NETXML-UPS(8)

NAME
netxml-ups - Driver for Eaton / MGE Network Management Card / Proxy (XML/HTTP Protocol) equipment

SYNOPSIS

netxml-ups -h

netxml-ups -a UPS_NAME [OPTIONS]

    Note

    This man page only documents the hardware-specific features of the netxml-ups driver. For information about the core driver, see nutupsdrv(8).

SUPPORTED HARDWARE

netxml-ups supports all recent Eaton / MGE models which use a Network Management Card or Proxy (MGE XML/HTTP protocol based). This applies to both Eaton (previously MGE Office Protection Systems) and to MGE UPS SYSTEMS. Supported card and proxy models are:

    • NMC Minislot (Ref 66102, firmware EA or newer),

    • SNMP/Web Minislot card (Ref 66244)

    • NMC Transverse (Ref 66074),

    • NMC & Modbus/JBus (Ref 66103),

    • Network Management Proxy,

    • ePDU Monitored (newer version).

Older models, such as SNMP card (Ref 66062 and Ref 66045), use the SNMP protocol and should use the snmp-ups(8) driver with the mibs=mge parameter.

EXTRA ARGUMENTS

This driver supports the following optional settings in the ups.conf(5):

timeout=value
    The timeout for connecting to and reading from the UPS. Defaults to 5 seconds. Don’t change this value unless you know exactly what you’re doing.

    This value must never be higher than half the MAXAGE value specified in upsd.conf(5), otherwise you run the risk that upsd(8) declares the driver stale while it is waiting for a connection to timeout.

subscribe
    Connect to the NMC in subscribed mode. This allows to receive notifications and alarms more quickly, beside from the standard polling requests.

login=value
    Set the login value for authenticated mode. This feature also needs the password argument, and allows value settings in the card. This feature is not used yet.

password=value
    Set the password value, needed with the login for authenticated mode. This feature is not used yet.

shutdown_duration=value
    Set the shutdown duration of the operating system, in seconds. This represents the amount of time needed by the system to operate a clean shutdown. Defaults to 120 seconds.

shutdown_timer=value
    Set the shutdown timer, in seconds. After value seconds running on battery, the local system will receive a notification to shut down. Defaults to "none" (disabled).

do_convert_deci
    If this flag value is present, the driver assumes you have a very old MGE networked UPS (or rather an old network management card firmware) which serves certain measurements spelled 10x too big in the XML markup.

    Originally such measurements were decimated by the driver — but this is wrong for newer, more sane, devices — so this behavior was deprecated and is now disabled by default. Enabling this flag in configuration of a particular driver instance restores the old behavior for those measurements.

IMPLEMENTATION

The hostname of the networked UPS is specified with the port value in ups.conf, i.e.:

    [mgexml]
            driver = netxml-ups
            port = http://netxml-ups.example.com:80

Specifying the method to connect to the UPS (http, https) is mandatory. If the port is equal to the default for the method specified (80 for http, 443 for https) it may be omitted.

In order not to overload older NMCs by polling them too frequently, it is recommended to increase the "pollinterval" (see nutupsdrv(8)) and ups.conf(5)) to at least 5 seconds.

KNOWN ISSUES

  HTTP(S) proxies

Don’t connect to the UPS through a proxy. Although it would be trivial to add support for proxies, this is not recommended and don’t ask for it. Not only because it will prevent the driver to make a persistent connection to the UPS, but also it adds an additional failure mode. If the proxy goes down (for whatever reason), the driver will no longer be able to reach the UPS.

  Using host names for UPS NMC

An UPS network management card may be assigned a fixed/static IP address or a dynamic one (e.g. by DHCP) in your network. Due to this, you may want or have to use a dynamic naming service to access the UPS. Note that this may become a problem specifically during large outages and shutdowns, when your DHCP/DNS server might already go down while the driver needs to resolve the name involved (especially during late-shutdown hooks, when a new instance of the driver program might start just to tell the UPS to power off or to power-cycle).

It may be wise to ensure your OS name service client can cache the UPS name sufficiently long, or to use fixed IP addressing (and an entry in /etc/hosts for good measure, so you only have one spot to eventually re-configure this).

AUTHORS

Arjen de Korte <adkorte-guest@alioth.debian.org>

SEE ALSO

  The core driver:

nutupsdrv(8)

  Internet resources:

The NUT (Network UPS Tools) home page: https://www.networkupstools.org/historic/v2.8.4/