Nut upsuser - Oct 2015 - Assistance with understanding how to setup NUT for our small server room

Hello,

We have a small server room for our various Proxmox Host Servers, UTM
system and managed switches.   I've recently discovered NUT and would like
to use it to monitor our UPS boxes using Raspberry Pi's.  I have a few
questions regarding the setup and I'm hoping this community can point me in
the right direction.

I'll be installing the latest version of NUT on each Raspberry Pi's
(running either Debian or Raspbian).


   - Should I use one Raspberry Pi per UPS or can a Raspberry Pi monitor
   more than one UPS at a time.
   - For each Raspberry Pi, is there a webpage I can serve up to view the
   status of that battery backup?
   - I have 11 battery backups to monitor in our server room.  Is there a
   dashboard or a way to view all battery backups from one location or even
   better a webpage?
   - If a central location can't be served up then I am planning on using
   Zabbix in our server room.  Would Zabbix be able to receive the details
   from each Raspberry Pi NUT server for this dashboard?

Thank you in advance for any advice you can provide to me.
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[please use reply-all to include the list. thanks!]

On Oct 16, 2015, at 12:47 PM, Charles Mccrea <charlesmccrea at gmail.com>
wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> We have a small server room for our various Proxmox Host Servers, UTM
system and managed switches.   I've recently discovered NUT and would like
to use it to monitor our UPS boxes using Raspberry Pi's.  I have a few
questions regarding the setup and I'm hoping this community can point me in
the right direction.
> 
> I'll be installing the latest version of NUT on each Raspberry Pi's
(running either Debian or Raspbian).
> 
> Should I use one Raspberry Pi per UPS or can a Raspberry Pi monitor more
than one UPS at a time.
This depends on whether each UPS has a unique identifier. Many inexpensive UPS
models do not have a serial number that can be retrieved over USB, so the
drivers can only attach to the first one they find. (The version of libusb that
NUT uses does not have an API for selecting an UPS based on which port it is
plugged into.)

You can check for a serial number by running "lsusb -vvv" as root, and
then verifying that the string next to "iSerial" is unique. Or, you
can check for your UPS in our collection of user-submitted data dumps:
http://buildbot.networkupstools.org/~buildbot/cayman/docs/latest/ddl/#_supported_devices
<http://buildbot.networkupstools.org/~buildbot/cayman/docs/latest/ddl/#_supported_devices>For
each Raspberry Pi, is there a webpage I can serve up to view the status of that
battery backup?
https://packages.debian.org/jessie/nut-cgi
<https://packages.debian.org/jessie/nut-cgi> contains a CGI script that
can be templated.
> I have 11 battery backups to monitor in our server room.  Is there a
dashboard or a way to view all battery backups from one location or even better
a webpage?
It's been a while since I configured the NUT CGI scripts, but I am fairly
certain that you can monitor many UPSes from one page.
> If a central location can't be served up then I am planning on using
Zabbix in our server room.  Would Zabbix be able to receive the details from
each Raspberry Pi NUT server for this dashboard?
This came up with a quick Google search for "zabbix nut":
https://www.zabbix.org/wiki/Zabbix_Templates#Power_.28UPS.29
<https://www.zabbix.org/wiki/Zabbix_Templates#Power_.28UPS.29>

Zabbix hasn't been discussed much on the NUT lists, but if that works,
please let us know.

Another easy-to-setup monitoring system compatible with NUT is collectd:
https://collectd.org/wiki/index.php/Plugin:NUT
<https://collectd.org/wiki/index.php/Plugin:NUT>

-- 
Charles Lepple
clepple at gmail



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Thanks very much Charles for this helpful reply!

I've not had much luck to be honest with tracking down how to get a CGI
script to work with NUT...but upon thinking my end-result I don't think
having a webpage for each Pi to show UPS status would be used all that
much.  I'll stick to using a monitoring system to help me gather all my Pi
UPS in one place for alerts.

Thank you,

Charles.

On Sat, Oct 17, 2015 at 8:30 AM, Charles Lepple <clepple at gmail.com>
wrote:
> [please use reply-all to include the list. thanks!]
>
> On Oct 16, 2015, at 12:47 PM, Charles Mccrea <charlesmccrea at
gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> Hello,
>
> We have a small server room for our various Proxmox Host Servers, UTM
> system and managed switches.   I've recently discovered NUT and would
like
> to use it to monitor our UPS boxes using Raspberry Pi's.  I have a few
> questions regarding the setup and I'm hoping this community can point
me in
> the right direction.
>
> I'll be installing the latest version of NUT on each Raspberry Pi's
> (running either Debian or Raspbian).
>
>
>    - Should I use one Raspberry Pi per UPS or can a Raspberry Pi monitor
>    more than one UPS at a time.
>
> This depends on whether each UPS has a unique identifier. Many inexpensive
> UPS models do not have a serial number that can be retrieved over USB, so
> the drivers can only attach to the first one they find. (The version of
> libusb that NUT uses does not have an API for selecting an UPS based on
> which port it is plugged into.)
>
> You can check for a serial number by running "lsusb -vvv" as
root, and
> then verifying that the string next to "iSerial" is unique. Or,
you can
> check for your UPS in our collection of user-submitted data dumps:
>
http://buildbot.networkupstools.org/~buildbot/cayman/docs/latest/ddl/#_supported_devices
>
>
>    - For each Raspberry Pi, is there a webpage I can serve up to view the
>    status of that battery backup?
>
> https://packages.debian.org/jessie/nut-cgi contains a CGI script that can
> be templated.
>
>
>    - I have 11 battery backups to monitor in our server room.  Is there a
>    dashboard or a way to view all battery backups from one location or even
>    better a webpage?
>
> It's been a while since I configured the NUT CGI scripts, but I am
fairly
> certain that you can monitor many UPSes from one page.
>
>
>    - If a central location can't be served up then I am planning on
using
>    Zabbix in our server room.  Would Zabbix be able to receive the
>    details from each Raspberry Pi NUT server for this dashboard?
>
> This came up with a quick Google search for "zabbix nut":
> https://www.zabbix.org/wiki/Zabbix_Templates#Power_.28UPS.29
>
> Zabbix hasn't been discussed much on the NUT lists, but if that works,
> please let us know.
>
> Another easy-to-setup monitoring system compatible with NUT is collectd:
> https://collectd.org/wiki/index.php/Plugin:NUT
>
> --
> Charles Lepple
> clepple at gmail
>
>
>
>
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