Announce: Beta version of SvrPowerControl

[gharris999]

It does, so now it should keep running reliably, but as far as I understand, you intended it to work differently. Do you require any configuration or log files from me?

Really, I think the only way I'm going to be able to debug this is by running on my own copy of WHS with LightsOut. I'll let you know when I've got this configuration up and running and you can help direct me through some tests. Thanks.

[geoperkins]

I have been waiting for a good power save utility for my SqueezeBox music network since before Logitech bought SlimDevices. It is really nice to see something on the cusp of realization. I am hopeful Logitech will reward the author of this endeavor for the hard work. But for now it is freeware and I can only hope out of the goodness of the collective hearts of those working on PowerSave that you can help me.

I have read this entire thread and also http://bitflip.net/slim/. Somewhere reference was made to detailed installation instructions (a readme file), perhaps a link on the SqueezeCenter settings. I can't find the instructions anywhere. What am I missing?

On the SC 7.3.3. Web GUI I see "PowerSave (v7.0r1) [i] Settings" with a hyperlink for Settings, but no instructions. These settings are very basic, namely,
[x] Enable PowerSave
Set PowerSave Idle Time [15 Minutes] [v]
Set PowerSave Activation [PowerSave Always] [v]

I understand I need to set up WOL for my SqueezeCenter server to wake after a suspend, and installation of a psshutdown.exe and possibly other changes to my Windows XP system (PATH, etc.) but these details are not clear (especially if they are buried in 10 pages of forum Q&A).

This may be obvious to those of you who read source code and compile your own systems. But for the rest of us, it just ain't so. And I consider myself to be pretty technical, being paid for a career in systems administration and support of 300 server + 5,000 PC user organization.

I know the disclaimer that this is beta; but all the more reason for good documentation that is easy to find. Thank you.

[aubuti]

I have been waiting for a good power save utility for my SqueezeBox music network since before Logitech bought SlimDevices. It is really nice to see something on the cusp of realization. I am hopeful Logitech will reward the author of this endeavor for the hard work. But for now it is freeware and I can only hope out of the goodness of the collective hearts of those working on PowerSave that you can help me.

I have read this entire thread and also http://bitflip.net/slim/. Somewhere reference was made to detailed installation instructions (a readme file), perhaps a link on the SqueezeCenter settings. I can't find the instructions anywhere. What am I missing?

For starters, it looks as if you are confusing two rather different plugins. Your link and text refer to PowerSave, but you're reading and posting posting in the main thread for SrvrPowerCtrl. Under those circumstances I'm not surprised you find the documentation confusing.

There is nothing wrong with trying each of them, although I think it's unlikely you would ever want to run both at the same time. For my needs I prefer SrvrPowerCtrl. Go to the first post in this thread to get the current version of the plugin, which includes some pretty good documentation. Good luck.

[gharris999]

For starters, it looks as if you are confusing two rather different plugins. Your link and text refer to PowerSave, but you're reading and posting posting in the main thread for SrvrPowerCtrl. Under those circumstances I'm not surprised you find the documentation confusing.

There is nothing wrong with trying each of them, although I think it's unlikely you would ever want to run both at the same time. For my needs I prefer SrvrPowerCtrl. Go to the first post in this thread to get the current version of the plugin, which includes some pretty good documentation. Good luck.

Actually, I run both at the same time. I rely on Jason's PowerSave to turn off my Transporter in a timely fashion...say after 15 minutes of inactivity. When PowerSave powers off the transporter, this causes PeterW's PowerCenter plugin to fire off an X10 command which then powers off my amps. This works perfectly for me. The three plugins, SrvrPowerCtrl, PowerSave & PowerCenter all seem to mesh together seamlessly.

