[Nut-upsdev] Documenting the NUT driver-qualification process

[Charles Lepple]

On Jul 10, 2014, at 3:39 AM, Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm at mittelstaedt.us> wrote:

> On 7/9/2014 4:16 PM, Charles Lepple wrote:
>> On Jul 9, 2014, at 11:24 AM, Ted Mittelstaedt<tedm at mittelstaedt.us>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> Someone could write a driver for MODBUS for NUT, all of the
>>> information and materials are available to do it.  The simple fact
>>> of it is that the reason no one has done so is that the apcupsd
>>> program is available.
>> 
>> You're right, it's the microlink protocol that they have been
>> promising to release. My mistake. We even have a branch where Arnaud
>> was starting to write some code against libmodbus.
> 
> Why don't you just lift all the APC modbus code from the modbus
> module in apcupsd?  The work is already done there.

Time, mostly.

As an alternative, I should point out that for many cases where one needs to monitor a heterogeneous network of UPSes, the NUT apcupsd-ups driver can let apcupsd do what it does best, while still allowing NUT-compatible tools to monitor and collect statistics from the APC hardware.

I have only used it a little, but it seems to do the job:

http://www.networkupstools.org/docs/man/apcupsd-ups.html

> Anyway, APC is under the impression that NUT is sponsored by MGE/Eaton.
> So, it interests me to read:
> 
> "..Today, the tables are turned: MGE/Eaton have decreased their involvement in NUT.."

In Arnaud's own words:

http://www.networkupstools.org/acknowledgements.html#_ups_manufacturers

> If APC shipped a SMT UPS to you with MODBUS loaded on it would you develop an APC module for NUT?

Russell Kroll used to say that the best way to get support for an UPS was to turn a developer into an owner, or an owner into a developer. Makes sense, but I'm keeping pretty busy with general NUT upkeep, and things are still falling through the cracks. I would prefer to have someone else take that on.

>> When you're done picking apart Eric's UPS HOWTO, we have plenty of
>> NUT documentation that could also stand to be updated. Patches gladly
>> accepted. I'll even reformat them to Asciidoc if that's not your cup
>> of tea.
>> 
> 
> OK I suppose I deserved that. ;-)   But Eric's a writer also and he should know how tempting it is to dangle a piece of ripe fruit like that in front of one.
> 
> I'll review the NUT docs.  What do you want them in?  My preferred editor for textfiles is vi.  I'm a minimalist.  I subscribe to the
> notion that those who can write, write.  Those who can't, reformat documents with WYSIWYG.

I should have been clearer: everything is currently in Asciidoc (even the website), editable in vi. I don't mind taking plain text additions and adding a bit of Asciidoc markup to make it fit with the surrounding text (bulleted lists, tables, etc).

https://github.com/networkupstools/nut/tree/master/docs

The website pulls in the NUT git repository as a submodule:

https://github.com/networkupstools/nut-website

FAQ.txt is probably the cruftiest part of the documentation. It could probably stand to be pruned, since many of those date back to 15 years ago. But if any part of the FAQ needs major work, it might be an indication that another part of the documentation or website isn't clear and simple enough. Even just a list of other documentation areas that should be worked on next is useful.

Thanks,

-- 
Charles Lepple
clepple at gmail