[ILUG] UPS Monitoring

[Michael Watterson]

APCs need a custom cable,

There is two kinds of signalling:
1) Traditional, the handshake lines  to PC says Power fail/good and 
Battery good/poor, one handshake from PC does Shutdown. The handshake 
line can be hacked with simple hardware to allow signalling even with a 
UPS with no signalling as it just a on/off no data.

2) Serial data. The UPS tells a story on the TXD and listens on its RXD.

Some UPS will do either type of signalling. Type (1) is what is Built 
into MS LAN Manager on OS/2 since 1989, I think and on NT since 1993. 
Easy to add to any OS. The second kind (2) varies per manufacturer and 
needs a suitable application.

I just have the dumb kind at home. The loud beep gives me 10 mins to get 
the Gernerator going, then the UPS must be run for 40mins on Generator 
even if power returns as they will at that point give seconds to 5 mins 
if there is a 2nd power fail before the batteries have recharged.

So even if you do have signalling, deciding on what basis the server(s) 
are restarted needs some thought.

Jeroen Massar wrote:
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> Thomas Rooney wrote:
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>
>   
>> The UPS has a serial port on it that I imagine would send some info to the
>> server to let it know that its running on battery's and it should shut its self down,
>> sending the all important email before it does and also letting the other server on the
>> UPS know about the power failure and have it shut down also, this could be done
>> over SSH one would think.
>>
>> So to cut this short where do I start?
>>     
>
> By telling what model and make the UPS is ;)
>
> As then you can figure out which program actually supports it.
> In general it boils down to a 'apt-get install nut' though which you can
> query and possibly also itself already send messages to you.
>
> Of course, do remember that the network between you and the server also
> needs power to actually keep on operating, otherwise those messages
> won't reach you.
>
> Greets,
>  Jeroen
>
>
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> =o+TB
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-- 
Mike