Does anyone know of a cheap temperature sensor that will work with Linux? I don't need a fancy monitoring appliance, I just want a simple sensor that I can connect to one of my monitoring servers to let me know if the server room is getting hot.
Bowie Bailey wrote:
Does anyone know of a cheap temperature sensor that will work with Linux? I don't need a fancy monitoring appliance, I just want a simple sensor that I can connect to one of my monitoring servers to let me know if the server room is getting hot
There is a good chance that lm-sensors supports your servers with no additional hardware needed. To configure lm-sensors, run 'sensors-detect' as root. If your cpu/motherboard is supported you will be able to read system temps directly either using SNMP or by scraping 'sensors' output.
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 08:13:56AM -0800, Benjamin Franz wrote:
Bowie Bailey wrote:
Does anyone know of a cheap temperature sensor that will work with Linux? I don't need a fancy monitoring appliance, I just want a simple sensor that I can connect to one of my monitoring servers to let me know if the server room is getting hot
There is a good chance that lm-sensors supports your servers with no additional hardware needed. To configure lm-sensors, run 'sensors-detect' as root. If your cpu/motherboard is supported you will be able to read system temps directly either using SNMP or by scraping 'sensors' output.
But it'll not give information about temperature in server room.
Hi,
On Fri, 2010-02-26 at 17:18 +0100, Dominik Zyla wrote:
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 08:13:56AM -0800, Benjamin Franz wrote:
Bowie Bailey wrote:
Does anyone know of a cheap temperature sensor that will work with Linux? I don't need a fancy monitoring appliance, I just want a simple sensor that I can connect to one of my monitoring servers to let me know if the server room is getting hot
There is a good chance that lm-sensors supports your servers with no additional hardware needed. To configure lm-sensors, run 'sensors-detect' as root. If your cpu/motherboard is supported you will be able to read system temps directly either using SNMP or by scraping 'sensors' output.
But it'll not give information about temperature in server room.
I use 1-wire devices with CentOS. See http://owfs.org/ If you google a bit there are many suppliers who sell complete kits for serial and USB (I use USB) connections for a fair price. Maybe it's a bit overkill for 1 sensor, but its easy to connect many sensors to a machine (I have about 20 :) ).
You can make it really cheap if you have some soldering skills ;)
Regards,
Michel
You can make it really cheap if you have some soldering skills ;)
what is solution for people without soldering skills? ;)
And you call yourself a sysadmin?! <g>
Or, for that matter, http://www.2dkits.com/zencart/ (ObFullInfo: yes, they are friends of mine).
mark "now, about redoing that RJ-45 I just pulled out...."
Dominik Zyla wrote:
But it'll not give information about temperature in server room.
actually, it sorta can. find the lowest reading sensor on the system, probably one on the mainboard... use a manual thermometer to read the intake air temp and calculate the delta.
i think you'll find under normal operating conditions that delta is pretty constant if the server is under a reasonably consistent workload.
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 09:57:52AM -0800, John R Pierce wrote:
Dominik Zyla wrote:
But it'll not give information about temperature in server room.
actually, it sorta can. find the lowest reading sensor on the system, probably one on the mainboard... use a manual thermometer to read the intake air temp and calculate the delta.
i think you'll find under normal operating conditions that delta is pretty constant if the server is under a reasonably consistent workload.
True.. We're also doing like this in some of server rooms. But sometimes we had strange values. So this sort of stuff can be not good enough. :)
On 2/26/2010 12:11 PM, Dominik Zyla wrote:
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 09:57:52AM -0800, John R Pierce wrote:
Dominik Zyla wrote:
But it'll not give information about temperature in server room.
actually, it sorta can. find the lowest reading sensor on the system, probably one on the mainboard... use a manual thermometer to read the intake air temp and calculate the delta.
i think you'll find under normal operating conditions that delta is pretty constant if the server is under a reasonably consistent workload.
True.. We're also doing like this in some of server rooms. But sometimes we had strange values. So this sort of stuff can be not good enough. :)
If you can get graphs from two different pieces of equipment on the same page you can pretty much see the trend. A single device might have a fan go bad or something - but that should probably be fixed anyway. On servers that have variable CPU power you might see temperature variations depending on the load.
