Is there anything that will auto reboot a server if it stops responding to pings for certain amount of minutes? I heard of something called a watchdog card but I can't seem to find one. I want to have something auto reboot or power cycle one of my servers if its stops sending data for like 3-5 minutes.

Ok, I see to have found one
http://www.berkprod.com/pci_pc_watchdog.htm

Does anyone use watchdog cards in their servers? Is there anything bad about the? And should I go PCI or ISA? I think PCI is faster. I am going to run freebsd.

What OS are you using? IPMonitor will restart a service or server if it fails to respond to health checks.

Originally posted by RackMy.com
What OS are you using? IPMonitor will restart a service or server if it fails to respond to health checks.

Hmm, I looked at IPmonitor and it seems to be only for Windows. Plus your only allows to install it on 1 machine. If it can auto reboot a server than is down. I will have to buy a server just for IPmonitor. The watchdog cards only cost about $150 each. You have any experience with them?

Originally posted by ClusterMania
Ok, I see to have found one
http://www.berkprod.com/pci_pc_watchdog.htm

Does anyone use watchdog cards in their servers? Is there anything bad about the? And should I go PCI or ISA? I think PCI is faster. I am going to run freebsd.

For that purpose, there should be no noticeable speed difference between PCI and ISA. You should also check if the card is supported by FreeBSD.

Originally posted by RackMy.com
What OS are you using? IPMonitor will restart a service or server if it fails to respond to health checks.

IPmonitor only runs on Windows servers. It is also a software solution, so it won't catch some problem that cannot be handled by software.

Originally posted by priyadi


For that purpose, there should be no noticeable speed difference between PCI and ISA. You should also check if the card is supported by FreeBSD.

I was able to find freebsd drivers
http://www.cs.ndsu.nodak.edu/~tinguely/

Have you had experience with watchdog cards? I hope they fit into a 1U server. I would sleep alot better knowing my server won't be down for more than 3-5 minutes.

Originally posted by ClusterMania

Have you had experience with watchdog cards? I hope they fit into a 1U server. I would sleep alot better knowing my server won't be down for more than 3-5 minutes.

Never installed it myself, but it is a standard half length PCI/ISA card. It should fit into 1U case provided that there are empty slot. As far as I know 1U case only provides one or two PCI slots. So I think you should choose a PCI version for this.

Yes, IP Monitor only works on Windows machines (that is why I asked what OS you are using). We use it to check our systems and it's set-up to automatically restart IIS webservers and/or reboot servers in the event of a problem. Works pretty nicely!

You might want to take a look at iBoot, you plug it in to your Ethernet interface and it pings it every once in a while. If the ping isn't responded to, it switches the power. There's also a remote web control panel where you can control it I think.. .. I was thinking about getting the single unit for one of my servers..

Pricing a little high..

http://www.dataprobe.com/power/index.html