Suggestion: Down for maintenance

[ShadeBlack 105]

Pretty simple suggestion.

 

I have multiple users for my Emby server.

If I want to do continuous maintenance on the media, I have to tell everyone.  some of them are harder to reach than others ( i.e. no Facebook or Skype chat etc. )

It would be great if say... on the admin panel, I could hit a check box that enables 'maintenance mode', where the server still runs does everything as normal, but instead of the login screen it displays a maintenance page saying the server is unavailable. Even better if I were able to directly put a reason in a text box that would then display on the login screen as well.

 

Not really sure what others would think of this, but for me it would be quite helpful.  mostly if I want to make sure no one is trying to access content I know won't work until I've done a full library scan again.

 

Thanks for reading.

-Kyle

Edited February 4, 2016 by ShadeBlack

[Info1 13]

Great idea  Kyle,

 

I would like this feature as well. I can see using it at least once a week.

 

m

[Luke 38531]

yea it's a good idea

[ShadeBlack 105]

Thanks guys

[Vidman 590]

Great idea Kyle,

 

I would like this feature as well. I can see using it at least once a week.

 

m

Why are you down for maintainance at least once a week?

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

Why are you down for maintainance at least once a week?

 

Could be many reasons. Here are four.

• Removing / Rebuilding libraries
• Adding Hardware
• System Updates on the server machine
• If you live in the desert like I do, dusting.

[Vidman 590]

Multiple times Every week?

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

Multiple times Every week?

Probably at least once a week when everything is taken into account. Not sure about multiple. I am sure everyone has slightly different reasons and methods of management.

Edited February 6, 2016 by Koleckai Silvestri

[Vidman 590]

do you ever have any time to enjoy your media?

Imagine how popular Netflix would be if it was down for maintainance every week

Edited February 6, 2016 by Vidman

[ShadeBlack 105]

@@Vidman

we aren't a large multi-national company with thousands of employees to monitor and maintain our media with enterprise level datacentres.

we are singular people whom require a simple method of taking all content 'offline' while and when we work on our inferior systems.

I have to say, your line of questioning seems mildly aggressive for little to no apparent reason...

 

If I need an entire week to complete my maintenance, I expect my users to understand this or they can bugger off.  After all, they're benefiting entirely for my hobby, right?

Sure, Netflix aren't likely to do this - but quite frankly, that's an unfair comparison by all accounts.

[Vidman 590]

Alright buddy no aggression intended, just seems something must amiss if your setup requires so much maintainance and presumably if you are requesting this "feature" you have users outside your immediate family/household that would not be happy to be greeted with this message every week... But then I guess they must be used to that already, they currently will just have no access right?

Edited February 6, 2016 by Vidman

[speechles 1969]

...and it doesnt have to be maintenance. Lets say you want to use the bandwidth for something else on your upload speed. So for that week, or day, or 3 hours on some random tuesday. The time interval of down time is really meaningless. They key is for that time period the remote users see a message telling them your custom message. Which could be "down for maintenance" or "be back at 4pm EST" or whatever. This isnt for everyone, this is for users who host other users on their systems. I totally see how this could be useful.

 

The tough part is getting this into the clients, the easy part is getting it into the server.

 

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Edited February 6, 2016 by speechles

[JeremyFr79 228]

Sign me up on this as well!

[computerprep 146]

[JeremyFr79 228]

You could (and probably should) do this on your own instead of building it into the server system.

 

For example: if my server is running some kind of massive task, but the Emby server application is still running, then users can login even though everything might be glitchy, allow, or missing.

 

If I'm rebuilding a RAID configuration to replace a disk or two, I might close the Emby server application altogether, though. This would result in some kind of HTTP error (probably 500). Port forwarding is on, server is on, but nothing is receiving/responding http requests.

 

If I'm doing some major maintenance, like my biennial "spring cleaning" where I reformat with OEM disks, reinstall everything I truly need, rebuild libraries, and restore user profiles... that would require the computer to be off entirely giving us different HTTP errors.