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 12:27:59PM -0600, Les Mikesell wrote:
On 2/26/2010 12:11 PM, Dominik Zyla wrote:
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 09:57:52AM -0800, John R Pierce wrote:
Dominik Zyla wrote:
But it'll not give information about temperature in server room.
actually, it sorta can. find the lowest reading sensor on the system, probably one on the mainboard... use a manual thermometer to read the intake air temp and calculate the delta.
i think you'll find under normal operating conditions that delta is pretty constant if the server is under a reasonably consistent workload.
True.. We're also doing like this in some of server rooms. But sometimes we had strange values. So this sort of stuff can be not good enough. :)
If you can get graphs from two different pieces of equipment on the same page you can pretty much see the trend. A single device might have a fan go bad or something - but that should probably be fixed anyway. On servers that have variable CPU power you might see temperature variations depending on the load.
You have right. While you checking sensors from few machines, you can see the trend. Gotta think about changing the way of temperature monitoring here.
Dominik wrote:
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 12:27:59PM -0600, Les Mikesell wrote:
On 2/26/2010 12:11 PM, Dominik Zyla wrote:
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 09:57:52AM -0800, John R Pierce wrote:
Dominik Zyla wrote:
But it'll not give information about temperature in server room.
actually, it sorta can. find the lowest reading sensor on the system, probably one on the mainboard... use a manual thermometer to read the intake air temp and calculate the delta.
<snip>> >>
If you can get graphs from two different pieces of equipment on the same page you can pretty much see the trend. A single device might have a fan go bad or something - but that should probably be fixed anyway. On servers that have variable CPU power you might see temperature variations depending on the load.
You have right. While you checking sensors from few machines, you can see the trend. Gotta think about changing the way of temperature monitoring here.
Here's a question back: does the HVAC in the room allow monitoring?
mark
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 01:41:00PM -0500, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
Dominik wrote:
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 12:27:59PM -0600, Les Mikesell wrote:
On 2/26/2010 12:11 PM, Dominik Zyla wrote:
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 09:57:52AM -0800, John R Pierce wrote:
Dominik Zyla wrote:
But it'll not give information about temperature in server room.
actually, it sorta can. find the lowest reading sensor on the system, probably one on the mainboard... use a manual thermometer to read the intake air temp and calculate the delta.
<snip>> >>
If you can get graphs from two different pieces of equipment on the same page you can pretty much see the trend. A single device might have a fan go bad or something - but that should probably be fixed anyway. On servers that have variable CPU power you might see temperature variations depending on the load.
You have right. While you checking sensors from few machines, you can see the trend. Gotta think about changing the way of temperature monitoring here.
Here's a question back: does the HVAC in the room allow monitoring?
It could be some problems with ventilation, I guess.
Dominik Zyla wrote:
You have right. While you checking sensors from few machines, you can see the trend. Gotta think about changing the way of temperature monitoring here.
Myself I wouldn't rely on internal equipment sensors to try to extrapolate ambient temperature from their readings. Most equipment will automatically spin their fans at faster RPMs as the temperature goes up which can give false indications of ambient temperature.
I do monitor the temperature of network equipment, but also have dedicated sensors for ambient readings. Already saved us some pain once, opened up a new location in London last year and the ambient temperature at our rack in the data center was 85+ degrees F. The SLA requires temperature be from 64-78 degrees. Alarms were going off in Nagios.
The facility claimed there was no issue, and opened up some more air vents, which didn't help. They still didn't believe us so they installed their own sensor in our rack. The next day the temperature dropped by ~10 degrees, I guess they believed their own sensor..
http://portal.aphroland.org/~aphro/rack-temperature.png
People at my own company were questioning the accuracy of this sensor(there was only one, I prefer 2 but they are cheap bastards), but I was able to validate the increased temperature by comparing the internal temp of the switches and load balancers were significantly higher than other locations. Though even with the ambient temperature dropping by 10+ degrees, the temperature of the gear didn't move nearly as much.
