Nut upsuser - Aug 2014 - multiple identical UPS on same server

Hi everyone,

I installed latest version of Nut on Debian Wheezy 64bit.
This is a virtual server hosted by VMware ESXi. It's a Nagios monitoring
server.
I configured one Sweex UPS in ups.conf and everything is working.

ups.conf:

[sweex1]
   driver = blazer_usb
   port = auto
   runtimecal = 1100,100,2200,50

Now I want to connect two more identical UPSes to the same server, total of 
3 UPSes.
I see from nut documentation that for driver blazer_usb I can specify a Bus 
parameter.

root at nagios:~# lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0e0f:0003 VMware, Inc. Virtual Mouse
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 0e0f:0002 VMware, Inc. Virtual USB Hub
Bus 002 Device 046: ID 0665:5161 Cypress Semiconductor USB to Serial
Bus 002 Device 085: ID 0665:5161 Cypress Semiconductor USB to Serial
Bus 002 Device 098: ID 0665:5161 Cypress Semiconductor USB to Serial

The problem is that all UPSes are connected to the same bus and I cannot 
change this, because ESXi gives you only one virtual USB controller.
Unluckily, "serial" field is empty so I cannot use this to detect
single UPS.
This is my current configuration, but of course only one UPS is detected and 
running.

[sweex1]
   driver = blazer_usb
   port = auto
   runtimecal = 1100,100,2200,50
   bus = 002

[sweex2]
   driver = blazer_usb
   port = auto
   runtimecal = 1100,100,2200,50
   bus = 002

[sweex3]
   driver = blazer_usb
   port = auto
   runtimecal = 1100,100,2200,50
   bus = 002

It would be great if I could specify Device #id (taken from lsusb) in 
ups.conf file for each UPS. This way I can identify precisely one UPS in 
every case.

Does someone have any hints with my problem?

Thanks in advance.

regards
Marcello

On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 6:41 AM, Marcello Vezzelli
<m.vezzelli at e-works.it> wrote:
> It would be great if I could specify Device #id (taken from lsusb) in
> ups.conf file for each UPS. This way I can identify precisely one UPS in
> every case.
Slightly different situation than this, but for reference:

   http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.monitoring.nut.user/8609

The problem is that the device ID is not stable - it usually increases
monotonically (until it wraps), but it is probably not predictable
enough to be used for anything but monitoring (you wouldn't want to
shut down the wrong UPS).

The libusb-1.0 API has the concept of a "port number" which should be
slightly more stable, but we haven't made plans to transition to that
API.  If someone is interested in porting all of the drivers, we could
discuss that.

We have been organizing some of the upsc output that people have
posted to the mailing lists over the years:

   http://buildbot.networkupstools.org/~buildbot/cayman/docs/latest/ddl/

This should help when buying to see if the UPS has a unique serial
number available.

-- 
- Charles Lepple

[please keep the list CC'd. Thanks!]

On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 9:33 AM, Marcello Vezzelli <mv at 3cx.com>
wrote:
> I noticed that 2 of Sweex UPS have an identical serial number 20100813,
> which looks like a date.
> The other one has an empty serial number.
>
> The blew one had the serial number, so I'm left with two different
UPSes
> from the serial number point of view.
> I wonder if an empty serial number is a valid serial number!
I haven't tried it, but an empty string (that is, iSerial is not zero,
but the string has length zero) should match the regex "".

-- 
- Charles Lepple

On 13/08/2014 16:27, Charles Lepple wrote:
>> The blew one had the serial number, so I'm left with two different
UPSes
>> from the serial number point of view.
>> I wonder if an empty serial number is a valid serial number!
> I haven't tried it, but an empty string (that is, iSerial is not zero,
> but the string has length zero) should match the regex "".
I've found another strange issue that prevented me to test this solution.
VMware ESXi is filtering out serial number information, together with 
iManufacturer and iProduct.

This is from lsusb -v done from server host:

Bus 02 Device 07: ID 0665:5161 Cypress Semiconductor USB to Serial
Device Descriptor:
   bLength                18
   bDescriptorType         1
   bcdUSB               1.10
   bDeviceClass            0 (Defined at Interface level)
   bDeviceSubClass         0
   bDeviceProtocol         0
   bMaxPacketSize0         8
   idVendor           0x0665 Cypress Semiconductor
   idProduct          0x5161 USB to Serial
   bcdDevice            0.02
  iManufacturer           1 INNO TECH
   iProduct                2 USB to Serial
   iSerial                 3 20100813
   bNumConfigurations      1

This is from lsusb -v done inside virtual server:

Bus 002 Device 004: ID 0665:5161 Cypress Semiconductor USB to Serial
Device Descriptor:
   bLength                18
   bDescriptorType         1
   bcdUSB               1.10
   bDeviceClass            0 (Defined at Interface level)
   bDeviceSubClass         0
   bDeviceProtocol         0
   bMaxPacketSize0         8
   idVendor           0x0665 Cypress Semiconductor
   idProduct          0x5161 USB to Serial
   bcdDevice            0.02
   iManufacturer           1
   iProduct                2
   iSerial                 3
   bNumConfigurations      1


At this point I'm stuck again.
To support devices connected to VMware virtual servers some extra identifier 
is needed.
Serial number won't work even if it is different.

Thanks for your help.

-- 
Marcello Vezzelli
Software Development Department
E-Works s.r.l.
tel. +39 059 2929081 (ext 18)
fax +39 059 2925035
via G. Di Vittorio, 28
41011 Campogalliano (MO) - Italy
web: http://www.e-works.it
meeting room: http://team.e-works.com/join/m.vezzelli at e-works.it

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