[ale] Hard Lessons - was Re: how do I list big files

[Jim Kinney]

heh, heh. Many years back I started a complicated scp process between
several remote machines from my home office. I went and reloaded the coffee
cup and then proceeded to stub my toe on the UPS power switch on the way
back to happy geek remote control nirvana. In the microseconds it took for
all the power to drain from all the devices, main linux box, monitor, ISDN
modem, and for the depth of horror I had just created for myself to sink in,
I could see the need for a protective cover over the power switch much like
the springloaded box that protects the EPO switch in a data canter.

On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 11:00 AM, Ron Frazier <atllinuxenthinfo at c3energy.com
> wrote:

>  Been there, done that, except for the 5 years part.  I have my desktop PC
> attached to a 750 VA UPS, which says 15 minutes run time on the box.  Well,
> AT THIS LOAD level, the run time on that battery is 3 minutes, which I
> didn't know because I had fallen for the market speak on the box.  I happily
> pulled the plug, then nearly fainted as the PC abruptly lost power after 3 -
> 4 minutes.
>
> My favorite backup is a cloned hard drive, which I can swap around in two
> minutes.  Didn't know that, didn't have that at the time.  I did have an
> image backup, but it was about a month old.  I had to restore Windows AND
> Linux (dual boot), and then recover data from an online backup and resetup
> everything within the last month.  So, my simple happy UPS test turned into
> a long grumpy sad 2 day system building exercise.  NOT FUN!
>
> I learned a valuable and painful lesson.  That is that you have to
> customize the UPS settings to the situation.  If I let the computer drain
> this particular battery to 10%, or even 1%, which I think Gnome defaults to,
> it would literally have only 5 - 10 seconds to shut down.  This is not
> enough time, even for Linux.  I set my Windows UPS controls on that machine
> to warn me at battery level of 85%, which is about 36 seconds into the power
> failure.  Then, I set it to shut down at 70% battery level, which is about
> 1.1 minutes into the power failure.  At least, this way, it will have about
> 2.5 minutes to complete the shutdown, and it stands a fighting chance.
>
> I still haven't figured out to control the shutdown settings in the Gnome
> power manager.  I don't think you can.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Ron
>
>
>
> On 03/22/2011 10:00 AM, Jim Kinney wrote:
>
> "hard" is when you have to do the first test of the recovery system: make
> backup, pull the plug, restore from bare iron 5 years worth of critical
> data.
>
> On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 9:31 AM, Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:
>
>> "Lightner, Jeff" <jlightner at water.com> writes:
>>
>> > What is scary is there are still people today who don't see the need for
>> > regular backups until something goes belly up on them.
>>
>>  coming up with a backup system is *hard*
>> implementing it is even harder.
>>
>> -derek
>> --
>>       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
>>       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
>>       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
>>       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available
>>
>
>
> --
>
> (PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
> call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
> mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new messages very quickly.)
>
> Ron Frazier
> 770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
> linuxdude AT c3energy.com
>
>
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-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
I would rather stumble along in freedom than walk effortlessly in chains.
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