Defcon status at a hosting company

defcon

[Aaron] has been working at iweb hosting for about 5 years. When he started, the number of servers was small enough that managing them was fairly painless and could be done by just manually verifying that everything was operational. As the number of servers grew, this task became more and more difficult. They employed various methods of tracking problems, but found them all lacking in one way or another. They got an idea to build a Defcon status page based on all of the information collected about their server status. The page was built and all rejoiced. As with most projects, they just couldn’t leave it alone. Next, they built an android app to be able to see the defcon status from their phones. As cool as that was, they felt they needed to have yet another way to keep track. They What you see above is the prototype for the office defcon status display. It is extremely simple, using an Arduino (yes, we know, massive overkill) to receive status updates to change the display number. [Aaron] says that right now it is a mess, and you have to shield it from the light with your hands to see it, but it works. What should the next step be? A giant Alpha Numeric LED indicator? A nixie tube?

Comments [33]

tagged: error status, hosting, server maintenance

Reader Comments

why the hell is he using transistors?
total fail lol

Posted at 7:30 am on Aug 3rd, 2009 by The Moogle

Oh come on! That’s crap! No hardware detail, no software detail plus crap design == not an article.

Posted at 7:40 am on Aug 3rd, 2009 by Xargle

For a better display you could output to a betabrite. There is a piece of code for the betabrite that will let you display a static “Defcon Level X”. It is currently a backyard baseball game app for the betabrite but you could take that and should be able to drive the sign from an arduino. add some documentation please!

Posted at 7:46 am on Aug 3rd, 2009 by Buzzkill

a GIANT nixie tube would be cool haha

http://www.tube-tester.com/sites/nixie/data/cd47-gr414.htm

Posted at 8:45 am on Aug 3rd, 2009 by [H]ackerK

[hackerk] – Yeah, nixie tubes or maybe a VFD would be good.

[moogle] – The Arduino can source 20ma for driving an LED, but this display is common anode, not common cathode – you need to sink current, not source it, so I’m using the transistors to pull the pins to ground.

I didn’t actually expect this to be posted; the entry is more about monitoring than hardware; I’m happy to put up a schematic, but it’s basically a 1:1 ratio of transistors to pins.

Posted at 9:07 am on Aug 3rd, 2009 by Aaron Brady

screw that tiny crap display
use one of these :)

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8530

Posted at 9:24 am on Aug 3rd, 2009 by The Moogle

@buzzkill
agreed – BetaBrites are fairly cheap on ebay and easy to interface.

I’ve got a betabrite sign displaying pc status on my wall mounted pc aka Colossus.

Posted at 9:38 am on Aug 3rd, 2009 by Agent420

oops forgot photo

http://img58.imageshack.us/img58/8744/colossus0br9.jpg

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/971/colossus1vc8.jpg

Posted at 9:38 am on Aug 3rd, 2009 by Agent420

The obvious next step would be to use an ethernet shield or equivalent and make a standalone device :-)

(I’m currently working on an ethernet device so it’s maybe obvious only to me ;P)

Posted at 9:47 am on Aug 3rd, 2009 by vic

@ Aaron Brady
avr chip can sink 20ma per io pin, so there should be no problem and you can get rid of the transistors.

in fact, it is much more common to handle io logic by sinking than sourcing (in most cases, logic lines are held high by external pullups resistors). this just means your program logic is inverted; ie to turn on an led you turn the port pin ‘off’.

you’ll still need current limiting resistors for each segment, maybe i’m blind but i don’t see them in your photo… are they built into the 7 seg display?

Posted at 9:51 am on Aug 3rd, 2009 by Agent420

oops forgot link again…

http://www.scienceprog.com/wp-content/uploads/7segment/image001.png

Posted at 9:54 am on Aug 3rd, 2009 by Agent420

forget the 7-seg and slap on a VFD similar to http://hackaday.com/2009/07/13/parts-4×20-vfd-character-display-na204sd02/ and the microcontroller won’t be total overkill. Although, I’d much rather see a single chip used for this project instead of wasting an entire development board by dedicating it to this project. Just toss in your choice of far-simpler AVR microcontrollers, program it directly, and boom! Simple, non-overkill, and cheap.

Posted at 9:55 am on Aug 3rd, 2009 by SWHarden

On second thought, you could use a 4511 CMOS chip http://www.ionaphysics.org/lobby/robotics/textbooks/liechtml/exper/05318.png attached directly to the 7-seg and power it straight from a parallel port. BOOM! done!

Posted at 9:57 am on Aug 3rd, 2009 by SWHarden

corrected link: http://rficdesign.com/electronics/img/05318.png

Posted at 9:58 am on Aug 3rd, 2009 by SWHarden

@SWHarden
nothing wrong with using a dev board for a project that has a limited lifespan. i’d rather use a uc on a dev board than dedicate a pc to the task.

