ESX 3.5 UPS support

[FredH]

I just setup a esx 3.5 server that will have multiple windows 2003 R2 servers running on it.

I'm extremmly dissapointed that I can't find anyway to hiook up my APC Smartups to the esx server. To me this a fatal flaw. If my UPS battery dies am I to just let the guests crash?

There must be some way to use Nut 2.2 on ESX to monitor the UPS and shut down the guests and the esx server if needed.

[Jackobli]

I will check in the office, since there we got APC and ESX...

But I think the collegues there have the APC-Agent installed on every guest listening to Battery-Alerts.

[Liz]

Thread moved

by Liz your friendly community moderator.

[patrickds]

You can install 'APC Powerchute network shutdown' in your guests and host.

You will have to get a network module installed in your UPS instead of the serial controller, though.

Program is freely downloadable from APC, after registration,and there is an ESX version.

Just don't forget to open the right ports on your ESX host for the UPS communication. (for the web interface to the agent, and for signalling from the UPS)

This way you can configure the shutdown of the guests independently from the host, instead of letting ESX bring them down on shutdown.

[ascari]

Correct. I had the same problem and i have solved:

esxcfg-firewall -o 80,tcp,out,"APC PowerChute Port 80"

esxcfg-firewall -o 3052,tcp,out,"APC PowerChute Port 3052"

esxcfg-firewall -o 3052,tcp,in,"APC PowerChute Port 3052"

esxcfg-firewall -o 3052,udp,out,"APC PowerChute Port 3052"

esxcfg-firewall -o 3052,udp,in,"APC PowerChute Port 3052"

and then:

rpm -ihv pcns-2.2.1-100.i386.rpm

/usr/local/bin/PowerChute/PCNSConfig.sh

Type 1 and press enter

Type in the IP address of the Management Card and press enter

Port 80

Enter the Username, Password and Authentication Phrase

Repeat for the second management card

Answer No to registering another management card

Answer Yes to starting the service

NOTE: Authentication Phrase is: "admin user phrase"

Other link:

Bye Alberto

[FredH]

I've looked into using the apc-agent. But I can't stress enough that the managment of ups power monitoring lies with the main OS esx server, it and it alone should be responsible for shuting down the guest OS's and restarting them and/or shutting down and guests and the host if the battery level goes critical.

I believe I have the solution almost worked out using NUT. As I stated before VMware should have thought about this long before anyone asks. Soft shutdowns are both critical to guest OS's as they are to the Host OS.

[patrickds]

Even with the APC agent you can just install it on the host, and let esx take your VMs down.

I just pointed out that you have the possibility to use agents in the guests as well; which gives some more flexibility in how you want everything to go down.

You can define different delays for the guests, and in this way establish an order in which you want them going down, or keep some running until the last moment.

If you let ESX decide all, and the remaining battery life doesn't quite match the calculation, you risk everything getting shutdown hard instead of correctly.

I usually take VMs down about 10 minutes before the host, so that if power would get restored before the host is down, i can keep it running and just start up the VMs again.

But of course it's all about what you prefer, just pointing out possibilities.

And i've experienced that Network Shutdown is quite easy to get running on an ESX host, so i just don't bother trying to get anything else going anymore.

A network module also offers some remote management and alerting capabilities.

[tosi_0083]

Hello,everyone.

you can shtudown esx3.5 by install ups agent to service console,but esx3i can not do the same method.

hint "esx3i ups"

[FredH]

With esxi this is no longer relavent.

Point of interest, I was able to implament my own nut 2.2 solution. It worked very well for a number of years.