new server setup discussion

[mdettweiler]

Note: this thread was split off from the "LLRnet servers for NPLB" thread at the suggestion of henryzz. It all started with this post...

Originally Posted by gd_barnes

My server machine has been moved upstairs and along with my modem and router are now connected to a UPS backup. I tested everything for 5 mins. with the UPS unplugged and everything still worked great. No more power outages on GB servers!

As stated previously, you might check your clients connected to GB servers in the next hour or so and sometime tomorrow to verify that they are all sending and receiving pairs OK. I checked all 3 GB LLRnet servers on one of my clients and they were sending and receiving fine. I didn't check the PRPnet servers.


Gary

Just to verify, you have all of the following connected to the UPS:

1. crunchford (the current GB server box, for the uninitiated reading this)
2. your cable modem
3. your wireless router
4. your color laser printer
5. your hair dryer

If all of those are in there, then yes, there should be no more outages. The main reason why I'm asking this is because I don't particularly recall your mentioning the wireless router as being one of the things you were going to plug into the UPS; that's a key link in the chain, so it definitely needs to be plugged in. (When we eventually get the smoothwall box set up, that will go in the UPS in place of the wireless router.)

BTW, I just verified that all the PRPnet servers are working OK, too. All of their web pages are accessible, and from their console output they seem to be handing out pairs normally.

[gd_barnes]

Originally Posted by mdettweiler

Just to verify, you have all of the following connected to the UPS:

1. crunchford (the current GB server box, for the uninitiated reading this)
2. your cable modem
3. your wireless router
4. your color laser printer
5. your hair dryer

If all of those are in there, then yes, there should be no more outages. The main reason why I'm asking this is because I don't particularly recall your mentioning the wireless router as being one of the things you were going to plug into the UPS; that's a key link in the chain, so it definitely needs to be plugged in. (When we eventually get the smoothwall box set up, that will go in the UPS in place of the wireless router.)

BTW, I just verified that all the PRPnet servers are working OK, too. All of their web pages are accessible, and from their console output they seem to be handing out pairs normally.

Oh, sorry, I forgot the laser printer and my hair dryer. Oh wait, I don't have a hair dryer. lol Yes, the following are plugged into the UPS:

Computer, modem, router, my land line phone, a desk lamp, and last but not least: an extra "clip on" small fan that blows continuously into Crunchford to keep it ~3-4 degrees C cooler as a result of being upstairs vs. the basement (I keep the cover off off of it, which helps by 1-2 degrees also). It was typically running ~65 C upstairs vs. ~67 C in the basement so the fan definitely helped since it's about 2-3 F hotter upstairs.

Having the phone on the UPS is especially handy because I have to reset its clock and it makes a terrible beeping noise for quite a while after an outage until I reset it.

It's funny you mentioned the printer. There are 2 more things in that immediate vacinity that I didn't have outlets to plug into the UPS...my printer and a fax that I use for the business. They aren't needed for the short duration of outages that I have.


Gary

[AMDave]

Don't forget the refrigerator!!!

Warm beer is a sin against human kind.

Congrats on the new setup.

[mdettweiler]

Originally Posted by gd_barnes

Oh, sorry, I forgot the laster printer and my hair dryer. Oh wait, I don't have a hair dryer. lol Yes, the following are plugged into the UPS:

Computer, modem, router, my land line phone, a desk lamp, and last but not least: an extra "clip on" small fan that blows continuously into Crunchford to keep it ~3-4 degrees C cooler as a result of being upstairs vs. the basement (I keep the cover off off of it, which helps by 1-2 degrees also). It was typically running ~65 C upstairs vs. ~67 C in the basement so the fan definitely helped since it's about 2-3 F hotter upstairs.

Having the phone on the UPS is especially handy because I have to reset its clock and it makes a terrible beeping noise for quite a while after an outage until I reset it.

It's funny you mentioned the printer. There are 2 more things in that immediate vacinity that I didn't have outlets to plug into the UPS...my printer and a fax that I use for the business. They aren't needed for the short duration of outages that I have.

