Posts Tagged ‘PSU’

How to check Linux server power supply state is Okay / How to find out a Linux Power Supply is broken

Wednesday, January 6th, 2021

2U-power-supplies-get-status-if-Power-supply-broken-information-linux-ipmitool

If you're a sysadmin and managing remotely Linux servers, every now and then if a machine is hanging without a reason it useful to check the server Power Supply state. I say that because often if the machine is mysteriously hanging and a standard Root Cause Analysis (RCA) on /var/log/messages /var/log/dmesg /var/log/boot etc. did not bring you to any different conclusion. The next step after you send a technician to reboot the machine is to check on Linux OS level whether Power Supply Unit (PSU) hardware on the machine does not have some issues.
As blogged earlier on how to use ipmitool to manage remote ILO remote boards etc. the ipmitool can also be used to check status of Server PSUs.

Below is example output of 2 PSU server whose Power Supplies are functioning normally.
 

[root@linux-server ~]# ipmitool sdr type "Power Supply"

PS Heavy Load    | 2Bh | ok  | 19.1 | State Deasserted
Power Supply 1   | 70h | ok  | 10.1 | Presence detected
Power Supply 2   | 71h | ok  | 10.2 | Presence detected
PS Configuration | 72h | ok  | 19.1 |
PS 1 Therm Fault | 75h | ok  | 10.1 | Transition to OK
PS 2 Therm Fault | 76h | ok  | 10.2 | Transition to OK
PS1 12V OV Fault | 77h | ok  | 10.1 | Transition to OK
PS2 12V OV Fault | 78h | ok  | 10.2 | Transition to OK
PS1 12V UV Fault | 79h | ok  | 10.1 | Transition to OK
PS2 12V UV Fault | 7Ah | ok  | 10.2 | Transition to OK
PS1 12V OC Fault | 7Bh | ok  | 10.1 | Transition to OK
PS2 12V OC Fault | 7Ch | ok  | 10.2 | Transition to OK
PS1 12Vaux Fault | 7Dh | ok  | 10.1 | Transition to OK
PS2 12Vaux Fault | 7Eh | ok  | 10.2 | Transition to OK
Power Unit       | 7Fh | ok  | 19.1 | Fully Redundant

Now if you have a server lets say on an old ProLiant DL360e Gen8 whose Power Supply is damaged, you will get an from ipmitool similar to:

[root@linux-server  systemd]# ipmitool sdr type "Power Supply"
Power Supply 1   | 30h | ok  | 10.1 | 100 Watts, Presence detected
Power Supply 2   | 31h | ok  | 10.2 | 0 Watts, Presence detected, Failure detected, Power Supply AC lost
Power Supplies   | 33h | ok  | 10.3 | Redundancy Lost


If you don't have ipmitool installed due to security or whatever but you have the hardware detection software dmidecode you can use it too to get the Power Supply state

[root@linux-server  systemd]# dmidecode -t chassis
# dmidecode 3.2
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 2.8 present.

 

Handle 0x0300, DMI type 3, 21 bytes
Chassis Information
        Manufacturer: HP
        Type: Rack Mount Chassis
        Lock: Not Present
        Version: Not Specified
        Serial Number: CZJ38201ZH
        Asset Tag:
        Boot-up State: Critical
        Power Supply State: Critical

        Thermal State: Safe
        Security Status: Unknown
        OEM Information: 0x00000000
        Height: 1 U
        Number Of Power Cords: 2
        Contained Elements: 0

To find only Power Supply info status on a server with dmideode.

# dmidecode –type 39

monitoring-power-supply-hardware-information-linux-ipmitool

Plug between the power supply and the mainboard voltage / coms ATX specification

This can also be used on a normal Linux desktop PCs which usually have only 1U (one power supply) on many of Ubuntus and Linux desktops where lshw (list hardaware information) is installed to get the machine PSUs status with lshw 

 root@ubuntu:~# lshw -c power
  *-battery               
       product: 45N1111
       vendor: SONY
       physical id: 1
       slot: Front
       capacity: 23200mWh
       configuration: voltage=11.1V
        Thermal State: Safe
        Security Status: Unknown
        OEM Information: 0x00000000
        Height: 1 U
        Number Of Power Cords: 2
        Contained Elements: 0


Finally to get an extensive information on the voltages of the Power Supply you can use the good old lm_sensors.

