temperature sensing

Using the hard drive

sudo apt-get install hddtemp
hddtemp

lm_utils

http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/howto-linux-get-sensors-information/

Install lm_sensors / lm-sensors package

This package may or may not be installed. Type the following command to install software on CentOS / RHEL / Fedora Linux: 

# yum install lm_sensors

If you are using Debian / Ubuntu Linux, enter: 

$ sudo apt-get install lm-sensors
Configure lm_sensors

To detect hardware monitoring chips, type the following command as the root user: 

# sensors-detect

OR 

$ sudo sensors-detect
Read sensors chip data

Type the following command at shell prompt: 

$ sensors
usb device

http://www.camelspit.org/2008/02/29/envstick-usb-temperature-sensor/

serial device (simple and multiple sensors)

http://martybugs.net/electronics/tempsensor/

OpenIPMI

Could this be useful?? 

yum info OpenIPMI
yum info OpenIPMI-tools

* see links on the following article

http://www.ghacks.net/2010/08/06/keeping-track-of-your-pcs-temperature-in-linux/

http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-laptop-battery-status-temperature/

Hard Drive Temperature Monitoring with RRDTool

Vint Cerf mentioned these:

http://www.linuxmce.com

http://www.archrock.com/

Linux package “rrdtool” for storing data in a round robin fassion