdown command to XS from an SSH session initiate the guest shutdowns?
If so, any UPS monitor tool will work because they can all initiate commands.
-
@JaredBusch Yes SSH works to shutdown a host and guest.
