[SOLVED] Server doesn't wake after power outage with UPS

[Velvis]

The last few weeks there have been a couple of incidents where the power has gone out (I am assuming long enough for the UPS to invoke sleep mode) but the computer doesn't wake. It requires someone on site to press the power button (or press a key I would assume).

It isn't completely shut off its just sleeping.

As simple as the fix is (having someone press a button) is there a way to get it to wake automatically once the power is back on?



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[Sky-Knight]

There should be a setting in the server's BIOS to control that.

But here's the rub... as far as I'm concerned, the way it's working is the way it SHOULD be working. After a power failure, sufficient to take out the UPS, a tech SHOULD be right there with the server for a manual power up.

There is just too much that can go wrong to trust auto-power up. And God help you if the server yoyo's...

 

[Markverhyden]

There's a huge amount of information missing, but, ignoring that - why put a server to sleep in the first place?

They're meant to serve so if it's asleep it might as well be off. My experience is that the UPS software is used, in the SMB space, monitor the available power and then do a graceful shutdown if the outage is extended. Unlike corp environments where those giant UPS's are intended to run the systems for well over an hour, or until the gen sets kick in. I'd be really worried about a server that was in standby/sleep mode which subsequently lost power.

Almost all real servers these days have a management port which allows remote access to power up and down. If this box doesn't have that and it's asleep I guess one could schedule a reboot assuming that the OS is "awake" enough.

 

[Velvis]

There should be a setting in the server's BIOS to control that.

But here's the rub... as far as I'm concerned, the way it's working is the way it SHOULD be working. After a power failure, sufficient to take out the UPS, a tech SHOULD be right there with the server for a manual power up.

There is just too much that can go wrong to trust auto-power up. And God help you if the server yoyo's...

The server isn't actually off though. You press a key and it pops right back to where it was within seconds.

 

[Diggs]

Windows sleep mode is such an iffy thing to start with......

 

[Velvis]

There's a huge amount of information missing, but, ignoring that - why put a server to sleep in the first place?

They're meant to serve so if it's asleep it might as well be off. My experience is that the UPS software is used, in the SMB space, monitor the available power and then do a graceful shutdown if the outage is extended. Unlike corp environments where those giant UPS's are intended to run the systems for well over an hour, or until the gen sets kick in. I'd be really worried about a server that was in standby/sleep mode which subsequently lost power.

Almost all real servers these days have a management port which allows remote access to power up and down. If this box doesn't have that and it's asleep I guess one could schedule a reboot assuming that the OS is "awake" enough.

Its a 2008 r2 box so I am not sure if it has remote access to power up/down.

Phasing it out anyways, so its not a huge concern.

 

[Markverhyden]

Windows sleep mode is such an iffy thing to start with......

LOL!!! What I call a marketing success and an engineering failure.

 

[Markverhyden]

Its a 2008 r2 box so I am not sure if it has remote access to power up/down.

Phasing it out anyways, so its not a huge concern.

It's a hardware feature. If it's a major OEM, Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc it'll have one if it's not an entry level box.

 

[Sky-Knight]

I've never seen a server stuck in sleep mode... I'd be concerned about that too. Powered off until the power button on the server is pressed? Yes! Smack the spacebar and it wakes up like a laptop?!? NO... 10000 times no... I don't even know where to get started with that.

Perhaps the UPS is configured to put the machine to sleep instead of shutdown for critical power?

 

[Moltuae]

If I'm understanding the issue correctly, this behaviour is kind of 'by design', although you might want to configure the server to shut down rather than use sleep. A server in a sleep state still uses a lot more power than one which is powered down. Additionally, the sleep state will be lost should the UPS batteries become fully depleted, therefore preventing the server from shutting down gracefully.

So, typically, the UPS is configured to shut down the server(s) at a pre-determined battery level, while there is sufficient remaining power for a graceful shutdown. Once they are shut down, the servers will be using much less power. So, unless it's a prolonged power-outage, the UPS will likely have sufficient remaining battery power to provide the server(s) with a live feed for the duration of the outage. Therefore, power to the server(s) is often not interrupted and so any server that is configured to 'restart on power loss' will not automatically restart. The only way to have the server(s) automatically restart would be to have the UPS wake the server(s) but this is generally a bad idea because the reason for the power-outage might not been resolved and the servers could be booting up while the UPS batteries are in a partially discharged state. My usual procedure in this situation is to manually use WOL to wake the server(s) remotely, but only after I have had confirmation that the cause of the power-outage has been resolved.