Can Lm-sensors calculate power use?

[boyd2006@…]

Hi,

I'm into Linux too little to find out for myself, sorry :) I have the task to build a production internet server for our non-profit ddh.nl independent internet platform and aiming for a very energy efficient 1U server based on the AMD Geode LX800. It will run on Debian, as does our curent P166 server.

To make the case for energy efficiency in data centers, w'd like to show actual load and energy use of the server on a web page (building a table or graph of snapshots).

Besides for hardware health monitoring, could our sysadmins use your software for calculating these status snapshots? (Of course after calibrating certain system loads). I've seen a graph of CPU load is no problem, but I guess calculating power use is more complicated. Is this possible and if so, any suggestion on hardware which would allow this (motherboard for the Geode LX series or expansion options)?

Extra info: since we refuse a lot of spam and virusses right at the front door, we don't need much CPU overhead (and will also promote techniques for doing this to save energy). That's why we think a Geode LX is OK for us :)

Just wondering, maybe already done or might be a nice new use of your good work :)

Thanks, Boyd Noorda

[khali]

No, lm_sensors can't be used to compute power consumption. We'd need to know how much current is drawn on every power line, but hardware monitoring chips don't measure this value.

I use an external device to measure how much power my systems consume. It's named Voltcraft Energy Check 3000, google for it if interested. You simply plug any device in it and it gives you the power consumption, very handy. That won't necessarily be very practical for production use though, as it is external to the system.