================================= Network UPS Tools Documentation ================================= :Info: Program support page: :Author: Arnaud Quette and others, see AUTHORS file. :Copyright: Released under the GNU GPL - see COPYING for details. Mailing list details: http://alioth.debian.org/mail/?group_id=30602 .. contents:: =========== Description =========== Network UPS Tools is a collection of programs which provide a common interface for monitoring and administering UPS and PDU hardware. NUT comes in two flavors: the "classic" and the "HAL enabled" one. The "classic" flavor -------------------- It is the standard installation that uses a layered approach to connect all of the NUT parts. Drivers are provided for a wide assortment of equipment. They understand the specific language of each device and map it back to a compatibility layer. This means both an expensive "smart" protocol UPS and a simple "power strip" model can be handled transparently. This information is cached by the network server ``upsd``, which then answers queries from the clients. upsd contains a number of access control features to limit the abilities of the clients. Only authorized hosts may monitor or control your hardware if you wish. Since the notion of monitoring over the network is built into the software, you can hang many systems off one large UPS and they will all shut down together. You can also use NUT to power on, off or cycle your data centers nodes, individually or globally through PDUs outlets. Clients such as upsmon check on the status of the hardware and do things when necessary. The most important task is shutting down the operating system cleanly before the UPS runs out of power. Other programs are also provided to log UPS status regularly, monitor status through your web browser, and more. The "HAL enabled" flavor ------------------------ This one is intended for use: - with supported USB UPS, - on HAL enabled systems (Linux, FreeBSD, Sun Solaris), - on HAL enabled desktops (Gnome and possibly KDE) Using this approach, you don't have to configure NUT files, nor to manually start components, nor to install a specific NUT client. Upon plugging your USB UPS, the right driver will be automatically launched, and the according Power Manager GUI will pop up. Note that this feature is still beta and incomplete. But it represents a major evolution, and a huge user experience improvement! For more information, refer to INSTALL and docs/nut-hal.txt. ========== Installing ========== If you are installing these programs for the first time, go read the INSTALL file to find out how to do that. This document contains more information on what all of this stuff does. ========= Upgrading ========= When upgrading from an older version, always check the UPGRADING file to see what may have changed. Compatibility issues and other changes will be listed there to ease the process. ============= Documentation ============= This file gives an overview of the software. You should read the man pages, included example configuration files, and auxiliary documentation for the parts that you intend to use. =================== Network Information =================== These programs are designed to share information over the network. In the examples below, ``localhost`` is used as the hostname. This can also be an IP address or a fully qualified domain name. You can specify a port number if your upsd process runs on another port. In the case of the program ``upsc``, to view the variables on the UPS called sparky on the ``upsd`` server running on the local machine, you'd do this:: /usr/local/ups/bin/upsc sparky@localhost The default port number is 3493. You can change this with "configure --with-port" at compile-time. To make a client talk to upsd on a specific port, add it after the hostname with a colon, like this:: /usr/local/ups/bin/upsc sparky@localhost:1234 This is handy when you have a mixed environment and some of the systems are on different ports. The general form for UPS identifiers is this:: [@[:]] Keep this in mind when viewing the examples below. ======== Manifest ======== This package is broken down into several categories: - *drivers* - These programs talk directly to your UPS hardware. - *server* - upsd serves data from the drivers to the network. - *clients* - They talk to upsd and do things with the status data. - *cgi-bin* - Special class of clients that you can use with your web server. ======= Drivers ======= These programs provide support for specific UPS models. They understand the protocols and port specifications which define status information and convert it to a form that upsd can understand. To configure drivers, edit ups.conf. For this example, we'll have a UPS called "sparky" that uses the apcsmart driver and is connected to ``/dev/ttyS1``. That's the second serial port on most Linux-based systems. The entry in ``ups.conf`` looks like this:: [sparky] driver = apcsmart port = /dev/ttyS1 To start and stop drivers, use upsdrvctl. By default, it will start or stop every UPS in the config file:: /usr/local/ups/bin/upsdrvctl start /usr/local/ups/bin/upsdrvctl stop However, you can also just start or stop one by adding its name:: /usr/local/ups/bin/upsdrvctl start sparky /usr/local/ups/bin/upsdrvctl stop sparky To get the driver name for your device, refer to the below section called "HARDWARE SUPPORT TABLE". Extra Settings -------------- Some drivers may require additional settings to properly communicate