Ergh! That was Xyzzy, not me. Believe me, laser printers (and hair dryers! lol) take a lot of power when they're on full-power mode (I have one). I would most definitely not recommend putting one on a UPS.

Anyway, other than that, though, sounds like you're good to go.

[gd_barnes]

Originally Posted by mdettweiler

Ergh! That was Xyzzy, not me. Believe me, laser printers (and hair dryers! lol) take a lot of power when they're on full-power mode (I have one). I would most definitely not recommend putting one on a UPS.

Anyway, other than that, though, sounds like you're good to go.

Just figured you were being funny anyway. I read in the UPS instructions not to connect a laser printer. There is a strange and rather annoying thing about the future set up: When I move all of the servers to the new machine, which I haven't built yet, I'm probably going to need to buy a 2nd UPS that is very small power, just for the modem, router, and phone. I need the Window's desktop in the area of the router/modem in my bedroom and it would get too warm, loud, and physically awkward to have 2 new machines in there. Once the new server machine is set up, it and the current "big" UPS will go back to the basement. It's better that way because I really want to back up about 3 quads. According to my calculations, the big UPS can handle at least that much load for a few hours without anything else connected to it so that should work well. My longest outage has been ~2 hours and I seem to have a little one of 5-10 secs. about once every couple of months, the latter of which have proven the most problematic for the servers on my machine.

It would be a horrendous headache and hassle to move the modem/router to the basement so that's out. I'll probably just get a small UPS locally for those and the phone.


Gary

[mdettweiler]

Originally Posted by gd_barnes

Just figured you were being funny anyway. I read in the UPS instructions not to connect a laser printer. There is a strange and rather annoying thing about the future set up: When I move all of the servers to the new machine, which I haven't built yet, I'm probably going to need to buy a 2nd UPS that is very small power, just for the modem, router, and phone. I need the Window's desktop in the area of the router/modem in my bedroom and it would get too warm, loud, and physically awkward to have 2 new machines in there. Once the new server machine is set up, it and the current "big" UPS will go back to the basement. It's better that way because I really want to back up about 3 quads. According to my calculations, the big UPS can handle at least that much load for a few hours without anything else connected to it so that should work well. My longest outage has been ~2 hours and I seem to have a little one of 5-10 secs. about once every couple of months, the latter of which have proven the most problematic for the servers on my machine.

It would be a horrendous headache and hassle to move the modem/router to the basement so that's out. I'll probably just get a small UPS locally for those and the phone.


Gary

Ooh, I just thought of something. When we get the Smoothwall router set up, that's going to need to fit into your setup right where your router is now--i.e., it needs to be on a UPS (one big enough to keep at least one computer going), and it also needs to be able to plug directly into the modem. We have two options for how to handle this: a) put the Smoothwall in your bedroom; or b) run a cable to the basement to connect the Smoothwall to the modem. Since A would entail putting a second computer in your bedroom, B is probably the more workable of the two. Note that the cable would have to be separate from the existing line to connect the quads in your basement with the router upstairs; it needs to be a direct line to the port on the back of your modem. I'm not sure exactly how much work that would entail given your current setup.

[gd_barnes]

Originally Posted by mdettweiler

Ooh, I just thought of something. When we get the Smoothwall router set up, that's going to need to fit into your setup right where your router is now--i.e., it needs to be on a UPS (one big enough to keep at least one computer going), and it also needs to be able to plug directly into the modem. We have two options for how to handle this: a) put the Smoothwall in your bedroom; or b) run a cable to the basement to connect the Smoothwall to the modem. Since A would entail putting a second computer in your bedroom, B is probably the more workable of the two. Note that the cable would have to be separate from the existing line to connect the quads in your basement with the router upstairs; it needs to be a direct line to the port on the back of your modem. I'm not sure exactly how much work that would entail given your current setup.

I'm assuming a smoothwall router would draw very little power and the machine would make little noise because it's not really running programs. Therefore I could leave it in my bedroom and still plug it into a separate low-power UPS. So in the low-power UPS, I'd have the smoothwall router machine, regular router, and modem (required) as well as phone and lamp (optional).

