[Nut-upsdev] Idea: UPS id via powerline broadcast

[Charles Lepple]

On Sep 1, 2011, at 2:11 PM, Stuart D. Gathman wrote:

> If you have a full network link, you wouldn't need a USB hookup.   
> Perhaps
> that is what you meant by "NUT protocol"?  You meant the protocol  
> between
> the nut driver and the UPS.

I was originally referring to the TCP protocol between the NUT master  
and the slaves (which would still require the master to be connected  
to the USB monitoring port), but you're right, it could be pushed back  
even further. (In my experience, the monitoring connection between the  
UPS and master has always been the easy part - more difficult is to  
find out which UPS is powering a given slave.)

If manufacturers were to standardize on an UPS monitoring protocol,  
though, I suspect it might be easier to do convince them to do  
something like SNMP's UPS MIB - again leaning on something like DNS-SD  
for discovery.

I think the networking layer would be easier than multiple USB  
connections on an UPS (assuming integrated USB/power cables).  
Manufacturers seem to have a hard time supporting both USB and serial  
at once, let alone multiple USB device-side connections.