# Power up on network activity

## thekeymaker

I currently run a web server that doesn't get to much traffic and would like to try and cut some of my power usage for it.

I have thought about the idea of powering up from a low power mode with network activity to the machine.

I found this post:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=781372&page=2

on the Ubuntu forums but no other material.

So I guess my question is, is there a way to drop a machine into a low power mode like S3 and then have it move to a high level 

upon receiving internet traffic?

In the post they hit a ethtool's maybe having that kind of functionality.

Anyone here have any experience with this?  

I appreciate any help!

----------

## eccerr0r

Biggest problem with implementing this is that the ethernet card will need to understand the layered packet (as in TCP packet) as well as tell the connecting switch not to drop its arp cache.  This isn't possible in most consumer ethernet cards, you'll need a special card to do this.

Best you can do is if this machine has WOL (which you do setup with ethtool most likely, along with BIOS) and you have another machine like a router that you can hack, to send a WOL packet along whenever it needs to hit your machine.  This is totally unrelated to the server itself, it's the router doing the work...

----------

## destroyedlolo

The problem with that is your server will take several seconds (or more) to start ... tooooooo long for a web visite.

At least, you may use CPU ladder and shutdown disks if no activities (in this case, play with iotop to avoid any parasite activities). It will save some power   :Very Happy: 

----------

## thekeymaker

 *destroyedlolo wrote:*   

> The problem with that is your server will take several seconds (or more) to start ... tooooooo long for a web visite.
> 
> At least, you may use CPU ladder and shutdown disks if no activities (in this case, play with iotop to avoid any parasite activities). It will save some power  

 

Agreed. Yeah I was trying to see if I could do more, but I guess not besides CPU ladder and turning of disks when not needed.  Ok.

Thank you both for your input!!!

----------

