Recommend a UPS for Home ESXi Server?

Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

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Hey all,

I need a UPS for my home server. I have an ESXi 5.5U1 server with 4 VM's.

Ideally it would have enough watt hours available to give me enough time to shut down my 4 guests, and then cleanly power down the server.

I would - of course - like something compatible with ESXi so it can initialize this orderly shutdown on its own.

Is there anything even remotely affordable for home use that can accomplish this?

Much obliged,
Matt
 
You could get an APC unit with ethernet interface. Any guests who care could connect to it to see AC fail and shutdown. You don't actually need to shut down the host itself...
 
danswartz said:
You could get an APC unit with ethernet interface. Any guests who care could connect to it to see AC fail and shutdown. You don't actually need to shut down the host itself...
Click to expand...

Ahh, Fair enough. There is no way for the host itself to shut down?

I ask this, because I recently had a power outage in which the file system of a local datastore on my server became corrupted, and there are no file system repair tools for the file system ESXi uses.

Luckily enough I had semi-recent backups of the vdmk files, but it was still a pain.

I should also add I am a total n00b when it comes to UPS. I imagine that there are common tools for UPS checking and shutdown for most BSD/Linux operating systems?

Thanks,
Matt
 
Also. Any chance you could point me in the right direction?

I did some poking around APC's webpage. All the units I looked at look like they have a rj45 connector on the back, but it is labeled "serial" (is it just an rs232 in disguise?) and the specs do not mention ethernet communication.

Thank you,
Matt
 
The way I had pictured it working was the UPS connected to the host via either serial or USB connection, and configuring the host to shut down guests in an orderly fashion followed by shutting itself down.

I guess it sounds like I need Ethernet connection and to configure the setup on each guest?
 
There is nothing really critical on the host that needs to be protected by shutting down... I forget which apc model I got but it was used on ebay and had an enet management card.
 
I tried to find the site I used to setup my ssh scripts to shutdown ESXi host from a guest machine that monitors the UPS. This is not the site I used but gives you the basic idea. They use windows guest but you could use a *nix based too if you are more comfortable with that.
http://community.spiceworks.com/how...ng-an-eaton-ups-with-ipm-and-the-command-line

Important point, if all of your guests have VMware tools installed properly then issuing a shutdown of the host will gracefully shut down the guests.
 
Any APC UPS with a smart slot port (which is most) and an AP9617/8/9 management card will be ideal.
 
theoretically you could configure a VM to sense the USB connection from a UPS when it sends an alert to open a SSH connection to the ESX host and give it a shutdown command.
 
APC PowerChute business which is free has an ESXI conneciton that will shut down both guests and hosts. based on the order and loading you want, I was doing this last night actually. I have the 1500VA RMU2 unit and it is great for this, they have less expensive options that connect into the powerchute business.

The other nice thing is the powerchute business software will allow you to control up to 5 UPS's from one "server" A really nice feature.
 
koolaidkitten said:
theoretically you could configure a VM to sense the USB connection from a UPS when it sends an alert to open a SSH connection to the ESX host and give it a shutdown command.
Click to expand...

This is what I do. One of the guests gets the usb connected, and runs apcupsd. When it comes time to shut down, it ssh's into the esxi host itself, and issues a shutdown. All the guests shutdown (they all have vmware tools installed), then the host itself turns off. Seems to work pretty well.
 
dave99 said:
This is what I do. One of the guests gets the usb connected, and runs apcupsd. When it comes time to shut down, it ssh's into the esxi host itself, and issues a shutdown. All the guests shutdown (they all have vmware tools installed), then the host itself turns off. Seems to work pretty well.
Click to expand...

This does work really well, that is what we do at the office, I was thinking that the OP wanted a less technical solution.
 
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