Wake on demand possible?`

[Ganzir]

Hello,

is there a possibility to configure FreeNAS in a way, that it boots up, when the user wants to access the share on the NAS and that the NAS powers down, when no access has occured for a set period of time?

 

[ethereal]

freenas is designed to scrub pools, test hdds and other processes.
if you power freenas down you are going to miss all of these things

 

[Ganzir]

That may be, however I simply want to save the power, since I do not see any sense in running it 24/7 an accessing it only once or twice a day.

 

[jgreco]

Yeah, no, it's not really practical though I'll also say it's not *impossible*. You'd need a proxy that announced share availability to the network and then when accessed would start the NAS.

 

[pirateghost]

If you want to save power, go buy a USB hard drive. Plug it in when needed. Done.

 

[Ganzir]

You'd need a proxy that announced share availability to the network and then when accessed would start the NAS.

That however would require a proxy that is alway on, which is contraproductive to the ideo of saving power.

 

[jgreco]

That however would require a proxy that is alway on, which is contraproductive to the ideo of saving power.

How would you expect to announce availability of a share to the network while the NAS is powered down, and detect that something was attempting to access it?

Magic? Mind control? Hire an assistant?

 

[pirateghost]

How would you expect to announce availability of a share to the network while the NAS is powered down, and detect that something was attempting to access it?

Magic? Mind control? Hire an assistant?

Pixie dust and unicorn blood

 

[jgreco]

Pixie dust and unicorn blood

*concedes* Winner.

 

[Ganzir]

I was thinking more in the direction of wake on lan, when you try to access the share and an automated shutdown if no read or write activity occured for a certain period. However, from your comments I gather, you are not really in the mood to provide substantial support.

 

[pirateghost]

I was thinking more in the direction of wake on lan, when you try to access the share and an automated shutdown if no read or write activity occured for a certain period. However, from your comments I gather, you are not really in the mood to provide substantial support.

Well how would those shares be broadcast? How do you expect a computer that is shut off to broadcast it's availability as a share?

 

[AlainD]

I was thinking more in the direction of wake on lan, when you try to access the share and an automated shutdown if no read or write activity occured for a certain period. However, from your comments I gather, you are not really in the mood to provide substantial support.

Hi Wake on LAN can work, but I would not recommend it for a system that is used frequently. For a weekly backup server, yes.

If you're thoughtful about when scrubs and smart test run and only shut down when those are not to be scheduled, it can be done. I'm then thinking about a system that uses WOL to wake up and does shut down at night if there's nothing to be scheduled. In a home situation which is only used in the evening you can then save about 2/3 energy costs. Even then I would shut down max. once a day , not more.

 

[ethereal]

the costs savings are minimal - many people fail to factor the cost of powering up and down.

the pcb's, components and solder all heat/cool/expand/contract at different rates and promotes the early demise of the devices. also the cost or replacing hdd's which may die earlier than if they were always on.

i've always built my own systems and never power them down.

 

[Ganzir]

@AlainD:

That is what I was thinking about:

1. The desktops (running Win7), send the WOL-Signal, when they want to access the NAS.
2. The NAS boots up and the share can be accessed.
3. The NAS waits for further read/write operations, if no such operations occur in 1h or so the NAS powers down.
4. Rinse an Repeat.

 

[pirateghost]

@AlainD:

That is what I was thinking about:

1. The desktops (running Win7), send the WOL-Signal, when they want to access the NAS.
2. The NAS boots up and the share can be accessed.
3. The NAS waits for further read/write operations, if no such operations occur in 1h or so the NAS powers down.
4. Rinse an Repeat.

So, your desktop magically knows a NAS is on the network? And what shares are on it?

Then you send a WOL command and wait for (how long?) For the server to boot up...

So basically you want some magic protocol that tells windows there is a share available on a server that's off, and then you want to wait for it to boot to be accessible....

 

[AlainD]

@AlainD:

That is what I was thinking about:

1. The desktops (running Win7), send the WOL-Signal, when they want to access the NAS.
2. The NAS boots up and the share can be accessed.
3. The NAS waits for further read/write operations, if no such operations occur in 1h or so the NAS powers down.
4. Rinse an Repeat.

If the user gives the WOL command (can be a double click) this is technically possible, but like I have written I wouldn't do multiple shut downs on one day. Those gains (a few hours) wouldn't make a big difference for energy usage and excessive start stops will make a difference.

 

[AlainD]

the costs savings are minimal - many people fail to factor the cost of powering up and down.

the pcb's, components and solder all heat/cool/expand/contract at different rates and promotes the early demise of the devices. also the cost or replacing hdd's which may die earlier than if they were always on.

i've always built my own systems and never power them down.

cost depends on the electricity price and maybe cooling cost. They can vary quite a bit from place to place.

 

[anodos]

It's probably feasible to have your mobile phone send a WOL packet at the end of the day when you get home from work / connect to wifi network. That would give enough time for the server to boot and NetBIOS gremlins to settle down. Leave it on all night for housekeeping tasks, then power off in the morning.

Of course you could achieve similar energy savings by unscrewing a few lightbulbs.

 

[jgreco]

However, from your comments I gather, you are not really in the mood to provide substantial support.

Really. I actually *gave* you the formula that others use to implement this sort of thing.

You'd be right if you accused me of:

1) Not volunteering to run off and implement this solution for you

2) Not being aware of an existing implementation of what you want to do that'll work out of the box with FreeNAS

3) Also kind of assuming that you probably don't have the technical competence to implement this yourself, as you don't even understand the nature of the problem, as evidenced by the reply chain

But you should be aware that 99.99% of the users here, myself included, are community participants, here on our own time and on our own dime to try to provide assistance to others. The fact is, I don't have to provide "substantial support" of the sort you seem to expect (and in particular I'm not going to run off and implement this solution for you, even if I'm capable of it). You're getting a free NAS product from iXsystems *for* *free*, and free community support from the community *for* *free*.

 

[Ericloewe]

So basically you want some magic protocol that tells windows there is a share available on a server that's off, and then you want to wait for it to boot to be accessible....

Apple has something like that, whereby iDevices delegate the announcement of their services to stuff that is always on (apple TV and stuff like that).

I'm not sure if it works well, but it's mostly known around here for security messages complaining about the swapping of IPs between MACs. This isn't particularly realistic to accomplish with FreeNAS unless someone develops and popularizes a protocol for this sort of thing - frankly, I wouldn't.