Uninterruptable Power Supply

Introduction

The primary goal of the Network UPS Tools (NUT) project is to provide reliable monitoring of UPS hardware and ensure safe shutdowns of the systems which are connected.

The default configuration of NUT, will keep your connected systems operational until a critical battery state is reached (ie battery is nearing exhaustion) and then power down your server/equipment in a controlled fashion. See http://www.networkupstools.org/

Default Configuration (USB)

Most USB connected UPS's will work with the default settings. If using a USB connection just enable nut as follows:

config setprop nut status enabled
signal-event post-upgrade
signal-event reboot

If your USB UPS does not work properly OR you have a serial device then follow the Configuration Options below.

Configuration Options

Not all UPS's are supported by USB or the newhidups driver. However NUT supports many UPS's and can be configured under SME Server easily.

Serial Connection

1. Find the configuration details for your model of UPS. Refer to: http://www.networkupstools.org/compat/stable.html and make note of the driver name and upstype number (if any) in the third column.

   	Warning:
   	Always use the serial cable supplied with the UPS. Standard serial cables won't work with a serial UPS and have been known to cause damage to the UPS. Pay particular attention to any references to cable in in the UPS Model column.

   
   
2. From the consol issue the following commands: config setprop nut Model <model> config setprop nut Device <device> config setprop nut Type <type> config setprop nut status enabled Where:
   <model> and <type> are the driver name and type number found above.
   <device> is the serial port that the UPS is connected to eg. /dev/ttyS0. It also possible to use a more readable symlink. See HowTo on udev - symlinks for details. Note: The case of Model, Device and Type.
3. Check: config show nut
4. Apply changes and restart server: signal-event post-upgrade signal-event reboot Alternatively, without NUT running or requiring a server reboot: expand-template /etc/sysconfig/ups expand-template /etc/ups/* /etc/rc7.d/S38nut start
5. Confirm server is communicating with UPS: upsc UPS@localhost Whenever a UPS event occurs Emails are sent to the admin account.

Configuring as a slave

Set configuration values:

config setprop nut SlaveUPS UPS@192.168.33.11
config setprop nut Master no

Where 192.168.33.11 is your UPS master, that is the computer that is in direct communication with the UPS. The hostname of that computer may also work.

Apply changes and restart server:

signal-event post-upgrade
signal-event reboot 

Confirm server is communicating with master:

upsc UPS@192.168.33.11

Conecting multiple UPS's

To be added http://bugs.contribs.org/show_bug.cgi?id=629

Modifying UPS Parameters

In some cases you may wish to modify parameters on the actual UPS such as the Low Charge/LOWBATTERY setting. This requires the use of the upsrw command and temporary modifications to the upsd.users configuration file. In general, the UPS data should be left protected and changes thought out. If you wish to make the administrative privileges more permanent, then you can make custom templates as identified in the section "Additional Information".

In the examples below, it is assumed your UPS name is ups and that the UPS is local. you can verify the UPS name via:

upsc -l

To determine the modifiable parameters for your UPS execute the command:

upsrw ups

next we need to create a temporary user with privileges to modify these parameters. First make a safe copy of /etc/ups/upsd.users

cp /etc/ups/upsd.users /etc/ups/upsd.users.backup

Modify /etc/ups/upsd.users and add the user "admin" or anything else you prefer. The entry should look like the other entries and be something like:

      [admin]
              password = admin
              allowfrom = localhost
              actions = set

Now reload the config files:

upsd -c reload

You can now modify the parameters you wish using a command similar to:

upsrw -s battery.charge.low=20 -u admin -p admin ups

Where the value after -s should be one of the parameters identified by the upsrw ups command and where "-u admin -p admin" is the username and password set above and ups is the name of your ups. You can of course verify your changes using upsrw ups or upsc ups.

After you are done, clean up:

mv /etc/ups/upsd.users.backup /etc/ups/upsd.users
upsd -c reload

And don't forget to verify that your changes meet your intended behaviour!

More information on upsrw can be found at:

- Manual page: man upsrw

- Upsrw examples: http://opensource.mgeups.com/howto.htm

- Templating example: http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=40668.0

Aditional Information

There are template fragments in /etc/e-smith/templates/etc/ups that control the config files located in /etc/ups. The default settings should be OK for most situations.

An example of doing this can be found in the forum: http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=40668.0

For information on configuration parameters:

man ups.conf
man upsd.conf
man upsd.users
man upsmon.conf
man upssched.conf

For general information:

man upsd
man nutupsdrv

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