I have a couple of servers running at home (for personal use) that are inaccessible to me when I'm out on the road and the cable-modem goes wrong. Whilst it is rare, from time to time it is necessary for me to power-cycle the modem.
The modem connects to my internal network (no USB connection) and does not offer a reboot option in its web-interface (if that is working).
Programming isn't a problem, so I want to implement a sentinel service that periodically looks for life and in the event of seeing nothing, ensures that the modem is power-cycled -- ideally with some delay, but immediately restarting if that's all I can do.
My hardware configuration options seem to be:
- have my server connected to an Intelligent plug which switches off other peripherials when the main PC is powered down. In this case I would need to set a BIOS wakeup which waits a few minutes. I'm not keen on this as I can't be certain that I can safely power-down the server.
- have a power-outlet that lets me control its switching using USB or other serial connection. This seems best, but I can't find anything suitable.
Are there other options I'm missing?
[Modem running latest firmware and is my only option because of the Cable company's requirements, and it's a 50Mbps one too... :-)]