 

I don't see a good way to give maintenance webpages during this third scenario. Emby connect could respond appropriately, but if users are typing in a direct hostname, IP, or domain name, you need to look at DNS zone changes temporarily.

 

I run my Emby server in parallel with FTP access and duplicate my user profiles so files are accessible both ways to my family members and close friends. It's accessed via standard domain name with SSL, forwarding to a specified port at my dynamicDNS ip address, through a few network security machines and into my server.

 

Using a domain name gives me the capability to set backup DNS records if the first one fails. If my server is unreachable, users are forward instead to a maintenance message that has similar CSS styling to three functioning Emby.

 

So... if Emby moderators/developers (Luke) were to add custom subdomain capability to premiere status members, you could probably offer something like this across the board... but there are increased network security risks that not everyone will understand or be able to counter.

 

^ and that was WAY more than I intended to type on my little smartphone when I started reading this thread.

Problem is there is no way to address Devices this way that aren't using HTTP i.e. Roku/Firestick/Nexus Player/Xbox/ etc

[JeremyFr79 228]

Problem is there is no way to address Devices this way that aren't using HTTP i.e. Roku/Firestick/Nexus Player/Xbox/ etc

Also it sounds like in your case you have everything living on one machine, where there are many others like myself that have multiple servers doing different tasks. My storage sits on it's own dedicated system, while Emby is one of many VM's that run on my VM host.  So I can take all my storage down without ever having to take down any of my other servers (90% are VMS)

[MSattler 388]

We really need this...

 

like today when one of my unraid servers decided to puke a power supply, and half my content was missing.... =)

[computerprep 146]

Problem is there is no way to address Devices this way that aren't using HTTP i.e. Roku/Firestick/Nexus Player/Xbox/ etc

I do this with my Nexus Player.

 

In fact, just got home from a weeklong vacation in the GA mountains, bright over if my Nexus and left the other one at home for the kid and grandparents.

 

Turned on the device, connected to the wifi, and instantly connected through my domain address.

 

They can't get the proper error message redirect, but this doesn't break their connection. Then if they try to connect through a Nexus Player or similar device and can't, they'll usually try with a phone/laptop, at which point they will receive the error redirect.

 

Ultimately, though, this redirect could be controlled through future Emby Connect settings.

[Never_More 19]

I found a simple way well kinda - what I have done is set up a folder on c drive with nothing in it except a jpeg with whatever message i want to send out - when i'm doing work on my movie/TV (whatever files) I remove them from the server and place the message folder in .. yea its a little work but at the least I don't call all my family lol... I have been looking at setting a 2nd server with all the same settings but no library - when i'm ready to work on the "real" server Ill take the server off line and turn on the message server.. not the best way of doing things but it works for me.. and the best part the family thinks i'm a genus well sort of..

 

Please be kind when you blow my system apart :-) 

Edited July 27, 2016 by Never_More

[computerprep 146]

New thoughts... Remember to show your support for requests you like by "liking" the original topic post.

 

http://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/37831-added-notification-options/

[pir8radio 1301]

And/Or...  erherm...  A text message to the users....    Kind of like this suggestion...  

http://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/19602-ability-to-post-our-own-alerts-or-popups/?hl=%2Bmessage+%2Busers

[computerprep 146]

And/Or...  erherm...  A text message to the users....    Kind of like this suggestion...  

http://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/19602-ability-to-post-our-own-alerts-or-popups/?hl=%2Bmessage+%2Busers

 

Definitely... never saw that thread before. Thanks for the link.

[ksmithaz1 0]

Ditto, and this should be fairly trivial frankly:

 

KISS - An optional MOTD on both the User login screen and the Home page, and possibly a full maintenance down option

[pappaq 8]

Is there any progression on this topic?

 

Gesendet von meinem Pixel 2 XL mit Tapatalk

[ebr 15369]

This is a good idea but it isn't as trivial as you may think.

 

Many parts of the system do not go through a login screen to access the services...