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By grassMonster
#198333
Hey guys!

Need a little help with a project.

ME:
I've been in tech for a long time, a little code, but mainly systems admin / networking. I bought a SIK a while back to do some blinky lights projects with my son, so I'm not a TOTAL n00b to maker stuff, but I'm def not advanced.

Project:
I've got several computers (PC / ATX) I need to be able to remotely manage. And I'd like to use my Redboard to build a IPMI device. By that, goals are:

Must haves:
  • Power on and off
    Reset button
    Check status (power on LED)
Wants (2.0 version?):
  • Alert on power loss
    - SMS preferably or email
    Environmental monitor and alerting
    - acceptable temp ranges
Over the moon happy features (version 47!):
  • Performance monitoring
    - some of these PCs are mining crypto and the program that does the mining produces a simple webpage status that shows performance. It'd be awesome to get an alert (SMS?) if the performance number drops by X%. Back in the day I used scripts to launch WGET to fetch an HTML page, then launch GREP / AWK / SED to populate a RRDTool database (MRTG) with trending data from websites like that. Would be cool to trend performance, but more importantly act on it if the "performance number is X% below last number".
And of course all of this will need to be done remotely, either via SSH console session or simply publish a basic HTML page with status and "reboot" "power cycle" buttons

Lofty goals I know. But I'm going to start with the easy stuff.

Hardware:
I have a v3 SIK with the redboard and breakout. But from what I read, it seems like a bad idea to connect the ATX MB switch plugs directly to the GPIO ports, plus that would limit the number of machines you could manage. Also, they won't all be within a few feet, so it'd be awesome to use something like 6 wire RJ11 (2- pwr 2-rst 2-led status) or even CAT5 cable to make it easy to plug up and move around.

This project is close to what I'd like to do, but I don't need the VTY piece for the console:
https://www.boniface.me/post/a-raspberry-pi-bmc/

Ideas! Fire away!

I'm interested in what hardware you guys think might help me get started.

Thanks in advance for all input!