[LinuxBIOS] remote reset

[Segher Boessenkool]

>> If your (server-class) machine has a networked IPMI BMC
>> then you can do remote reset with it just as well if the
>> machine runs LinuxBIOS as it would with the vendor BIOS.
>> Well it *should* work, who knows :-)
>
> Yeah, quite. While I *have* got one IPMI card working with LinuxBIOS, 
> in my
> experience most IPMI implementations are prime examples of why 
> proprietary
> software is bad.

Yeah, don't construe my comments as a recommendation
to use IPMI.  I was just pointing how remote reset
typically works with current machines.

> I have yet to encounter an IPMI card that is stable and
> adheres to the spec. The situation is improving somewhat with IPMI 
> 2.0, but
> vendors are still pushing out extremely buggy products, with even 
> buggier
> proprietary IPMI client software.

And there's no indication this situation will improve
any time soon.

> And the console redirection they provide is most often a graphical
> console, which makes things slow. Also, console redirection requires 
> help of
> browser applets that are often unreliable. I have used them 
> successfully
> though to power-toggle machines - that part seems more or less 
> reliable.

(Graphical) console redirection isn't a good solution for
non-mswindows machines, it's way too fragile.  For anything
sane good solutions exist already (serial lines, telnet,
that kind of thing).  Not much consumer-class stuff has
support for these things built in though.


Segher