with your hardware. If it doesn't detect your UPS by default, check the driver's man page or help (-h) to see which options are available. For example, the apcsmart driver allows setting "cable" to "940-0095B". To use this feature, just add another line to your ups.conf section for that UPS:: [sparky] driver = apcsmart port = /dev/ttyS1 cable = 940-0095B Hardware Support Table ---------------------- The NUT Hardware support table is available in the source directory: nut-X.Y.Z/data/driver.list This one should also be distributed with your favorite packages. For example, it is available on Debian systems as: /usr/share/nut/driver.list For another take on this list, try the web page: http://random.networkupstools.org/compat/ If your driver has vanished, see the FAQ and UPGRADING files. Generic UPS Driver ------------------ The ``genericups`` driver will support many models that use the same basic principle to communicate with the computer. This is known as "contact closure", and basically involves raising or lowering signals to indicate power status. This type of UPS tends to be cheaper, and only provides the very simplest data about power and battery status. Advanced features like battery charge readings and such require a "smart" UPS and a driver which supports it. See the genericups(8) man page for more information. There is also a document called contact-closure.txt included with the source distribution that contains information on this kind of hardware and details on adding additional types to the genericups driver. UPS Shutdowns ------------- upsdrvctl can also shut down (power down) all of your UPS hardware. **WARNING:** if you play around with this command, expect your filesystems to die. Don't power off your computers unless they're ready for it:: /usr/local/ups/bin/upsdrvctl shutdown /usr/local/ups/bin/upsdrvctl shutdown sparky You should read the shutdown.txt file in the docs subdirectory to learn more about when to use this feature. If called at the wrong time, you may cause data loss by turning off a system with a filesystem mounted read-write. ============== Network Server ============== ``upsd`` is responsible for passing data from the drivers to the client programs via the network. It should be run immediately after ``upsdrvctl`` in your system's startup scripts. ``upsd`` should be kept running whenever possible, as it is the only source of status information for the monitoring clients like ``upsmon``. ====== upsmon ====== ``upsmon`` provides the essential feature that you expect to find in UPS monitoring software: safe shutdowns when the power fails. In the layered scheme of NUT software, it is a client. It has this separate section in the documentation since it is so important. You configure it by telling it about UPSes that you want to monitor in upsmon.conf. Each UPS can be defined as one of three possible types: - Master This UPS supplies power to the system running upsmon, and this system is also responsible for shutting it down when the battery is depleted. This occurs after any slave systems have disconnected safely. If your UPS is plugged directly into a system's serial port, the upsmon on that system should define that UPS as a master. - Slave This UPS supplies power to the system running upsmon, but this system can't shut it down directly. This system will shut down the operating system before the master turns off the power. Use this mode when you run multiple computers on the same UPS. Obviously, only one can be connected to the serial port on the UPS, and that system is the master. Everything else is a slave. - Monitor-only This UPS will still generate notifications about status changes (on battery, on line, etc.) but no shutdowns of the local system result from critical situations on that UPS. For a typical home user, there's one computer connected to one UPS. That means you run a driver, upsd, and upsmon in master mode. Additional Information ---------------------- More information on configuring upsmon can be found in these places: - The man page - upsmon(8) - big-servers.txt in the docs subdirectory - shutdown.txt in the docs subdirectory - The stock upsmon.conf that comes with the package ======= Clients ======= Clients talk to upsd over the network and do useful things with the data from the drivers. There are tools for command line access, and a few special clients which can be run through your web server as CGI programs. For more details on specific programs, refer to their man pages. upsc ---- upsc is a simple client that will display the values of variables known to upsd and your UPS drivers. It will list every variable by default, or just one if you specify an additional argument. This can be useful in shell scripts for monitoring something without writing your own network code. upsc is a quick way to find out if your driver(s) and upsd are working together properly. Just run upsc to see what's going on, i.e.:: morbo:~$ upsc su700@localhost ambient.humidity: 035.6 ambient.humidity.alarm.maximum: NO,NO ambient.humidity.alarm.minimum: NO,NO ambient.temperature: 25.14 [ and so on ] If you are interested in writing a simple client that monitors upsd, the source code for upsc is a good way to learn about using the upsclient functions. See the upsc(8) man page for more information. upslog ------ upslog will write status information from upsd to a file at set intervals. You can use this to generate graphs or reports with other programs such as gnuplot. upsrw ----- upsrw allows you to display and change the read/write variables in your UPS hardware. Not all devices or drivers implement this, so this may not have any effect on your system. A driver that supports read/write variables will give results like this:: $ upsrw su700@localhost ( many skipped ) [ups.test.interval] Interval between self tests Type: ENUM Option: "1209600" Option: "604800" SELECTED Option: "0" ( more skipped ) On the other hand, one that doesn't support them won't print anything:: $ upsrw fenton@gearbox ( nothing ) upsrw requires administrator powers to change settings in the hardware. Refer to upsd.users(5) for information on defining users in upsd. upscmd ------ Some UPS hardware and drivers support the notion of an instant command - a feature such as starting a battery test, or powering off the load. You can use upscmd to list or invoke instant commands if your hardware/drivers support them. Use the -l command to list them, like this:: $ upscmd -l su700@localhost Instant commands supported on UPS [su700@localhost]: load.on - Turn on the load immediately test.panel.start - Start testing the UPS panel calibrate.start - Start run time calibration calibrate.stop - Stop run time calibration [ snip ] upscmd requires administrator powers to start instant commands. To define users and passwords in upsd, see upsd.users(5). ============ CGI Programs ============ The CGI programs are clients that run through your web server. They allow you to see UPS status and perform certain administrative commands from any web browser. Javascript and cookies are not required. These programs are not installed or compiled by default. To compile and install them, first run 'configure --with-cgi', then do 'make' and 'make install'. If you receive errors about "gd" during configure, go get it and install it before continuing. You can get the source here: http://www.boutell.com/gd/ In the event that you need libpng or zlib in order to compile gd, they can be found at these URLs: http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngcode.html http://www.gzip.org/zlib/ Access Restrictions ------------------- The CGI programs use hosts.conf to see if they are allowed to talk to a host. This keeps malicious visitors from creating queries from your web server to random hosts on the Internet. If you get error messages that say "Access to that host is not authorized", you're probably missing an entry in your hosts.conf. upsstats -------- upsstats generates web pages from HTML templates, and plugs in status information in the right places. It looks like a distant relative of APC's old Powerchute interface. You can use it to monitor several systems or just focus on one. It also can generate IMG references to upsimage. upsimage -------- This is usually called by upsstats via IMG SRC tags to draw either the utility or outgoing voltage, battery charge percent, or load percent. upsset ------ upsset provides several useful administration functions through a web interface. You can use upsset to kick off instant commands on your UPS hardware like running a battery test. You can also use it to change variables in your UPS that accept user-specified values. Essentially, upsset provides the functions of upsrw and upscmd, but with a happy pointy-clicky interface. upsset will not run until you convince it that you have secured your system. You *must* secure your CGI path so that random interlopers can't run this program remotely. See the upsset.conf file. Once you have secured the directory, you can enable this program in that configuration file. It is not active by default. ===================== Support / Help / etc. ===================== The main URL: http://www.networkupstools.org/ There is also a mailing list for general queries and discussion about this software called nut-upsuser. It typically moves around 50-100 messages per month at the time of this writing. To join, go to the below address and subscribe to the desired list. Finally, there is a developer list called nut-upsdev. This is not an install help list, and any such mails probably will be ignored. The mailing lists are archived on the web: http://alioth.debian.org/mail/?group_id=30602 Try running some searches against the archives. Many times, problems have already been answered by someone else. Currently, there is no internal search engine, so you will have to try with a search engine like Google. There is more documentation in the docs/ directory within the source tree. Be sure to read through the files in there (especially the FAQ) before mailing the list for help. Many times the questions have already been answered in the files which are right in front of you. =================================== Making your own clients (upsclient) =================================== The upsclient.a library can be linked into other programs to give access to upsd and UPS status information. Clients like upsc are provided as examples of how to retrieve data using the upsclient functions. Other programs not included in this package may also use this library, as wmnut. This library file and the associated header files are not installed by default. You must './configure --with-lib' to enable building and installing these files. The libraries can then be build and installed with 'make' and 'make install' as usual. This must be done before building other (non-NUT) programs which depend on them. To obtain the right compilation and link flags, two helpers are provided: one