Posted at 10:10 am on Aug 3rd, 2009 by Agent420

Thanks for all the advice; I wasn’t aware that the AVR could sink as well as source, agent420. There’s a current limiting resistor on the anode; this may not actually be enough, perhaps I do need them on each pin? It was a case of “it worked, it’ll do”.

The 4511 is nice, but really parallel ports are a rare find nowadays. I also like the fact that the Arduino shows up as a class compliant serial port. It saves using parapin and having to run as root. Perhaps a bare AVR with a USB library would be a bit ‘thinner’ than an Arduino, but this was just a two-lunch-time proof of concept.

@swharden – that was pretty much the first thing that we tagged as a possible for the ‘real thing’.

Posted at 10:31 am on Aug 3rd, 2009 by Aaron Brady

24″ tall numbers
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/tutorial_info.php?tutorials_id=47

Zigbee transmission, allowing you to place this wherever you want.

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9063

Attach to a strobe light in case it increases to 5. (120 volt strobe light, use the micro to drive the relay)
Add a Big Red Button to turn off the strobe.
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9181

Twitter or SMS to notify your cell….

Posted at 10:36 am on Aug 3rd, 2009 by Odin84gk

^ Unless you are designing a fixed static led scheme where paralleled leds will not change, you always want to have a current limiting resistor for each led. Using one resistor on the power source wont work well because the current varies as you change the number of leds that are lit.

refer to the 2313 schematic I posted, that is what you want to do.

Posted at 10:40 am on Aug 3rd, 2009 by Agent420

http://www.microsiervos.com/images/war-games-defcon-2.jpg

Posted at 10:49 am on Aug 3rd, 2009 by blackspyder

Aaron:

You need to build the Defcon display from War Games.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Zw2GXV3Fc6Y/SPG6JGZ035I/AAAAAAAAAPo/U6WGyPjkzrU/s1600-h/war-games-defcon-2.jpg

Just some relays, light bulbs and mains power if you want to go that route. Either way- seriously cool look for anyone that gets the reference.

Posted at 11:03 am on Aug 3rd, 2009 by Sirket

Bah! blackspyder posted his link after I had already loaded the page and while looking for the damned image!

Posted at 11:08 am on Aug 3rd, 2009 by Sirket

imho defcon statusses need to be in bar-graph-thermometer shaped format. More lights = more doom.

Posted at 2:57 pm on Aug 3rd, 2009 by frollard

the next step should be self maintenance

Posted at 6:42 pm on Aug 3rd, 2009 by metalicaman8

seven segment display made from light tubes. like the ones you plug into your car cigarette lighter (cheap & 12v powered). Defcon 5 adds red strobe.

Posted at 9:12 pm on Aug 3rd, 2009 by miked

im guessing you can collect enough data from your servers (sounds like you have quite a few) to generate an 8bit defcon scale. I’d use that data and fade a giant jolly roger from green to red based on server status.

Posted at 9:34 pm on Aug 3rd, 2009 by amk

I would of just used a python script, ssh, and xml. It’d take maybe 5 hours to roll out the system.

Posted at 3:13 am on Aug 4th, 2009 by TJHooker

How about a classic (as in, old) feel. Just have a lightbox with 5 lights (flux leds or some such) for the five statuses, with colored plastic with the numeral on it. Add a nice buzzer/noisemaker in the order of the Lost sound, and you’ve got an attention grabber.

Posted at 3:34 am on Aug 4th, 2009 by nebulous

^ what was old is new again ;-) personally I also like the warmth and glow of incandescent over leds.

id also consider some cool jeweled lens indicators.

another idea would be one of those modulated neon tubes where you can control the lit length of the tube.

Posted at 3:47 am on Aug 4th, 2009 by Agent420

for that matter, a mechanical indicator using a stepper or server would be cool too.

or an analog display like a meter

Posted at 3:50 am on Aug 4th, 2009 by Agent420

Nice hack aaron, good to see the old lunchtime projects are alive and well…

Posted at 5:12 am on Aug 4th, 2009 by rwbthatisme

Add audio – “DO YOU WANT TO PLAY A GAME?”

Posted at 7:21 am on Aug 4th, 2009 by Etan

difficult to keep track of? HUH? They must not have very good managers or techs. BigBrother is what we used for over a DECADE and it works great to let you know what is good/bad or indifferent for hundreds of servers.

http://bb4.com/ it used to be free, now you gotta buy it.

Posted at 7:25 am on Aug 4th, 2009 by farthead

Top stuff. I like you’re style!

Posted at 1:21 pm on Aug 4th, 2009 by peterpiper

Defcon status at a hosting company

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