Automate Your Server Startup Process

If you are anything at all like me, and I bet you are, because it's kinda human to be as lazy as possible conserve energy for more cognitively demanding tasks, you likely will benefit from removing any friction that slows you down from starting anything involving lab work on your server. Don't feel bad, the smartest people I know sometimes have the hardest time getting started. But once you get moving, you start to fly.

Today, I will show you how I automate the startup process of my EVE-NG server.

First, a little as to why I bothered to set this up. I recently migrated my EVE-NG server out of Google's Cloud in favor of an on-prem server. I managed to pick up a retired Dell R720 for a reasonable price. But whatever it saved me in upfront costs would be eclipsed by the electric bill soon enough if I just let it run around the clock. Therefore, I find it much more practical to start up the lab and load startup configurations before doing my lab work.

So, What's the Problem?

Server-grade hardware goes through way more system checks before loading the operating system. The short version is that it takes anywhere between ten and twenty minutes conservatively before I can even begin my studies. Those 20 minutes are not completely unattended, thus I kinda have to babysit the server and make sure everything loads and we are ready to rock.

Wouldn't it be great is there were a way to set a schedule such that the server basically had its own alarm clock? I could wake up and brew my favorite coffee, and by the time I was half-way through the first cup, EVE-NG would be ready and waiting for me. Speaking of...

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Now with that out of the way...

There is a short list of things that we will need to accomplish. Before getting started, this video assumes you have a server that runs 24/7 to function as the "alarm clock" for your (much-more-expensive-to-operate) EVE-NG server. You could use a Raspberry Pi, but I will use my Proxmox server.

The 4-Part Secret Sauce

• SSH keys — for password-less authentication
• An alias 
• A Powerup script
• A cronjob

If that doesn't make sense, watch this walkthrough. I also have my scripts available on my GitHub. Feel free to modify them as you see fit, and let me know how you get on with it.

Cheers!

#automateallthethings