# apt-get install lm-sensors
# sensors-detect 
# service kmod start

# sensors
# watch sensors


As manually monitoring Power Supplies and other various data is dubious, finally you might want to use some centralized monitoring. For one example on that you might want to check my prior Zabbix to Monitor Hardware Hard Drive / Temperature and Disk with lm_sensors / smartd on Linux with Zabbix.

How to find how much power (electricity) consumption a server or PC has?

Friday, November 2nd, 2012

Kill-A-Watt track system power electricty consumption on GNU / Linux servers and FreeBSD
A friend of mine today ask me if I have clue if it is possible to track his home computer Consumption with some piece of Software?

The question is quite interesting, since I run a home server with Linux and it would have been nice if I can exactly track how much electricity per month it  consumes

Now knowing, the answer I first checked online for some kind of software and all I can find something that does something similar but all can find is powertop.

Though powertop is nice Linux tool to keep an eye which program on PC consumes most from overall consumed electricity and order the programs and modules based on electricity consumption it is not providing information on overall electricity consumption.

As the topic seem to be some interesting, I've decided to ask in irc.freenode.net #deiban
Here is a paste from  irssi channel log:

17:21 < hipodilski> hi any idea, how can I find how much electricity a server conmuses per month
17:21 < hipodilski> is there some some kind of software
17:21 -!- digdilem [~digdilem@plague.digdilem.org] has joined #debian
17:22 < babilen> hipodilski: I would recommend an electricity meter rather than software
17:22 -!- tommy_e [~tommy@81.27.221.202] has quit [Ping timeout: 260 seconds]
17:22 < jelly-home> watt meters ftw
17:22 -!- msx [~msx@190.194.114.10] has joined #debian
17:22 -!- blackshirt [~najwa@103.3.223.5] has left #debian []
17:23 < hipodilski> yes but i don't have electricity metter, if there is software it would be interesting to try it
17:23 -!- badiane [~gdurand@D8FF67fa.cst.lightpath.net] has quit [Remote host closed the connection]
17:23 < xand> hipodilski: no, you need a hardware device.
17:23 < jelly-home> now everything can be solved in software, hipodilski
17:23 < jelly-home> not*
17:23 < jelly-home> dammit
17:23 < xand> unless you have a very fancy PSU, software can't find that out
17:23 < babilen> jelly-home: hehe, nice typo !
17:23 < vacuous> hipodilski yes
17:24 < HelloShitty> nsadmin, are you out of ideas for me?
17:24 < vacuous> there's various devices that do it
17:24 -!- firecode [~irc@unaffiliated/firecode] has joined #debian
17:24 < vacuous> you can either get a killawat which are highly innacurate but it might give you a clue
17:24 < vacuous> and they're very cheap too
17:25 < vacuous> you can get a device which measures your entire houses electric, then you just turn off all the appliances and run the
                 server only
17:25 -!- trysten [~trysten@37-251-103-145.FTTH.ispfabriek.nl] has quit [Quit: be back]
17:25  * babilen likes that approach
17:25 < babilen> But this is getting a bit too off-topic. Maybe hipodilski wants to take it to #debian-offtopic
17:25 < vacuous> or you can keep all fridges on, check what the reading is and then negate that from the total
17:25 < hipodilski> yes thanks 🙂
 

The answer makes it clear right of time of writing this post there is no software for Linux or BSD that keeps track electricity consumption daily or monthly

I've googled to see what is Kill-A-Watt hardware? and found fuzzy named device Kill-A-Watt for sale on ThinkGeek's website for the not so expensive 24.99$

To use Kill-A-Watt device is to be connected inside the power plug and then PC or Server has to be plugged into  Kill-A-Watt dev. I've red also (while researching) many Intelligent UPS devs has support for keeping log of discharged energy, so just buying a good UPS with web administrator or even a cheap one providing statistical information of UPS use via serial port should be another alternative to track ur server consumption.