for platform providing pkg-config, and the other (libupsclient-config) for platform not providing pkg-config. ================= Version Numbering ================= The version numbers work like this: if the middle number is odd, it's a development tree, otherwise it is the stable tree. The past stable trees were 1.0, 1.2, 1.4 and 2.0, with the latest stable tree designated 2.2. The development trees were 1.1, 1.3, 1.5 and 2.1. The jump to 2.2 is mostly due to the large changes to the features list. There have also been a number of architectural changes which may not be noticeable to most users. ==================================== Backwards and Forwards Compatibility ==================================== The old network code spans a range from about 0.41.1 when TCP support was introduced up to the recent 1.4 series. It used variable names like STATUS, UTILITY, and LOADPCT. Many of these names go back to the earliest prototypes of this software from 1997. At that point there was no way to know that so many drivers would come along and introduce so many new variables and commands. The resulting mess grew out of control over the years. During the 1.3 development cycle, all variables and instant commands were renamed to fit into a tree-like structure. There are major groups, like input, output and battery. Members of those groups have been arranged to make sense - input.voltage and output.voltage compliment each other. The old names were UTILITY and OUTVOLT. The benefits in this change are obvious. The 1.4 clients can talk to either type of server, and can handle either naming scheme. 1.4 servers have a compatibility mode where they can answer queries for both names, even though the drivers are internally using the new format. When 1.4 clients talk to 1.4 or 2.0 (or more recent) servers, they will use the new names. Here's a table to make it easier to visualize: +--------+------------------------+ | | Server | +--------+-----+-----+-----+------+ | Client | 1.0 | 1.2 | 1.4 | 2.0+ | +========+=====+=====+=====+======+ | 1.0 | yes | yes | yes | no | +--------+-----+-----+-----+------+ | 1.2 | yes | yes | yes | no | +--------+-----+-----+-----+------+ | 1.4 | yes | yes | yes | yes | +--------+-----+-----+-----+------+ | 2.0 | no | no | yes | yes | +--------+-----+-----+-----+------+ Version 2.0 (and more recent) does not contain backwards compatibility for the old protocol and variable/command names. As a result, 2.0 clients can't talk to anything older than a 1.4 server. If you ask a 2.0 client to fetch "STATUS", it will fail. You'll have to ask for "ups.status" instead. Authors of separate monitoring programs should have used the 1.4 series to write support for the new variables and command names. Client software can easily support both versions as long as they like. If upsd returns 'ERR UNKNOWN-COMMAND' to a GET request, you need to use REQ. ========================== Hacking / Development Info ========================== Additional documentation can be found in the docs subdirectory. Information on creating new drivers can be found in new-drivers.txt. Also be sure to look at skel.c and main.c. All drivers are just collections of support functions built around a common core, so most of the dull housekeeping work has been handled for you. Information on the NUT variables naming can be found in new-names.txt. Information on the architecture and how it all fits together is in the design.txt file. In short, there's a lot more documentation out there. Also be sure to read developers.txt, as it explains a lot about the tree, including some of the functions that are provided for your use. ================================ Acknowledgements / Contributions ================================ MGE UPS SYSTEMS provided extensive technical documents for their UPS product line, along with many units for development of NUT-related projects. The company also sponsored and later hired Arnaud Quette to further officially support these efforts. Several drivers such as mge-utalk, mge-shut, snmp-ups, hidups, and usbhid-ups are the result of this collaboration, in addition to the WMNut, MGE HID Parser the libhid projects, .... The features page has improved artwork thanks to Luc and Arnaud of MGE. Other client projects such as KNutClient and ups-monitor have also received assistance. The master NUT site and several related projects are hosted on MGE's equipment at no cost to the project. More information on their open source support can be found on their web site: http://opensource.mgeups.com/contrib.htm Fenton Technologies contributed a PowerPal 660 to the project. Their open stance and quick responses to technical inquiries are appreciated for making the development of the fentonups driver possible. Bo Kersey of VirCIO (http://www.vircio.com) provided a Best Power Fortress 750 to facilitate the bestups driver. Invensys Energy Systems provided the SOLA/Best "Phoenixtec" protocol document currently residing at the following URL: http://random.networkupstools.org/protocols/sola.html PowerKinetics technical support provided documentation on their MiniCOL protocol, which is archived in the NUT protocol library online: http://random.networkupstools.org/protocols/minicol/ Cyber Power Systems contributed a 700AVR model for testing and driver development. Liebert Corporation supplied serial test boxes and a UPStation GXT2 with the Web/SNMP card for development of the liebert driver and expansion of the existing snmp-ups driver.