CLOSED: Amahi Energy Saver

nephster
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Re: Amahi Energy Saver

Postby nephster » Tue Jan 25, 2011 1:29 pm

Hi Jayrock,

Sterling work on this. Quick question - does (or can) AES keep the Amahi box running if it detects a client also awake, but not necessarily transferring data? For instance, I'd like the Amahi box to be on when my Windows box is on. I think you are working on automatically sending a WOL command when the client is turned on, but will the Amahi box stay on even without Samba transfers?

Basically, I'd like the Amahi box to sleep when everything else sleeps, but be awake when the clients are up...

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jayrock
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Re: Amahi Energy Saver

Postby jayrock » Tue Jan 25, 2011 10:28 pm

Hi Jayrock,

Sterling work on this. Quick question - does (or can) AES keep the Amahi box running if it detects a client also awake, but not necessarily transferring data? For instance, I'd like the Amahi box to be on when my Windows box is on. I think you are working on automatically sending a WOL command when the client is turned on, but will the Amahi box stay on even without Samba transfers?

Basically, I'd like the Amahi box to sleep when everything else sleeps, but be awake when the clients are up...
The use case you describe is one of the standard scenarios. It is fully supported. Just add the client to the list of monitored hosts. The Amahi box stays on as long as the client can be pinged.

For Windows OS there is already a client program available that uses WOL to turn on the HDA. This can be done either manually or automatically when the host is turned on. The Windows client can be downloaded from Google code.

nephster
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Re: Amahi Energy Saver

Postby nephster » Thu Jan 27, 2011 5:15 am

I'd played around with it before Xmas, but as it kept powering off within a minute or two - not long enough for me to figure out what changes to make via a remote session- I had to scrub it. The additions to the program and to the wiki make it a lot easier for a newbie to understand and install. As does having the correct location of the scripts in the wiki :)

Couple of thoughts:
The most trouble I had was actually with getting the windows client working. I suspect the default subnet should be 255.255.255.255 rather than its current value for most people? That was what I had to spend 30mins playing around with!
In the wiki, you talk about checking if "hosts" are connected. Shouldn't that be "clients"? The Amahi box is the host, surely.

Anyway, this is wonderful. What I'd love is some windows client to suspend the Fedora box with a click if I know I don't need it. At the mo it's fire up Putty, login as root, and pm-suspend (or walk next door!).

Thanks a mill for giving us this jayrock.

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jayrock
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Re: Amahi Energy Saver

Postby jayrock » Thu Jan 27, 2011 7:08 am

Hi nephster,

thanks for your post, this is very important for me in order to improve both the program and also the documentation. Some remarks to your input:
The most trouble I had was actually with getting the windows client working. I suspect the default subnet should be 255.255.255.255 rather than its current value for most people? That was what I had to spend 30mins playing around with!
Actually what you set in the windows client is the broadcast address. It shouldn't be called "Subnet" in the config dialog, so thanks for pointing this out. I will change the name of the field in the next version of the client.

So, for instance, if your private network is in the 192.168.0.0 / 24 range, the setting has to be 192.168.0.255. I'll try and see if there is a way to automatically detect this in a way that it gets easier for the users to configure.
In the wiki, you talk about checking if "hosts" are connected. Shouldn't that be "clients"? The Amahi box is the host, surely.
Again thanks for pointing this out. A "host" is simply a computer with a network termination, so strictly speaking both the Amahi box and whatever other computer are hosts. But again I agree, the term "client" is maybe more understandable in the context of AES. I will change this in one of the upcoming versions.

EDIT: Been thinking about this a little more, my conclusion is that "host" is really the correct term, so instead of changing the AES I will update the wiki to better explain what is meant.
Anyway, this is wonderful. What I'd love is some windows client to suspend the Fedora box with a click if I know I don't need it. At the mo it's fire up Putty, login as root, and pm-suspend (or walk next door!).
What should happen is that the Amahi box goes to sleep some time after all clients are shutdown, no more file access, etc. Clarification question: So what you request is a button to shut down the Amahi box immediately?

Problem with logging in and fireing pm-suspend is that AES has no contol over the shutdown. There are some drawbacks with this, for instance the box will not wake up for scheduled events. So it's acutally not recommended to do this kind of "manual" shutdown.

