Nut upsuser - Nov 2009 - two MGE Ellipse 1500 ups via usb

Hi,

I've got two MGE Ellipse 1500 UPS connected via usb to an ubuntu
jaunty system with nut and libupsclient1 2.4.1-2ubuntu4.
As soon as I start the driver for the second one, they start fighting
each other and I get no data. I found an older post to this list that
said: If you want to monitor multiple UPSes through usbhid-ups, you
*must* make sure that each one can be uniquely identified through the
"vendor", "product", "serial",
"vendorid", "productid" and "bus"
regular expressions (see 'man 8 usbhid-ups' for an explanation how to
use these).
So I ran lsusb -v and got two different values for iSerial (1HCG4700J
and 000000000) and iManufacturer ('1 MGE UPS SYSTEMS' and '1
EATON').
Strangely, vendor is '0x0463 MGE UPS Systems' for both.
They're also on the same bus ('Bus 003 Device 063' and 'Bus 003
Device 064')
Since there is no flag for manufacturer, I had to go with serial. This
is my new ups.conf:
[ups1]
       driver = usbhid-ups
       port = /dev/usb/hiddev0
       serial=000000000
[ups2]
       driver = usbhid-ups
       port = /dev/usb/hiddev1
       serial=1HCG4700J
When I run upsdrvctl start ups1, it starts /lib/nut/usbhid-ups -a ups1
but no -x flag.

Starting usbhid-ups manually with the -x serial=000000000 and -DD flag shows:
Checking device (0463/FFFF) (003/064)
- VendorID: 0463
- ProductID: ffff
- Manufacturer: MGE UPS SYSTEMS
- Product: ELLIPSE
- Serial Number: 1HCG4700J
- Bus: 003
Trying to match device
Device does not match - skipping
Checking device (0463/FFFF) (003/063)
- VendorID: 0463
- ProductID: ffff
- Manufacturer: EATON
- Product: ELLIPSE
- Serial Number: 000000000
- Bus: 003
Trying to match device
Device matches

so it seems to be working. But how can I get upsdrvctl to add the -x
flag automatically?

Cheers,
  Tom

Citeren Thomas Gutzler <thomas.gutzler op gmail.com>:

[...]
> Strangely, vendor is '0x0463 MGE UPS Systems' for both.
Eaton is now the owner of what was formerly known as MGE Office  
Protection Systems, which in turn is part of what used to be known as  
MGE.
> They're also on the same bus ('Bus 003 Device 063' and 'Bus
003 Device 064')
> Since there is no flag for manufacturer,
There is. See 'man 8 usbhid-ups' for all regular expressions that you  
can use to identify units.
> I had to go with serial. This
> is my new ups.conf:
> [ups1]
>        driver = usbhid-ups
>        port = /dev/usb/hiddev0
>        serial=000000000
> [ups2]
>        driver = usbhid-ups
>        port = /dev/usb/hiddev1
>        serial=1HCG4700J
The value of port isn't used, so we recommend setting it to

          port = auto

to prevent people from thinking that it attaches to the location  
specified (this value needs to be present, but isn't actually used).
> When I run upsdrvctl start ups1, it starts /lib/nut/usbhid-ups -a ups1
> but no -x flag.
The driver reads most parameters directly from ups.conf, so this isn't  
added by upsdrvctl.
> Starting usbhid-ups manually with the -x serial=000000000 and -DD flag
shows:
> Checking device (0463/FFFF) (003/064)
> - VendorID: 0463
> - ProductID: ffff
> - Manufacturer: MGE UPS SYSTEMS
> - Product: ELLIPSE
> - Serial Number: 1HCG4700J
> - Bus: 003
> Trying to match device
> Device does not match - skipping
> Checking device (0463/FFFF) (003/063)
> - VendorID: 0463
> - ProductID: ffff
> - Manufacturer: EATON
> - Product: ELLIPSE
> - Serial Number: 000000000
> - Bus: 003
> Trying to match device
> Device matches
>
> so it seems to be working. But how can I get upsdrvctl to add the -x
> flag automatically?
This isn't needed. Running

     /lib/nut/usbhid-ups -DD -a ups1

and

     /lib/nut/usbhid-ups -DD -a ups2

in another window should result in both instances running fine.  
Likewise, running it from upsdrvctl (with the above ups.conf file)  
should also work. Please confirm that there are no instances of  
usbhid-ups left running in the background before trying this out. This  
is a common mistake.

One thing you may want to check as well, is that there are no trailing  
spaces in ups.conf. We have unconfirmed reports that this could  
confuse the configuration parser (but were never able to reproduce the  
problem).