That said, Aubuti, is right about the fact that you seem to be confusing PowerSave with SrvrPowerCtrl. There is a link to SrvrPowerCtrl's post-install setup instructions right on the SrvrPowerCtrl settings page. Or you can take a look at the readme here: http://code.google.com/p/srvrpowerctrl/wiki/Readme

In any event, you can use this link: http://srvrpowerctrl.googlecode.com/svn/repo.xml to install SrvrPowerCtrl via the extension downloader.

Information about Jason Holtzapple's PowerSave plugin can be found here: http://bitflip.net/slim/

Information about PeterW's PowerCenter plugin can be found here: http://www.tux.org/~peterw/slim/PowerCenter.html

But...just to keep everything clear, the three plugins are used for three very different purposes:

PowerSave: turns off a Squeezebox player after an idle period.

PowerCenter: in response to power events on a Squeezebox player, it fires off X10 or Insteon commands via a firecracker other device attached to the server. These commands are completely configurable, e.g. a Squeezebox power-off event can be configured so as to trigger some other device in the house attached to an X10 power module to be powered off too.

SrvrPowerCtrl: allows you to shutdown/suspend/hibernate/etc. your music server after your Squeezebox player has been idle.

[epoch1970]

Gordon,

No, I'm not only trying to avoid the thread to fade to page 2 I was trying to gather a few ideas on a "smart" power saver, and have a question:

When the server wakes-up, can you identify a probable cause ? (I'd like to discriminate at least: woke by rtc as scheduled / woke at some other time -- ideally: woke at some other time by player X / for external reason)
In case you do identify a cause, can you very briefly tell how you achieve the magic ?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

[gharris999]

Gordon,

No, I'm not only trying to avoid the thread to fade to page 2 I was trying to gather a few ideas on a "smart" power saver, and have a question:

When the server wakes-up, can you identify a probable cause ? (I'd like to discriminate at least: woke by rtc as scheduled / woke at some other time -- ideally: woke at some other time by player X / for external reason)
In case you do identify a cause, can you very briefly tell how you achieve the magic ?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Currently, I'm not trying to determine the wakeup reason. It would be trivial to write the scheduled wakeup time to srvrpowerctrl.prefs at suspend-time and then check that value on wakeup. If that value is within two minutes of the current time, SrvrPowerCtrl would decide that the wakeup was RTC induced...if not, then the wakeup was caused by an externality: WOL, power-button, springing forth from Zeus' head fully formed, etc.

Looking through /var/log/messages, I don't see any way of determining the mac address of the network device that issued the magic packet that initiated the WOL of the system. I don't really know how you'd go about determining which device or client woke the system up via WOL.

[epoch1970]

Mhhh. I hoped for a miracle; application logic is portable, that's the good thing.

BTW, I came across the work of this guy, his project is called Somniloquy. The Controller has a lot of the hardware his Gumstick device uses.

[bernt]

Maybe someone find this useful.

I upgraded Ubuntu 8.04 LTS to 8.10 and then to 9.04. Somewhere I lost WoL.

After some googling I found various solutions but the only one that worked for me was to change the NETDOWN value in /etc/init.d/halt from yes to no.

/etc/init.d/halt
NETDOWN=no

Kind Regards
/Bernt

[gharris999]

That is useful to know. Thank you.

[gharris999]

Just a quick note on SrvrPowerCtrl's compatibility with Windows 7: it's compatible (as far as I know).

I had been thinking that SCPowerTool.exe was going to have to be rebuilt for Windows 7. My initial testing was showing that the "wake from suspend" feature was broken. In fact, it was working, but Windows 7 has added a new feature to the power scheme settings: the ability to ignore wake timers. On laptops, ignoring wake timers apparently is the default. Up until yesterday, my only windows 7 test platform was my old, trusty Thinkpad and so I wasn't seeing the wake function "function".

Moral of the story: if you find that SCPowerTool fails to wake up your windows 7 system for SqueezeCenter / SqueezeboxServer alarms and such, check out: Control Panel->Hardware and Sound->Power Options->Change plan settings->Change advanced power settings->Sleep->Allow wake timers->Setting ...and make sure it's set to "enable."