OpenBSD 3.9 Adds Sensor Framework 85
wbglinks writes to tell us ZDNet is reporting that the newest version of OpenBSD will include a sensor framework to help system administrators keep tabs on the environmental conditions of their servers. From the article: "At present, there are a number of commercial products that allow the environmental conditions of servers to be monitored, but different brands of server require different products. For example, Dell PowerEdge servers use the Embedded Server Management tool, while Sun Fire Servers use Sun's Remote System Control. This can make server management tricky when running a heterogeneous architecture. OpenBSD 3.9, which is scheduled for release on 1 May, includes support for the sensors and the sensor management tools used on a number of architectures."
Re:About time (Score:5, Insightful)
If by "functionality" you mean hodge-podge of barely compatible tools written by some high scool kid in his mum's basement and that fail to actually define a sensible engineered framework, then yes I suppose so. Jesus Tap Dancing Christ, Linux sucks ass.
Re:About time (Score:3, Informative)
That said, although 'lm_sensors' and such can be a royal pain to manage at a low level when starting out, many higher-level tools exist to manage entire networks of Linux machines and their status data.
See the related apps page on the rrdtool [rrdtool.org] homepage.
sensors and slashdotting (Score:4, Funny)
Re:File cabinets and fires (Score:2)
Re:File cabinets and fires (Score:2)
And, as far as salary goes, funny how salaried US employees tend to work a lot of those 80 hour weeks, and very few of the 20 hour versions.
Re:File cabinets and fires (Score:4, Funny)
Re:File cabinets and fires (Score:5, Funny)
Re:File cabinets and fires (Score:2)
Re:File cabinets and fires (Score:2, Interesting)
Sensor management or no sensor management it's pretty the same thing... instead of the server dialing / paging you there can be a human dialing / paging you anyway. And of course YOU CAN switch off your cell phone if it's bothering...
This reminds me of some time back when I used to tech support for a telco logging system. I was out with my frie
Re:File cabinets and fires (Score:3, Informative)
Sensor management means that you will be aware of problems as they are in the nascent stages of development, before they become a crisis. It provides you the time needed to research and repair, instead of the panicked "fix it now!" when systems stop working.
The server confirms it... (Score:1)
is_computer_on_fire() (Score:1, Funny)
Finally some use for BeOS' is_computer_on_fire() [tycomsystems.com] function!
Re:is_computer_on_fire() (Score:1)
Re:is_computer_on_fire() (Score:1)
Returns 1 if the computer is on. If the computer isn't on, the value returned by this function is undefined.
... what? Is this real? It looks it, but... WTF?
Re:is_computer_on_fire() (Score:2)
Re:is_computer_on_fire() (Score:1)
Re:Should it be in? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Should it be in? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Should it be in? (Score:3, Informative)
NUMA, OMAP, powerPC, and the list goes on and on.
However, I think it would be VERY cool to be able to query
Cheers,
Ben
Re:Should it be in? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Should it be in? (Score:1)
Re:Should it be in? (Score:1)
Re:Should it be in? (Score:2)
Re:Should it be in? (Score:2)
is the spot for me on an Gentoo amd64 laptop
temperature: 48 C
for those curious as to it's output)
Re:Should it be in? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Should it be in? (Score:2)
I wonder... (Score:2)
Re:I wonder... (Score:1, Interesting)
However it will most likely not be truly cross platform. I will be waiting for the Windows versions very eagerly. When you start talking about heterogenous environments, there will be Windows servers around. You can't get around that no matter how zealot and OSS fundamentalist you are.
Re:I wonder... (Score:2)
Re:I wonder... (Score:1, Troll)
Pretty much, but this is the OpenBSD version so it will be better for a number of vague and poorly defined reasons.
Also it will be more secure. You wouldn't want someone to hack in and find out the temperature of your server would you? That's what will happen if you don't use OpenBSD.
Which means... (Score:4, Insightful)
Which, while fine in itself, is hardly a groundbreaking achievment for an OS, or is it? At least Windows has done that for years, and I believe Linux does as well (at least we have a working "sensor" implementation on a few RedHat / HP servers).
