[vdr] Re: maybe a bit OT: hardware ctrl-alt-del

[Usenet-372114@zocki.toppoint.de (Rainer Zocholl)]

schoeller@gmx.at(Johannes Schoeller)  10.01.02 16:04

Once upon a time Johannes Schoeller shaped the electrons to say...

>hi list!

>maybe a bit OT, but never the less related to vdr. ;)
>as i run my vdr machine as a stand alone pc with no
>keyboard or monitor (but ssh for remote control),
>i.d like to have a button which "emulates" the pressing
>of "ctrl-alt-del" in case the pc has stopped responding.
>this happens rarely, but it does. (pls. don.t ask why,
>i know the cause, but can.t solve it - and it.s not
>hardware related) i need the button. :)

c't (www.heise.de) had in their April Issue (1998?)
a Mini-Keyboard (Vendor: Lipra Ltd. IIRC) which 
contains only the three keys "CNTL-ALT-DEL" in a row.

The big advantage of this innovative product: 
The "salute" can now be done by one-handed operators too!
(While drinking coffee etc.)

But i can't find any company called "Lipra" 
selling that keyboard to day. Hm...











;-)

Seriously:

 - Buy for 10 EUR a Keyboard and a saw and remove all Keys 
   not required and use only the chip+cable.

 - Maybe someone can programm a "PIC" (single chip microprocessor) 
   that just sends the keyboad scan codes while under Power.
   You only have to plug it into the keyboard jack to reboot.
   (Same could -maybe- be done with such a castrated keyboard)

 - An other solution may be to hardwire the "NMI" and
   place the Cntl-Alt-Del-Interupt Handler in that interupt 
   subroutine.

 - Best would be a "Hardware Watchdog" so every "hang" is
   "equalized" automagically. Some have an external input too.


Pure (brute forc?e) "Software" solution:

Ext3 works and is now (2.4.17) part of the normal kernel.

So unplugging 230V or (better, remember disc cache) 
resetting will not cause severe file system errors.




Rainer