The crazy part was I checked the temperature probes at my former company(different/better data center) and the *exhaust* temperature of the servers was lower than the *input* temperature from this new data center. Exhaust temperature was around 78-80 degrees, several degrees below the 85+.
It seems the facility in London further improved their cooling in recent weeks as average temperature is down from 78 to about 70-72 now, and is much more stable, prior to the change we were frequently spiking above 80 and averaging about 78.
Also having ambient temperature sensors can be advantageous in the event you need to convince a facility they are running too hot(or out of SLA), as a tech guy myself(as you can probably see already) I am much less inclined to trust the results of internal equipment sensors than a standalone external sensor which can be put on the front of the rack.
nate
Try the Dallas/Maxim 1-wire system. They have serial port controllers with an RJ11 jack so you can use a phone cable to the sensor. I got one of their temp sensors and a cheap RJ11 jack from Radio Shack and had a remote temp sensor.
They use a simple serial protocol and some of the controllers are "smart" like the DS9097U $28 or so for the controller: http://www.maxim-ic.com/quick_view2.cfm/qv_pk/2983 http://www.maxim-ic.com/quick_view2.cfm/qv_pk/2923
For temperature DS28EA00: http://www.maxim-ic.com/quick_view2.cfm/qv_pk/5355
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 2:02 PM, nate centos@linuxpowered.net wrote:
Dominik Zyla wrote:
You have right. While you checking sensors from few machines, you can see the trend. Gotta think about changing the way of temperature monitoring here.
Myself I wouldn't rely on internal equipment sensors to try to extrapolate ambient temperature from their readings. Most equipment will automatically spin their fans at faster RPMs as the temperature goes up which can give false indications of ambient temperature.
I do monitor the temperature of network equipment, but also have dedicated sensors for ambient readings. Already saved us some pain once, opened up a new location in London last year and the ambient temperature at our rack in the data center was 85+ degrees F. The SLA requires temperature be from 64-78 degrees. Alarms were going off in Nagios.
The facility claimed there was no issue, and opened up some more air vents, which didn't help. They still didn't believe us so they installed their own sensor in our rack. The next day the temperature dropped by ~10 degrees, I guess they believed their own sensor..
http://portal.aphroland.org/~aphro/rack-temperature.png
People at my own company were questioning the accuracy of this sensor(there was only one, I prefer 2 but they are cheap bastards), but I was able to validate the increased temperature by comparing the internal temp of the switches and load balancers were significantly higher than other locations. Though even with the ambient temperature dropping by 10+ degrees, the temperature of the gear didn't move nearly as much.
The crazy part was I checked the temperature probes at my former company(different/better data center) and the *exhaust* temperature of the servers was lower than the *input* temperature from this new data center. Exhaust temperature was around 78-80 degrees, several degrees below the 85+.
It seems the facility in London further improved their cooling in recent weeks as average temperature is down from 78 to about 70-72 now, and is much more stable, prior to the change we were frequently spiking above 80 and averaging about 78.
Also having ambient temperature sensors can be advantageous in the event you need to convince a facility they are running too hot(or out of SLA), as a tech guy myself(as you can probably see already) I am much less inclined to trust the results of internal equipment sensors than a standalone external sensor which can be put on the front of the rack.
nate
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Wade Hampton wrote:
Try the Dallas/Maxim 1-wire system. They have serial port controllers with an RJ11 jack so you can use a phone cable to the sensor. I got one of their temp sensors and a cheap RJ11 jack from Radio Shack and had a remote temp sensor.
They use a simple serial protocol and some of the controllers are "smart" like the DS9097U $28 or so for the controller: http://www.maxim-ic.com/quick_view2.cfm/qv_pk/2983 http://www.maxim-ic.com/quick_view2.cfm/qv_pk/2923
For temperature DS28EA00: http://www.maxim-ic.com/quick_view2.cfm/qv_pk/5355
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 2:02 PM, nate centos@linuxpowered.net wrote:
Dominik Zyla wrote:
You have right. While you checking sensors from few machines, you can see the trend. Gotta think about changing the way of temperature monitoring here.
