Looking for a script to power on server, replicate, when finished shutdown?

[junior466]

I found so many different topics on the subject with a few folks getting really close to achieving this goal. I have a backup server running TrueNAS simply for replication and I am looking for a script that would power on my backup server, start the replication (on the main server) and monitor for completion and when done, power it down. I am running Dell servers so I know that waking them up is no hard task but no idea where to go from there.

Thank you.

 

[Arwen]

It is more complicated that you think. Here are some of the gotchas;

• You have to check if the backup server is already powered on.
• After sending the power on command, (either WOL or IPMI), you have to wait until server is both booted and all the services are available
• A check if the backup script is already running, (it could be taking days or weeks for unknown reasons).
• You would have to check the network connection speed. If the backup server is used rarely, a wire or pin may fail in the cable route, thus ending up with 10/100Mega-bits per second instead of Gigabit speeds. (Assuming you are using copper 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet.) If you don't check, you could find backups running forever and not know why.
• Another script, or pre/post task would be needed to see if your backup server needs to run a scrub or SMART tests. If so, run those tests.

In essence, you have to manually manage a few things that a primary / always on NAS server does for you.


I was reminded of this because I am updating my old laptop, (it uses ZFS for both OS and other storage). Before the update, I made sure the 2 pool scrubs finished so that the disk I/O was not going to slow down the update. (I only update this laptop about once a month, so each time it needs to run a scrub.)