[Nut-upsuser] Using MGE UPS's with NUT and openSUSE

[Arnaud Quette]

thanks Roger for your below mail...
just a side note: I'm preparing another PSP update (3.0.5), based upon
the (soon) upcoming NUT 2.2.0 release, along with some fixes (as yours
below)

2007/6/27, Roger Price <rprice at cs.uml.edu>:
> Dear List, I thought it might be useful if I wrote up my notes on getting
> an MGE UPS to work with NUT and openSUSE.
>
> The MGE UPS (an Ellipse 1500 USB) will work well with NUT and openSUSE
> 10.2, but not "out-of-the-box": there are some things you need to do:
>
> Intro. MGE have built rpms of NUT which greatly simplify installation.
>    Merci MGE. I used the rpm's for nut-2.0.5 and the MGE supplied GUI
>    front-end mgeups-psp-3.0.2. The MGE documentation advises the user to
>    install using YOU (YaST online update).  These notes assume that the
>    UPS is owned by root.  I havn't tried changing this.
>
> 1. During the installation of mgeups-psp I received an error message
>    "/opt/gnome/share/applications/mgeups-psp.desktop: error: Categories
>    values must be one of...".  This is only a warning, but gets handled as
>    an error and blocks the installation.  The workaround is to download
>    the mgeups-psp rpm and install it with the command
>
>    rpm --nopost -Uvh mgeups-psp-3.0.2-1.i586.rpm

clicking on Ignore also works, and is better since the post also setup
the initial USB device permissions. You otherwise need to plug (or
unplug/replug) your USB device cord after having installed the PSP.

> 2. The installation of nut and mgeups-psp sets up a default configuration
>    which needs further tuning to run correctly.  As root, in file
>    /etc/ups/upssched.conf replace
>
>    PIPEFN /var/state/ups/upssched.pipe
>    LOCKFN /var/state/ups/upssched.lock
>
>    with
>
>    PIPEFN /var/run/ups/upssched.pipe
>    LOCKFN /var/run/ups/upssched.lock
>
>    and create directory /var/run/ups
>
> 3. The MGE front-end to NUT will place yet another power plug in the
>    system tray, which when clicked provides a status display.  If the user
>    is root, the MGE front end also offers a "Setting" facility to set up
>    the shutdown policy.  If you use this front-end to set up the policy,
>    mgeups-psp will clobber the file /etc/ups/upssched.conf, and you will
>    have to go back and repeat step 2 above.
>
> 4. In YaST -> System -> System Services (Runlevel) set upsd "Enabled" so
>    that NUT runs automatically.  At any time, as root, you can stop and
>    restart NUT with the command
>
>    rcupsd {start|stop|restart|status}
>
> 5. When attempting to start NUT, I got the error message "invalid
>    /proc/bus/usb/003/002 in /etc/ups/ups.conf".  A crude workaround is to
>    look for and comment out some code in /etc/init.d/upsd as follows:
>
>    #  if test -n "$PORT" && test -e "$PORT" ; then
>    #    chown $UPS_OWNER $PORT || { rc_failed ; rc_status -v ; rc_exit ; }
>    #  else
>    #    echo -n "$0: invalid $PORT in $UPS_CONFIG"
>    #    rc_failed 2 ; rc_status -v ; rc_exit
>    #  fi
>
>    I'm sure that a more elegant and permanent solution is possible.
>
> 6. When NUT is running, the command "ps aux | grep ups" should report that
>    the following processes are running:
>
>    /usr/lib/ups/driver/newhidups -a mgeups
>    /usr/sbin/upsd -u root
>    /usr/sbin/upsmon
>    /usr/sbin/upsmon
>
> 7. The "UPS alarms" window will show two or three "communication failures"
>    each day lasting either 2 or 4 seconds. Ignore them.  You will see 25
>    to 50 messages each day in /var/log/messages of the form:
>
> Jun 21 16:11:40 pastis kernel: usb 3-1: usbfs: USBDEVFS_CONTROL failed cmd
>                                newhidups rqt 128 rq 6 len 255 ret -110
> Jun 21 16:46:29 pastis kernel: usb 3-1: usbfs: USBDEVFS_CONTROL failed cmd
>                                newhidups rqt 161 rq 1 len 2 ret -110
>
>    Ignore them.  See
> http://www.mail-archive.com/nut-upsuser@lists.alioth.debian.org/msg00654.html
>
> Best Regards,
> Roger

Arnaud
-- 
Free Software Developer - http://arnaud.quette.free.fr/
Debian Developer - http://people.debian.org/~aquette/
Network UPS Tools (NUT) Project Leader - http://www.networkupstools.org/
Ubuntu Media Center (UMC) Project Leader - https://launchpad.net/~umc-team