Re:Which means... (Score:2)
Re:Which means... (Score:1, Interesting)
It would be great if there was a standard framework as a part of ES3, which then required just a few discrete drivers installed to read the sensors, much like how the RAID controller and NICs are supported - hopefully not needing re-installation each time the kernel is upgraded, and cer
Re:Which means... (Score:2)
If you want to monitor systemX, you use programX. If you want to monitor systemY, you use programY. And so on. (It's like the horrid mess that is ifconfig/iwconfig/wiconfig/athctl/younameitctl).
Re:What about ACPI? (Score:4, Informative)
Sensors it's LM78 project. But. Not on single Linux instalation I've had luck with sensor installation. )-: Most of the time lm78 reported me nothing - given it found any sensors at all...
P.S. Overall, due to separate development of kernel and libc, Linux development rarely results in any kind of API or framework. (Well, except the even rarer case when both developers - libc & kernel ones - happen to be employed by Red Hat.)
Re:What about ACPI? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Mod parent up! (Score:2, Funny)
I think I may code an AI script that will learn how to have conversations based on the content of slashdot. After the program has digested a few thousand posts it will surely pass the
I imagine a conversation would run like this:
Human: "I'm impressed with this new Linu
Re:You guys suck! (Score:2)
Welcome to.... (Score:3, Informative)
There we go [kernel.org]
Re:Welcome to.... (Score:1)
Re:Welcome to.... (Score:2)
Re:Welcome to.... (Score:2)
(Disclaimer: I know Theo didn't said that himself)
Well, then maybe he should just shut up about the things he doesn't know. Linux DOES have support hardware monitoring drivers, IPMI, and the randomization feature since 2.6.12 or so. Pretty much EVERYTHING he said about Linux is wrong.
If you don't know nothing about something, then just don't talk about it. What Theo did is pure and true FUD.
Re:Welcome to.... (Score:2)
http://www.tuxjournal.net/intervista3-en.html [tuxjournal.net]
17) Do you like GNU/Linux ? Yes/No, why? Do you use it sometimes?
I have never used it.
Re:Welcome to.... (Score:2)
Re:Welcome to.... (Score:2)
Do you think Theo hasn't got time to use Linux because he's too busy using Windows & Plan9 & FreeBSD & Solaris & Mac OS X?
Re:Welcome to.... (Score:2)
Re:Welcome to.... (Score:1)
Re:Welcome to.... (Score:2)
I'm not knocking Theo or OpenBSD (my company's web server is 3.8) , just found it funny him using Linux as a benchmark when he doesn't use it.
Linus is right though, there's nothing in XP or 5.x worth copying =)
They should both use plan9 a bit more, then they'd know what was cutting edge.
Re:Welcome to.... (Score:5, Informative)
the framework supports a lot of sensors. along with sensorsd(9), it is a large improvement over what has been available for other OSes
Re:Welcome to.... (Score:1)
mmmh (Score:2)
I really don't see the difference, except that OpenBSD seems to be the one who is catching up.
Re:Welcome to.... (Score:2)
BSD.slashdot.org (Score:2)
You've been missing it (Score:2)
Re:BSD.slashdot.org (Score:2)
Re:BSD.slashdot.org (Score:2)
snmp/mib support? (Score:2)
for example, sun has the 'platform mib' and 'entity mib' and in these two (as a sum) you can get voltage and fan speed and temperature and even alerts (traps) when thresholds are reached.
I have not seen the entity mib (for example) on ANY lower end unix platform (freebsd, linux, etc). maybe I have to be the one to write one...
getting sensor data ha
Other Methods (Score:1)
Linux already has something like this (Score:1)
For those of you who aren't familiar with 1wire networking, I suggest checking out www.ibuttonlink.com [ibuttonlink.com] for examples of those devices.
Whitebox Servers? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Whitebox Servers? (Score:2)
Sensorship (Score:2)
Has The Rat ever heard of Big Brother? (Score:2, Troll)
I mean, the network performace will likely still suck [bulk.fefe.de], especially compared to the competition, but at least now we can monitor our servers!
Big Brother's [bb4.org] given us this capability for years. Nothing to see here, move along.
Not NEW in the slightest... (Score:3, Insightful)
Setting up lmsensors was an infuriating and disgusting mess on Linux. After an hour of kernel recompliations, and i2c/lmsensors version mis-matches, I just gave-up. I decided to simply parse the output of mbmon (most trivial setup, EVER!).