Power outage, what now?

2025-12-23

I just exprienced a power outage!

I cannot ssh into the server. I guessing its stuck prompting for file system repair or maybe just asking for username and password.

I dont have a monitor, so will drag it over to my tv, to see whats going on. I will soon buy the cheapest monitor i can find, and keep it in my basement until the next power outage.

I connected the server to my tv. the error was "time of day not set" and "keyboard not found"

this will make it auto detech datetime on ethernet

sudo apt update && sudo apt install systemd-timesyncd
sudo timedatectl set-ntp true

I also changed the bios settings to ignore warnings or error on boot. The description text in the bios also says "this is helpful for remote device", which makes sense as i was unable to access th server by SSH, due to interactive prompts.

The power outage also corrupted the boot order, which made it stuck in an error state. So i had to change it to a fixed boot order, instead of just relying on UEFI

I also had to setup login bypass for my user, so the system would not get stuck asking for a password. A password prompt is annoying in headless mode.

The power outtage had also disconnected an internal HDD, so i had to mount it again

Many containers had errored out, due to the HDD unmounting, so those had to be restarted.

The joys of linux

Self-hosting, Sys-admin