Neil's News

Remote Reboot

9 August 2003

Here is the transcript from a typical morning.

To solve this problem, I've built a device which cross-connects the Digital Routes server with the Moo Canada server. Now if either of them crash, the surviving server can be instructed to power-cycle the crashed server. I'm sure Cecil will appreciate not getting as many phone calls in the wee hours of the morning. I'm not sure Cecil will appreciate being replaced by a small plastic box.

The type of electronics inside this box was rather unusual for me. I normally build things strictly digitally. But due to the lack of a local electronics store, I was forced to do more with less. Half of the functionality is analog; an art form I'm not entirely comfortable with. Due to this nervousness, I added some feedback lines to the design at the last moment to help with debugging if things went wrong. They went wrong. Nothing worked, and nothing made sense. After two frustrating days I removed the feedback lines and everything started working. Heisenberg would be proud.

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