Myself I wouldn't rely on internal equipment sensors to try to extrapolate ambient temperature from their readings. Most equipment will automatically spin their fans at faster RPMs as the temperature goes up which can give false indications of ambient temperature.
I do monitor the temperature of network equipment, but also have dedicated sensors for ambient readings. Already saved us some pain once, opened up a new location in London last year and the ambient temperature at our rack in the data center was 85+ degrees F. The SLA requires temperature be from 64-78 degrees. Alarms were going off in Nagios.
The facility claimed there was no issue, and opened up some more air vents, which didn't help. They still didn't believe us so they installed their own sensor in our rack. The next day the temperature dropped by ~10 degrees, I guess they believed their own sensor..
http://portal.aphroland.org/~aphro/rack-temperature.png
People at my own company were questioning the accuracy of this sensor(there was only one, I prefer 2 but they are cheap bastards), but I was able to validate the increased temperature by comparing the internal temp of the switches and load balancers were significantly higher than other locations. Though even with the ambient temperature dropping by 10+ degrees, the temperature of the gear didn't move nearly as much.
The crazy part was I checked the temperature probes at my former company(different/better data center) and the *exhaust* temperature of the servers was lower than the *input* temperature from this new data center. Exhaust temperature was around 78-80 degrees, several degrees below the 85+.
It seems the facility in London further improved their cooling in recent weeks as average temperature is down from 78 to about 70-72 now, and is much more stable, prior to the change we were frequently spiking above 80 and averaging about 78.
Also having ambient temperature sensors can be advantageous in the event you need to convince a facility they are running too hot(or out of SLA), as a tech guy myself(as you can probably see already) I am much less inclined to trust the results of internal equipment sensors than a standalone external sensor which can be put on the front of the rack.
nate
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
+1
ChrisG
Benjamin Franz wrote:
Bowie Bailey wrote:
Does anyone know of a cheap temperature sensor that will work with Linux? I don't need a fancy monitoring appliance, I just want a simple sensor that I can connect to one of my monitoring servers to let me know if the server room is getting hot
There is a good chance that lm-sensors supports your servers with no additional hardware needed. To configure lm-sensors, run 'sensors-detect' as root. If your cpu/motherboard is supported you will be able to read system temps directly either using SNMP or by scraping 'sensors' output.
I'm looking for room temperature, not case temperature.
On Fri, 26 Feb 2010, Bowie Bailey wrote:
Benjamin Franz wrote:
Bowie Bailey wrote:
Does anyone know of a cheap temperature sensor that will work with Linux? I don't need a fancy monitoring appliance, I just want a simple sensor that I can connect to one of my monitoring servers to let me know if the server room is getting hot
There is a good chance that lm-sensors supports your servers with no additional hardware needed. To configure lm-sensors, run 'sensors-detect' as root. If your cpu/motherboard is supported you will be able to read system temps directly either using SNMP or by scraping 'sensors' output.
I'm looking for room temperature, not case temperature.
Some hardware provides SNMP-addressable information on the temperature of inbound air, not just case temperature. I realize that inbound temperature is not exactly the same as room temp, but it's a pretty good approximation in many case.
Paul Heinlein wrote:
On Fri, 26 Feb 2010, Bowie Bailey wrote:
I'm looking for room temperature, not case temperature.
Some hardware provides SNMP-addressable information on the temperature of inbound air, not just case temperature. I realize that inbound temperature is not exactly the same as room temp, but it's a pretty good approximation in many case.
Unfortunately, my hardware does not do this.
On 2/26/2010 10:46 AM, Paul Heinlein wrote:
Does anyone know of a cheap temperature sensor that will work with Linux? I don't need a fancy monitoring appliance, I just want a simple sensor that I can connect to one of my monitoring servers to let me know if the server room is getting hot
There is a good chance that lm-sensors supports your servers with no additional hardware needed. To configure lm-sensors, run 'sensors-detect' as root. If your cpu/motherboard is supported you will be able to read system temps directly either using SNMP or by scraping 'sensors' output.
