Back from the dead

Ok, so we’re back!

Simplicidade was down for a couple of days. The good news is that it wasn’t a hardware problem. When I got to the data-center where we are hosted, the machine was powered down (!!).

Nuno looked at the logs and apparently the kernel was upgraded and at the end it automagically rebooted. The problem is that after the reboot, it did a halt. We’ll have to figure this one out.

The bad news is that it took too long to get the server back up. There where two problems: the procedure to get access to the data-center was not clear to me, I’m fixing this. The second problem is that I didn’t have the time, and unfortunately I hadn’t put Nuno and Rui as authorized persons also. They will be now.

The second problem has also some personal implications to me. I don’t like stress factors that can be solved by technology (well, price conscious technology…), so I was looking around for some solution to reboot and look at the console remotely. This is a job for IP KVM stuff.

The problem with those setups is that the lowest price I found for a single port IP KVM switch starts at $500 US. I should be able to get one in portugal for €400, but it’s still expensive. I’m looking at the MegaRAC K1 from AMI.

While at their site I came across this other board, the MegaRAC G3 that seems very nice also. And best of all, my usual hardware dealer has one in stock (he was not sure if it was a G3 or a G2) and he will lend it to me for testing. If the price is right, I think we’ll have a remote KVM in no time.