[Nut-upsuser] APC smartups 1500 is broken with usbhid-ups

[Francisco Castanheiro]

I'm trying to setup a server controlling 8 ups, 6 APC Smartups 1500  
and two 1000. Because of the number of ups, i connected them using usb  
cables.

I'm using Debian Etch AMD64 and nut 2.2.0 from testing (already tried  
2.0 from stable, but had problems reading the ups serials and all the  
following problems of 2.2).

This is my ups.conf:
[ups2]
     driver = usbhid-ups
     port =  auto
     vendorid = 051d
     serial = AS0413113031
     offdelay=5
     ondelay=30
     sdorder = 4

The output of "upsrw ups2 at localhost":
[battery.charge.low]
Remaining battery level when UPS switches to LB (percent)
Type: STRING
Value: 10

[battery.runtime.low]
Remaining battery runtime when UPS switches to LB (seconds)
Type: STRING
Value: 120

[ups.beeper.status]
UPS beeper status
Type: STRING
Value: enabled

[ups.delay.restart]
Description unavailable
Type: STRING
Value: -1

[ups.delay.shutdown]
Interval to wait after shutdown with delay command (seconds)
Type: STRING
Value: -1

After running "upsrw -u someuser -p somepass -s ups.delay.restart=60  
ups2 at localhost" the value of "ups.delay.restart" is 180. I tried all  
the values in APC manual, but the value stored in the variable is  
never the one i specified. "ups.delay.shutdown" has the same behaviour.

Now, the big problem: if i test a ups shutdown without setting a value  
(could be anything) to "ups.delay.restart", the ups shutdowns  
completely, and it doesn't return when i plug in the power cord. If i  
set something first, the ups goes to standby mode (as it should), and  
when i plug the power, the ups restarts powering up the servers, but  
it powers immediately after i plug the power cord... without any kind  
of delay.

After 2 days of testing, frustrated, i tried to setup a new nut  
server. Different machine,  same hardware and same software. This time  
i used a serial cable and apcsmart driver. Everything just worked!

My new ups.conf:
[ups3]
     driver = apcsmart
     port =  /dev/ttyS0

The relevant output of "upsrw ups3 at localhost":
[ups.delay.shutdown]
Interval to wait after shutdown with delay command (seconds)
Type: ENUM
Option: "090" SELECTED
Option: "180"
Option: "270"
Option: "360"
Option: "450"
Option: "540"
Option: "630"
Option: "000"

[ups.delay.start]
Interval to wait before (re)starting the load (seconds)
Type: ENUM
Option: "000"
Option: "060" SELECTED
Option: "120"
Option: "180"
Option: "240"
Option: "300"
Option: "360"
Option: "420"

The variables keep the exact values that i set with upsrw, and the ups  
behaviour is the one expected. It standbys when i do a power test, and  
it powers up the servers respecting the exact delays i set in the  
variables.

Due to hardware limitations (too much ups, too few serial ports) i  
cannot connect all the ups with serial cables, and i cannot use usb  
cables because all these problems.

Am i doing something wrong? What can i do to help? I can post all the  
command output you want.

Thanks.

---
Francisco Castanheiro
Departamento de Informática
Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia - UNL
E-mail: fdsc at di.fct.unl.pt