Or, does your machine stay awake until forever? This should not be the case, it should go down latest about 10 minutes after there has been no access.


Keeps those comments coming!

/jayrock
Last edited by jayrock on Thu Jan 27, 2011 9:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

nephster
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Re: Amahi Energy Saver

Postby nephster » Thu Jan 27, 2011 8:59 am

What should happen is that the Amahi box goes to sleep some time after all clients are shutdown, no more file access, etc. Clarification question: So what you request is a button to shut down the Amahi box immediately?

Problem with logging in and fireing pm-suspend is that AES has no contol over the shutdown. There are some drawbacks with this, for instance the box will not wake up for scheduled events. So it's acutally not recommended to do this kind of "manual" shutdown.

Or, does your machine stay awake until forever? This should not be the case, it should go down latest about 10 minutes after there has been no access.
Oh no, it works fine with suspending it automatically. Just thought might be useful to suspend the Amahi box on command, as in, "I'm done streaming stuff from the Linux box so want to shut it down, but will leave the windows box on to surf", that sort of thing. The Amahi dashboard lets you poweroff, but not suspend.

Of course, if I convince myself I need a new Zacate motherboard I'll just leave the server on :) Current idle power draw with 4 hdds in about 75w so can't leave it turned on constantly. If that was down to say 35w I'd probably leave it running most of the time.

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jayrock
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Re: Amahi Energy Saver

Postby jayrock » Thu Jan 27, 2011 9:23 am

Thanks for the explanation. I agree this is a useful functionality. So the client program has to tell the AES main program to shut down the computer. At first sight this requires signalling between the Windows client application and the AES application running on the Amahi box. So far I haven't foreseen this, acutally, one goal of AES was to work *without* application signalling between the Amahi box and any other computer, because I didn't want restrictions on the computers/boxes that interact with AES. Let me think a bit about this, or maybe someone has an idea about a simpler way of realizing this functionality.

/jayrock

hypertense
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Re: Amahi Energy Saver

Postby hypertense » Thu Jan 27, 2011 4:09 pm

Hello jayrock

This program is just what I need. It works well for me, but I've found a couple of issues. First, I have three users on my Windows 7 desktop and the client only works for the main user (me, with admin. access). I tried to uninstall and reinstall and made matters worse - the client will no longer autorun on startup. On my laptops the program autoruns, but again only for the primary user. WOL works perfectly, as does auto power down and WOL from web.

Keep up the good work.

hypertense

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jayrock
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Re: Amahi Energy Saver

Postby jayrock » Thu Jan 27, 2011 10:02 pm

hypertense, thanks for the feedback. Good to hear that things are working!

Pls. check your Autostart folder: Is there a link to AES Client?

I will look into the option to install AES client for all users during installation.

/jayrock

hypertense
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Re: Amahi Energy Saver

Postby hypertense » Fri Jan 28, 2011 1:26 pm

jayrock, there is a link to AES Client in my Autostart folder.

Unfortunately it doesn't work on my desktop PC. It did when I first installed it, but I had to uninstall and reinstall and it has not worked since. I can run it manually, but only if I run as administrator and I then get the UAC popup on every run. My fault for not leaving it alone when first installed I suppose. Works perfectly on my laptops.

Another question. I can follow the instructions to restart the server at a given time, but is it possible to make it start at the same time every day?

Regards

hypertense

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jayrock
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Re: Amahi Energy Saver

Postby jayrock » Fri Jan 28, 2011 11:43 pm

Hi hypertense,

I would really like to find out what's going on your desktop PC. Definitely not your fault, uninstall and install shouldn't cause any behavior like this. Can you help me to trace this and check a few things:

(i) Can you start AES Client via the start menu ('Start' -> 'AES Client' -> 'AES Client')
(ii) If that doesn't work, open Explorer and go to '\Program Files\AESClient'. Can you start 'AmahiEnergySaver - Client.exe' with a double click?
(iii) Please send me your log files, located in C:\ProgramData\AESClient\Logs
(iv) Please send me your config file, located in C:\ProgramData\AESClient\Config

Regarding your questions about reoccurring daily wake ups, that's not implemented yet. I'm planning a cool feature about this, so hold on a little ;-)

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