Home/ Questions/Q 9256431
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-06-18T11:56:23+00:00

I have four web power switches with eight remotely controllable power outlets each, for

  • 0

I have four web power switches with eight remotely controllable power outlets each, for a total of 32 power outlets. I have a device under test connected to each outlet. These devices under test are networked and have SSH. They’re designed to boot in under two minutes, but they occasionally take up to ten minutes to boot, due to being prototypes in development. They’re also prone to randomly crashing, freezing, or otherwise becoming unresponsive.

I’m looking for a reliable, efficient, automated method of mapping devices to power outlets. My current method is reliable and automated, but it’s pretty slow:

turn off all outlets
for each outlet:
    turn outlet on
    wait ten minutes
    try to connect to all devices
    store all responsive devices in a list
    turn the outlet off
    try to connect to the devices in the responsive list
    if any are no longer responsive, map them to this outlet
turn on all outlets

As you can calculate, this takes about ten minutes per outlet, and 10 minutes x 32 is 320 minutes, or over five hours. I feel like there has to be a better way, but I’ve been unable to come up with anything.

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Note:

    • this is an optimistic approach, the better your devices work, the faster and better it will work
    • it’s using the fact (as you state I have a device under test connected to each outlet.) that there is a 1:1 mapping of outlet vs device

    This sequence essentially reverses yours because that way you just have to wait for 10 minutes (max) once – per cycle, see below.

    turn on all outlets
wait for all devices to become active for up to ten minutes
   (but interrupt waiting once you see a number of devices corresponding 
    to the number of outlets turned on)
store responsive devices
for each outlet:
    turn outlet off
    try to connect to all devices remaining on the responsive list
    if any are no longer responsive, map them to this outlet

    Quite probably you’ll end up with a list of devices and outlets that’s not mapped yet, so you can repeat this cycle with just the unmapped outlets until there are no outlets are left or until you run out of time.

    So, in the very best case (all devices boot up correctly in the normal time) your test will be over in a bit over 2 minutes.

    • 0