I'm looking for room temperature, not case temperature.
Some hardware provides SNMP-addressable information on the temperature of inbound air, not just case temperature. I realize that inbound temperature is not exactly the same as room temp, but it's a pretty good approximation in many case.
Yes, are you really that concerned about whether people in the room are comfortable - they'll tell someone if they aren't even without gadgets. If the room is getting hot, so will the equipment, so internal sensors will show the trend, just offset by a bit of equipment heat. Most Cisco equipment and higher end UPS's will have SNMP readable sensors that monitoring programs can read, graph, and alarm on thresholds, and I believe you can enable them on linux servers with the right snmpd.conf settings.
Bowie Bailey wrote:
Benjamin Franz wrote:
Bowie Bailey wrote:
Does anyone know of a cheap temperature sensor that will work with Linux? I don't need a fancy monitoring appliance, I just want a simple sensor that I can connect to one of my monitoring servers to let me know if the server room is getting hot
There is a good chance that lm-sensors supports your servers with no additional hardware needed. To configure lm-sensors, run 'sensors-detect' as root. If your cpu/motherboard is supported you will be able to read system temps directly either using SNMP or by scraping 'sensors' output.
I'm looking for room temperature, not case temperature.
If your goal is simply to know when the server room is getting hot, the difference doesn't matter. All you need to know is that it is warmer than normal: The case temps will track room temps + some roughly constant number of degrees.
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 11:00:21AM -0500, Bowie Bailey wrote:
Does anyone know of a cheap temperature sensor that will work with Linux? I don't need a fancy monitoring appliance, I just want a simple sensor that I can connect to one of my monitoring servers to let me know if the server room is getting hot.
Hi,
Any RS-232 temperature sensor should do the job.
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 11:14 AM, Dominik Zyla gavroche@gavroche.pl wrote:
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 11:00:21AM -0500, Bowie Bailey wrote:
Does anyone know of a cheap temperature sensor that will work with Linux? I don't need a fancy monitoring appliance, I just want a simple sensor that I can connect to one of my monitoring servers to let me know if the server room is getting hot.
Hi,
Any RS-232 temperature sensor should do the job.
The USB ones also (generally) work with CentOS, though you may need to resort to reading the USB device with a script and doing your own graphing and alerting.
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 11:20 AM, Kwan Lowe kwan.lowe@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 11:14 AM, Dominik Zyla gavroche@gavroche.pl wrote:
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 11:00:21AM -0500, Bowie Bailey wrote:
Does anyone know of a cheap temperature sensor that will work with Linux? I don't need a fancy monitoring appliance, I just want a simple sensor that I can connect to one of my monitoring servers to let me know if the server room is getting hot.
Hi,
Any RS-232 temperature sensor should do the job.
The USB ones also (generally) work with CentOS, though you may need to resort to reading the USB device with a script and doing your own graphing and alerting. _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
You might find this useful: http://quozl.us.netrek.org/ts/
-- Mathew S. McCarrell Clarkson University '10
mccarrms@gmail.com mccarrms@clarkson.edu 1-518-314-9214
Kwan Lowe wrote:
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 11:14 AM, Dominik Zyla gavroche@gavroche.pl wrote:
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 11:00:21AM -0500, Bowie Bailey wrote:
Does anyone know of a cheap temperature sensor that will work with Linux? I don't need a fancy monitoring appliance, I just want a simple sensor that I can connect to one of my monitoring servers to let me know if the server room is getting hot.
Hi,
Any RS-232 temperature sensor should do the job.
The USB ones also (generally) work with CentOS, though you may need to resort to reading the USB device with a script and doing your own graphing and alerting.
Does anyone know of one that is known to work with CentOS? (I don't care if I have to read the device manually)
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 11:00:21AM -0500, Bowie Bailey wrote:
Does anyone know of a cheap temperature sensor that will work with Linux? I don't need a fancy monitoring appliance, I just want a simple sensor that I can connect to one of my monitoring servers to let me know if the server room is getting hot.
