What to Do if Your Power Goes Out
A thunderstorm rolls through, the lights flicker, and your entire house loses power. What happens to your LocalNode, your data, and your apps when the electricity comes back?
Overview
The LocalNode is designed to be an appliance. Just like your refrigerator turns itself back on and starts cooling after a power outage, the LocalNode is configured to automatically boot up and restart all services without human intervention.
How the LocalNode recovers
In the server's BIOS (the lowest level of hardware software), we have enabled a setting called "Restore on AC/Power Loss".
- When the power goes out, the server instantly shuts down.
- When the electricity returns to the wall outlet, the BIOS detects the voltage and automatically turns the server on. (You do not need to press the power button).
- The operating system boots up in about 30 seconds.
- The Docker engine starts and begins launching your containers in a specific order (e.g., the database first, then Nextcloud).
In short: You don't have to do anything. Just wait 3-5 minutes after the power comes back, and your dashboard should be perfectly accessible at http://localnode.local.
The IP Address problem
There is one major catch to power outages: Your router restarts too.
When the power comes back, the router and the LocalNode boot up at the same time. Because the router is busy initializing, it might assign the LocalNode a different IP address than it had before the outage (e.g., jumping from .50 to .55).
http://localnode.localwill still work perfectly, because it automatically finds the new IP.- However, any Port Forwarding rules you set up for WireGuard VPN will break, because the router is sending the VPN traffic to the old
.50address.
💡 Tip: To prevent this, log into your router and find the setting called "DHCP Reservation" or "Static IP Allocation". Assign the LocalNode a permanent IP address based on its MAC address. This guarantees it will always get the same IP, even after a power outage.
Preventing issues with a UPS
While the LocalNode uses an incredibly resilient filesystem, sudden power loss can occasionally corrupt a database if the server was in the exact middle of writing a file.
We highly recommend plugging your LocalNode and your Wi-Fi router into a small UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply). A cheap $50 UPS battery backup will keep the LocalNode running for over an hour during an outage, preventing sudden shutdowns and keeping your home internet online while you wait for the power company.
Need help? Email hello@localnode.tech or visit localnode.tech/contact.
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