Best regards, Arjen
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On Nov 15, 2009, at 8:18 AM, Thomas Gutzler wrote:
> So I ran lsusb -v and got two different values for iSerial (1HCG4700J
> and 000000000) and iManufacturer ('1 MGE UPS SYSTEMS' and '1
EATON').
Note that when interpreting values from lsusb, the members starting  
with "i" are indices (in this case, indexing the string descriptors).

The index for iManufacturer seems to be "1", and the value that you  
specify in the configuration file is the portion *after* that index  
("MGE UPS SYSTEMS" or "EATON", depending on how new the unit
is).

Citeren Thomas Gutzler <thomas.gutzler op gmail.com>:
> My setup is this: I have 6 computers on 2 UPSs (3 each). Boths UPSs have
> equal power ratings but the load on the slave is less. They are both
> connected to and monitored by the same computer (I call it monitor); one
> UPS is configured as master (the one with the monitor on it) and the
> other is configured as slave. The computers connected to slave should
> shut down first because they're nfs mounting from one of the computers
> on the master UPS.
>
> Assuming that the master runs out of battery first, my understanding is
> that I could catch the master's LOWBATT notice and use it to shut down
> the computers on the slave (via ssh <host> poweroff) and then catch
the
> master's FSD to shut down the computers on the master excluding the
> monitor because that one is brought down last (to runlevel 0) by upsmon
> executing SHUTDOWNCMD. Is there a smarter way doing it - perhaps setting
> sdorder?
There is. You can do this much better entirely in the upsmon.conf  
files on the various systems, without having to write your own  
shutdown scripts. The trick is that there should be one decision  
moment when it is time to commence shutting down of *all* systems.  
Otherwise you risk that if the power returns before all systems go  
critical, some of them won't shutdown and others that have already  
started shutting down, won't be restarted. You don't want that if this  
happens at 3am...

The most convenient location to do this, is on the system that is  
attached to the UPS'es. System controlling the UPS'es (monitor):

    MONITOR ups1 op localhost 1 monmaster blah master
    MONITOR ups2 op localhost 1 monmaster blah master
    MINSUPPLIES 2
    FINALDELAY 5

System running the NFS:

    MONITOR ups1 op monitor.example.com 1 monslave blah slave
    MINSUPPLIES 1
    FINALDELAY 120

All other systems:

    MONITOR ups1 op monitor.example.com 1 monslave blah slave
       or
    MONITOR ups1 op monitor.example.com 1 monslave blah slave
    MINSUPPLIES 1
    FINALDELAY 5

The above will initiate the shutdown sequence when either of the two  
UPS devices goes critical (On Battery and Low Battery at the same  
time). The NFS system will wait 120 seconds before the SHUTDOWNCMD is  
sent, all others will do so after 5 seconds (which means that they  
have almost two minutes before the NFS will shutdown).

Note that you need a fairly long 'offdelay' for at least 'ups1',
since
the monitor system will start the shutdown sequence long before the  
NFS will. The minimum time needed, is the time it takes to shutdown  
the NFS + 120 seconds in this example. You can prevent the risk of  
'ups1' shutting down before the NFS is ready to lose power, by running  
the monitoring from the NFS system. Generally, the system that needs  
to be powered longest should run the master upsmon(s). In that case,  
an offdelay of a couple of seconds is sufficient.

You'll want to guarantee that there is ample of power left when the  
systems start shutting down (because there is a substantial delay  
between that and the actual shutdown), so set the 'battery.charge.low'  
not lower than something like 50% and also the restart level to the  
same (although not all UPS devices support the latter).
> To make sure both UPSs shut down, I write a shutdown script for runlevel
> 0 which checks for the existence of POWERDOWNFLAG, runs upsdrvctl
> shutdown for all UPSs and possibly a shutdown -P now. Fortunately,
> ubuntu comes with such a script (K50nut) but it has to be executed with
> the parameter 'poweroff', not 'stop'. So, am I supposed to
write a
> shutdown script /etc/rc0.d/K99upspoweroff that calls '/etc/rc0.d/K50nut
> poweroff'?
Not if you use the above upsmon configuration, assuming that the  
people of Ubuntu created a proper shutdown script.
> What's left but not necessary is to make sure that 'Interval to
wait
> after shutdown with delay command (seconds)' on my master UPS is long
> enough for the monitor to power off properly after being halted.
By the time 'upsdrvctl shutdown' runs, all systems should be ready for  
loss of power. Most already will have powered off already, but you'll  
want to make sure that the controlling systems doesn't shutdown before  
the NFS system. In order to be able to restart if the power returns in  
the mean time, 'ondelay' must be higher than 'offdelay'.

Best regards, Arjen
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