On Friday 19 August 2005 02:35, Shriramana Sharma wrote:

On 8/19/05, Robert Paulsen wrote:

...

2) PowerChute doesn't support a USB connection,

My APC UPS shipped with a CD which had PowerChute Personal Edition for Windows, and it works through a USB connection. Are you saying that the corresponding version for Linux doesn't support USB connections?

Exactly. I tried to install the Linux version and very early in the process got to a point where I had to specify the connection. My only two choices were ttyS0 and ttyS1.

On Friday 19 August 2005 05:15, JB wrote:

On Thursday 18 August 2005 18:04, Robert Paulsen wrote:

...

In a recent thread there were questions about UPS software for SuSE where I pointed out that apcupsd was a good choice for APC UPS systems. I also noted that it was a good idea to get the software from http://apcupsd.com.

Someone replied that instead of apcupsd one should use the PowerChute software from th official APC site so I got a copy to check it out. I found that it has some problems:

1) PowerChute for Linux is not a complete package. Here is a quote from the documentation:

NOTE: Your Linux download only includes the Agent component of the three PowerChute Business Edition software components. The other two components only run on Windows...

2) PowerChute doesn't support a USB connection, which is the only type of connection that was shipped with the APC system I recently bought (BackUPS XS-1000). PowerChute insists on using a serial port. You will need to contact APC to get the proper serial cable.

3) PowerChute depends on a specific version of Java.

About apcupsd:

The version that comes with SuSE 9.3 (3.10.16) works, but it has a minor problem with the USB connection in that it gets some of the status wrong. There are some other problems as well, but its main functions do work OK.

I got the latest source (3.10.18) from http://apcupsd.com and have been using that successfully for some time now. I didn't use the web site's rpm version (it only advertises SuSE support up to version 9.2) from the web site.

The rpm on the SuSE CD/DVD has been patched by SuSE to improve its init script and a few other things. So, the best thing seems to be to install the rpm from the SuSE 9.3 CD/DVD, save the init script, build and install the newer version from the apcups web site, then put back the SuSE version of the init script. This is what I have done. Building the package is fairly standard -- configure, make, make install. But configure requires some options:

./configure --enable-cgi --enable-pthreads --enable-net \ --enable-master-slave --enable-apcsmart \ --enable-dumb --enable-usb make make install

You may need to copy some files (e.g. the CGI files?) to their correct directories -- I don't remember exactly what I did.

I know that all sounds like a lot of trouble, but it really isn't too hard and once installed apcupsd is a snap to configure and run. Work it all out with the SuSE version first then copy in the updated executables.

If you could try and remember everything you did, from initial installation and use of your 9.3 system with your APC UPS, it'd be a great help to many of us 'slower' users and would probably end up in the unofficial SuSE FAQ. Thanks too for all you've shown and posted so far. Once you have it all here in a step-by-step (if you're so inclined), you'll be a hero! ;-)

Well, the only way I could be sure would be to uninstall everything and do it all over. I'm not up to that right now!

On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 10:48 pm, Dave Howorth wrote:

I wrote to APC suggesting that they support the apcupsd project rather than build and support their own software, which just distracts them from their core business. I'd suggest everybody else do the same.

A long time ago I had to install powerchute onto a Solaris box. I was very impressed at the way the install script documented what it did, kept backups of all the files it changed, and slotted itself in. If only all software was as polite. It worked well too (over serial with the crazy cable) michaelj -- Michael James michael.james@csiro.au System Administrator voice: 02 6246 5040 CSIRO Bioinformatics Facility fax: 02 6246 5166 No matter how much you pay for software, you always get less than you hoped. Unless you pay nothing, then you get more.

On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 12:00 pm, Robert Paulsen wrote:

...

A long time ago I had to install powerchute onto a Solaris box. I was very impressed at the way the install script documented what it did, kept backups of all the files it changed, and slotted itself in. If only all software was as polite.

It worked well too (over serial with the crazy cable)

According to APC, there are three components to PowerChute:

agent server console

Only the agent is supported on Linux. The other two components require Windows.

It was a long time ago. It cost, or at least the crazy cable cost. It gave me all I needed to set it up and get reliable shutting down. I could also look at a GUI log of all the power fluctuations. It was very generic Unix, would have run on Linux. michaelj -- Michael James michael.james@csiro.au System Administrator voice: 02 6246 5040 CSIRO Bioinformatics Facility fax: 02 6246 5166 No matter how much you pay for software, you always get less than you hoped. Unless you pay nothing, then you get more.