Re: MIPS64EL port box is ready for use

[Aron Xu <aron@debian.org>]

On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 2:40 AM, Bastien ROUCARIES
<roucaries.bastien@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 7:35 PM, Aron Xu <aron@debian.org> wrote:
>> On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 1:15 AM, Tollef Fog Heen <tfheen@err.no> wrote:
>>> ]] Aron Xu
>>>
>>>> > IPMI would be lovely, but I'm not sure we can locate a board right now with
>>>> > that - so, we may have to fix remote management with a remotely controlled
>>>> > power/reset box - I believe they exist (something else I've been looking
>>>> > into). If the DSA already use some then I'd be interested to hear which :-)
>>>>
>>>> I don't know if IPMI is available, but there is certain kind of PCI
>>>> device that can help with remotely power on/off the machine controlled
>>>> by SMS. I'm curious if DSA think IPMI is mandatory for buildd and
>>>> porterbox.
>>>
>>> We would very much like «reasonable remote access».  Whether that's IPMI
>>> onto a BMC or serial console which can interact with the boot loader and
>>> a network-enabled power strip is less important.  Of course, having nice
>>> features like mounting of ISOs over HTTP and such is a nice bonus, but
>>> not a requirement.
>>>
>>> We haven't really talked about how and when it should be enforced, but
>>> I'm reluctant to take on more porter hardware that lacks reasonable
>>> remote management.
>>>
>>
>> If we can find a way of letting Loongson 3A board supports remote
>> console then you are able to re-install the system because PMON have
>> networking support and can boot the system from tftp. Power control
>> can be done by hacking the on-board power button pins.
>
> It could be done trivally from a chip arm card. Using socat from a tty
> to a ssh tunnel
> see http://www.dest-unreach.org/socat/doc/socat-ttyovertcp.txt

Looks really cool, and I think it's doable to support power control
like what you've suggested already.

Cheers,
Aron Xu