Remote UPS shutdown & pfSense.

mrzaz

Hello,
I'm running pfSense as main router and have a question if someone could point
me in the right direction for a suitable solution.

I'm running a small Win-based PC (with mailserver,web,ftp) + APC SmartUPS XL
with PowerShute SW and a separate PC working as router with pfSense.

Today, the PowerShute software takes care of shutting down the server
in case of powerloss, but don't have any good tool for shutting down the
pfSense machine.
As i'm not so into FreeBSD as such, I have a bit of a problem to find
a suitable solution to remotely inititate a shutdown of pfSense machine
from the Win machine.

As normal SSH-client does not allow to send password on the commandline
and also you get a menu-based shell, I have a bit of a problem to
find a working solution.

Does anyone on this forum have a working solution for this
kind of scenario ?

The PowerShute application has a function to run additional
shutdown activities from commandfile, this would be the suitable
place to issue a shutdown of the pfSense machine but I don't
know how to do it in a robust way.

I'm a private person, running my own small system
that is non-commercial.

Best regards
Dan Lundqvist
Stockholm, Sweden

colin_

You may want to look at running a master/slave setup with apcupsd. This would allow you to send a signal to the pfSense or Windows system from the UPS controller and shut everything down.

There appears to be a solid apcupsd port available for Windows, and a pfSense package should show up shortly.

billm

You can always use ssh authorized keys (and commands). Beware that upgrades may wipe out your key and this is obviously unsupported.

–Bill

Emab

@billm:

You can always use ssh authorized keys (and commands). Beware that upgrades may wipe out your key and this is obviously unsupported.

–Bill

I' want to do the same thing… I'd like to shut down the pfSense pc by a SSH command...
But the problem is...How to bypass the console menu?

Cry Havok

I have the following in /etc/rc.initial, just before the line /etc/rc.banner:

REMOTE_IP=`echo ${SSH_CLIENT} | awk '{ print $1 }'`
if [ "${REMOTE_IP}" = "10.11.12.13" ]; then    
        /bin/tcsh
        exit && exit && logout
fi

Replace 10.11.12.13 wit h the IP of the system you want to be able to bypass the menu.