Server Command Actions In Room Alert Manager – Securely Shut Down & Reboot Servers

Our team has recently added Server Command Actions to Room Alert Manager. This is a highly secure way to remotely shut down or reboot servers on your network through SSH public key authentication. With Server Command Actions configured, Room Alert Manager can automatically shut down or reboot one or more server(s) on the network in response to an alert condition. This new feature is ideal for users who want to be able to remotely power down a system or group of systems when a change in the environmental conditions, such as rising temperatures, power loss or encroaching water damage, could potentially lead to catastrophic downtime.

Prevent Costly Downtime with Server Command Actions

There are countless situations where Room Alert users can benefit from shutting down or rebooting a server to stop a disaster from unfolding in its tracks. Roughly half of all environmental downtime is due to temperature and humidity threats. In a data center, this means operating outside of ASHRAE recommended data center temperature and humidity ranges which could quickly lead to equipment overheating/failure, irreversible data loss, warping of materials and hardware corrosion. For example, you can configure an alert to notify you if the Digital Temperature & Air Flow Sensor installed in your data center detects that temperatures are rising due to an AC failure. With Server Command Actions, Room Alert Manager can then automatically shut down all non-essential servers so that any unnecessary equipment stops generating heat. All available resources can be allocated to the most essential servers and the rising temperature slows, which gives you and your team time to take corrective action with as minimal damage and downtime as possible.  

Another common need for prompt and remote server shutdowns is related to flooding. Let’s say Room Alert texts you to notify you that the Flood Sensor w/ Cable installed in your server room detected the presence of encroaching water. A simple water leak can quickly accumulate and kill your entire computer system. However, with Server Command Actions, Room Alert Manager can gracefully shut down your servers before a hard shutdown occurs. Graceful shutdowns are the safest and best way to close connections because it allows current operations to finish. Non-graceful shutdowns risk corruption of program and Operating System files. 

This same example extends to unexpected power loss, which accounts for 25% of all costly environmental downtime. If your data center is connected to UPS, and Room Alert notifies you of an unforeseen power outage, then it will remain powered on by battery backup for a limited period of time. With Server Command Actions, this will allow Room Alert Manager enough time to automatically shut down all of your servers, in response to this power outage, as a graceful shutdown before a hard shutdown occurs.

SSH Public Key Authentication

We always take a firm shields-up approach to keep our customers’ data as safe and secure as possible. This holds true for Server Command Actions in Room Alert Manager, which are secured with SSH Public Key Authorization. Secure Socket Shell (SSH) is a cryptographic protocol, primarily used to enable secure access to remote servers and devices. Public key cryptography serves as the mechanism for mutual authentication between the server and the client and establishes an encrypted channel of communication between them. Room Alert Manager includes support for multiple SSH key algorithms, including RSA, Ed25519 & ECDSA. 

Users can either configure this feature in Room Alert Manager with an existing public/private key pair or by generating a new key pair and storing the keys securely on their systems. The private key, used to decrypt data, remains on the client system, and should never be shared. The public key, used to encrypt data, is shared with the target server. In order to establish a connection, the client must prove that it has the private key matching the public key stored on the target server. It proves this mathematically, by performing an operation that requires knowledge of the private key, but such that the inverse operation can be done with the public key.

We are so excited to continue delivering advanced and secure features in Room Alert Manager to help users prevent costly downtime. For more information about Server Command Actions, please check out our FAQ How To Configure Server Command Actions In Room Alert Manager.

Contact Us

If you have any questions or want additional information, please contact us today through email at Sales@AVTECH.com, through our online Live Chat service, or via phone at 401.628.1600.   

You can also visit our YouTube Channel and read our articles here to learn many other reasons why you need Proactive Environment Monitoring with Room Alert.