I'll probably test it completely...that is make sure the low-power UPS is fully charged, plug everything into the UPS, make sure everything is turned on/running, unplug the UPS, and see how long everything stays turned on/runs before the UPS runs out of juice. Ideally I'd want 2 hours. If it falls a little short, I won't plug the lamp or phone into it, although I'm not sure those would make a very big difference.

What a pain! I really don't want to run another separate line down to the basement. That was a big enough pain making all of the machines with wired internet connections to begin with. I realize I/we could use the same vent as before but I'd rather not.

BTW, one thing I'm unclear on at this point: Will the smoothwall router be in addition to the regular router? If it is INSTEAD of the regular router, that removes one thing that needs to be plugged into the UPS in the future.


Gary

[mdettweiler]

Originally Posted by gd_barnes

I'm assuming a smoothwall router would draw very little power and the machine would make little noise because it's not really running programs. Therefore I could leave it in my bedroom and still plug it into a separate low-power UPS. So in the low-power UPS, I'd have the smoothwall router machine, regular router, and modem (required) as well as phone and lamp (optional).

I'll probably test it completely...that is make sure the low-power UPS is fully charged, plug everything into the UPS, make sure everything is turned on/running, unplug the UPS, and see how long everything stays turned on/runs before the UPS runs out of juice. Ideally I'd want 2 hours. If it falls a little short, I won't plug the lamp or phone into it, although I'm not sure those would make a very big difference.

What a pain! I really don't want to run another separate line down to the basement. That was a big enough pain making all of the machines with wired internet connections to begin with. I realize I/we could use the same vent as before but I'd rather not.

BTW, one thing I'm unclear on at this point: Will the smoothwall router be in addition to the regular router? If it is INSTEAD of the regular router, that removes one thing that needs to be plugged into the UPS in the future.


Gary

Hmm...well, even when they're under low load, any computer will still take a certain minimum amount of power and produce a minimum amount of noise. Since the smoothwall box was originally your mom's, think of it this way: how much noise did it make when it was up and running for her? Since she presumably wasn't running any sort of distributed computing applications on it, the CPU was probably idle most of the time. You can expect it to behave similarly when it's running smoothwall.

That's the biggest disadvantage of having a smoothwall router--it has the bulk, noise, and power requirements of a regular computer. The same is true with the routers used by many companies or other such places with big networks: often, the router (even if it's not specifically running smoothwall) is an actual computer. In this case, though, it's definitely worth it for the added flexibility.

To answer your last question, the short answer is yes, the smoothwall will be instead of your regular router. The long answer is that they'll both be running together, but only the smoothwall will need to be plugged into a UPS. Here's why: the smoothwall will be quite a capable router, but the one thing it can't do is wireless. Thus, we still need your old wireless router--but, we're going to reconfigure it to serve as an access point only, i.e. it doesn't do any actual routing (leaving that to the smoothwall), and just serves to make the smoothwall's network wireless. The wireless access point won't need to be plugged into a UPS since without it, the wired part of the network (and therefore any UPSed crunchers and the server) will still function.

Max

P.S.: This discussion seems to be taking this thread on somewhat of a tangent. Perhaps we should move it to email?

[henryzz]

Originally Posted by mdettweiler

P.S.: This discussion seems to be taking this thread on somewhat of a tangent. Perhaps we should move it to email?

this sort of conversation is fun to read
just move it to its own thread

[mdettweiler]

Originally Posted by henryzz

this sort of conversation is fun to read
just move it to its own thread

LOL--okay, will do.

[gd_barnes]

That makes sense now on the smoothwall and wireless routers. It's good to know we won't have to have both plugged into the UPS. My mom's old machine was pretty quiet since it wasn't running any programs. So it's good to know that it would be the same level of quietness in the future. I had assumed that just using the machine as a smoothwall router would mean it wouldn't be running any "real" programs. Having my new I7 Window's desktop crunching at full bore and the smoothwall router machine not really running anything in my bedroom will be fine. My mom's machine is unusually small and I can run it headless after we get the smoothwall and remote access stuff set up so the space requirements will be minimal.

Good idea on the new thread. For people who want to run their own public or private servers in the future, this will be a good thread to refer to for setting things up.