Sorry, only one I used years ago (Hot Little Therm) is discontinued... But, unless you already checked, some servers have integrated "ambiant" temperature... By example, on HP servers: # /sbin/hplog -t ID TYPE LOCATION STATUS CURRENT THRESHOLD 1 Basic Sensor I/O Zone Normal 114F/ 46C 149F/ 65C 2 Basic Sensor Ambient Normal 78F/ 26C 104F/ 40C 3 Basic Sensor CPU (1) Normal 91F/ 33C 203F/ 95C 4 Basic Sensor CPU (1) Normal 91F/ 33C 203F/ 95C 5 Basic Sensor Pwr. Supply Bay Normal 91F/ 33C 140F/ 60C 6 Basic Sensor CPU (2) Normal ---F/---C 203F/ 95C 7 Basic Sensor CPU (2) Normal ---F/---C 203F/ 95C
JD
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 10:00 AM, Bowie Bailey Bowie_Bailey@buc.com wrote:
Does anyone know of a cheap temperature sensor that will work with Linux? I don't need a fancy monitoring appliance, I just want a simple sensor that I can connect to one of my monitoring servers to let me know if the server room is getting hot.
I;m not sure what you consider "cheap". I've used a Sensatronics Model E4, for which I've written my own daemon software to take a reading and log it every x minutes. I've also had a Sensaphone Model 1104 which can automatically call multiple phone numbers and play a message about fault conditions.
Each of these were in the $400 to $600 range (with sensors).
Dale Dellutri wrote:
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 10:00 AM, Bowie Bailey <Bowie_Bailey@buc.com mailto:Bowie_Bailey@buc.com> wrote:
Does anyone know of a cheap temperature sensor that will work with Linux? I don't need a fancy monitoring appliance, I just want a simple sensor that I can connect to one of my monitoring servers to let me know if the server room is getting hot.
I;m not sure what you consider "cheap". I've used a Sensatronics Model E4, for which I've written my own daemon software to take a reading and log it every x minutes. I've also had a Sensaphone Model 1104 which can automatically call multiple phone numbers and play a message about fault conditions.
Each of these were in the $400 to $600 range (with sensors).
By "cheap", I mean under $100.
2010/2/26 Bowie Bailey Bowie_Bailey@buc.com:
Does anyone know of a cheap temperature sensor that will work with Linux? I don't need a fancy monitoring appliance, I just want a simple sensor that I can connect to one of my monitoring servers to let me know if the server room is getting hot.
http://www.akcp.com/company/sensorProbe2.htm (sensorprobe2) is nice, cheap and with ethernet connection.
works with nagios fine..
-- Eero
Bowie Bailey wrote:
Does anyone know of a cheap temperature sensor that will work with Linux? I don't need a fancy monitoring appliance, I just want a simple sensor that I can connect to one of my monitoring servers to let me know if the server room is getting hot.
I don't know what your idea of cheap is, but I use Servertech PDUs exclusively and their Smart and Switched models are network aware and have optional temperature/humidity probes which you can query via SNMP. This is handy because you then have sensors essentially built into each and every rack. Pretty simple to have nagios query the SNMP value and alert. Also am having cacti graph the data as well. Most of the servertech PDUs the sensors plug directly into the PDU, on some of them it requires an add-on module. Each PDU typically supports 2 sensors, the cables are about 10 feet.
About 5 years ago at a company I deployed a Sensatronics model E4 which has up to 16 probe inputs, and they have sensors with cables up to something like 300 feet. Monitorable by a simple http server and I believe it has SNMP as well.
They have fancier monitoring appliances as well with alerting and stuff though they weren't out when I was using their stuff.
nate
One example of many
jobst
-----Original Message----- From: Bowie Bailey Bowie_Bailey@BUC.com Reply-to: CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org To: CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org Subject: [CentOS] Temperature sensor Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:00:21 -0500
Does anyone know of a cheap temperature sensor that will work with Linux? I don't need a fancy monitoring appliance, I just want a simple sensor that I can connect to one of my monitoring servers to let me know if the server room is getting hot.