Shutting down ESX 3.5 server and guests upon power failure - standard practice?

[wkrinsky]

I have been doing some research on this site and APC.com trying to find the basics in network shutdown of my server and guest OS's upon power failure; I have not had much luck finding this information.

Basically, I have two ESX 3.5 servers and two APC 3000 UPS's. In the event of a power failure will the PCNS installed on the server shutdown the guest servers prior to the ESX shutdown? Or is it standard practice to install the PCNS on all guest servers?

Secondly, is it possible to power on the ESX server and each guest server when the UPS has power available again?

I have been told by an APC rep that I am unable to power on the servers with there equipment and I should be looking at the Server BIOS features to do this; however, this sounds a unconventional... or does it?

[williamarrata]

Sorry, I don't have and APC to test this theory with but, From your VC click on your HOST then the Configuration TAB, look for a link called "Virtual Machine Startup/Shutdown". Configure tthe way you want your VMS to shutdown and startup in respect to the host. I think that should work.

Hope that helped.

[wkrinsky]

My concern is that the network shutdown utility will shut down the ESX host before it has a chance to shutdown the guest servers. I don't have the ESX server in front of me to test this unfortunately.

Also, my second question about powering back on still doesn't seem possible without the modification of the bios.

[williamarrata]

I disagree with that. I use this function to power down hosts with vms quickly. Then I can also start up vms in any order that i wish. It has nothing to do with the bios of the host.

[wkrinsky]

Interesting. So in the event of a power failure you set the APC power chute network shutdown to shutdown your esx server, which has been configured using your above method to shut down the guests first?

When power is restored, how does your ESX server know to turn back on?

[SuperGrobi73]

Hallo wkrinsky,

APC Network Shutdown is working very well with VMware ESX. I'm using as an every day tool for safely shutdown VMs before running out of battery and shutting down the ESX.

The way it works with ESX is, that you have to have an APC IP Managementcard for your APC USV.

Install the apc pcns client for esx in your ESX, add the ESX Firewall Profile to your ESX Server and connect your ESX to your APC. On an event, e.g running on batteries, you can start a script, that enumerates all running VMs on your ESX host and shts them clean down via VMware Tools Service.

To start up the ESX host you can configure your APC to give power back to devices, if batteriea are charged again. After the start of your host you can automatically start a script that starts the before shutdowned VMs.

Sounds difficult? :smileycool: Not really,

1. To get and configure APC SW read instrutions from APC

2. Install FW profil (attached):

a mv PowerChute.xml /etc/vmware/firewall/.

b service firewall restart

c service mgmt-vmware restart

d esxcfg-firewall -e PowerChute

3. Use shutdown script for the VMs

4. Shutdown Host via shutdown -h "now"

If needed you can export the running vms to a textfile, after the restart you can use this textfile to poweron the VMs again.

So now it's your work to script a little bit :smileygrin:

Have fun

Carsten

[wkrinsky]

Thanks for the information! I'll let you know how it goes when I can test...

[williamarrata]

You can also set up your Virtual Machine Startup and Shutdown settings to do that for you. Click on the link for Virtual Machine Startup/Shutdown, click on Properties (upper right hand corner), In this window, click the box (Allow virtual machines to start and stop automatically with the system). Now, in the order that you wish, move the VMs up to the Automatic Startup. That all it takes. Your done.

Hope that helped.

[trentg]

Which version of PCNS are you guys using. I downloaded the latest 223Linux package and I don't find any RPM to install. The install script appears to run but the configuration script it says to run afterward fails and says that the products isn't supported with VMware. The install documentation says that this package is for VMware. I can't find a way to tell it the IP/user/pw of the UPS. Thanks.

Trent

[Scott6]

Trent -

Did you ever get or find an answer for this problem. I just went down the same path and encountered the same error.

Always nice to find someone else with the same issue though.

Thanks,

Scott

[trentg]

I called APC and they admitted it was broken and that a new version for VMware was being worked on. They gave me the ftp url for the old version which does install.-

[Scott6]

Trent -

Thanks - glad to know I didn't miss something.

Is the version they gave you info for the 2.2.1 version?

Scott

[trentg]

yes

[Scott6]

For anyone else traveling down this road. I had the 2.2.1 version of the software from a PowerChute CD - this version was pcns221lnx.bin (for Linux - not VMWare) - I was unable to install this version, I was hoping it was the same as the .rpm version referenced frequently on these forums.

Unfortunately, APC support just gave me the pat 3.5 is not supported answer. They did not send me a link to the pcns-2.2.1-100.i386.rpm as requested.

After doing some searching around the net I finally found a link to the software on the APC website. You can grab the software at ftp://ftp.apcc.com/apc/public/software/unix/linux/pcns/221vmware/pcns-2.2.1-100.i386.rpm

It installs perfectly per the instructions in Article 8523 on the APC website.

Scott

[gbras]

Hi,

Is the "i386" PCNS rpm ok for a x64 ESX system? (I'm going to install an ESX 3.5 on a dell 2900 III with two E5430 processors)

Thanks

Guido

[Scott6]

Guido -

Sorry about the delay on the reply. Off to other tasks.

Yes, the version above (pcns-2.2.1-100.i386.rpm) seems to work great on the Dell 2900 III. It is exactly the system I am running it on.

Scott

[khughes]

Is there a way to configure powerchute to order the boxes to shut down? Or mainly is there a way to make sure that all the VM's are shut down before the host is shut down?

- Kyle

[Scott6]

Kyle -

I loaded the PowerChute Network Shutdown on each of my Guest OS's as well as on the ESX Host Since they all talk to the UPS they are all able to monitor the status and shutdown accordingly. I scheduled mine so they would stagger the shutdown.

There is also a fabulous script for the ESX hosts - search for APC Shutdown Tooms - you will come on the script you can cut and paste and make your tweaks as needed. It is on a seperate websites but there is another thread floating around here regarding it as well.

I have my Guest OS's all initiating their own shutdowns, but I modified the script to bring down any guest that might still be up before the ESX hosts goes down.

Good luck.

Scott