[Nut-upsuser] OMNIVS1500XL and FreeBSD

[Charles Sprickman]

On Mon, 5 Mar 2007, Charles Lepple wrote:

> On 3/4/07, Charles Sprickman <spork at bway.net> wrote:
>> On Sun, 4 Mar 2007, Charles Lepple wrote:
>> > Also, the USB receive never seems to fail, just that the data we read
>> > does not match the data that gets sent.
>> >
>> > e.g. if I send ":P<checksum>" then I expect to get a response that
>> > starts with "P", otherwise it's just old data in the serial-to-USB
>> > FIFO.
>> 
>> Blech.  That sounds like something non-trivial to fix (regardless of
>> whether it's the driver or FreeBSD).
>
> Actually, that's how this particular USB-to-serial converter works.
> You send the command a few times, and keep polling it for the received
> data until it looks right.

I see.  I was also not aware that internally the UPS was still using an 
(old) serial protocol and just interfacing it to a USB port.

>> > Another option might be for you to see if you can connect that UPS to
>> > a WinXP system and do some USB packet capture. (I'm not sure how
>> > feasible this is, given your power situation.)
>> 
>> I could probably arrange that.  What do you think the chances are of WinXP
>> in a virtual machine (Parallels) working?  I could also take a stab at
>> making this thing dual-boot.  What tool does one use in Windows to do USB
>> packet capture?
>
> I haven't tried Parallels yet - my Macs are both PowerPC. It might
> work, though. It depends whether the USB support is completely
> emulated or not.

I'll give it a shot.  I'm a little nervous about BootCamp as right now 
this MBP is my only "workstation"; had a little meltdown where I went from 
3 functioning workstations to 1. :)

>> From what I gather the UPS tools built in to OS-X can talk to this UPS as
>> well.  But I wouldn't know where to start as far as getting packet
>> captures there...
>
> Unfortunately, neither do I. So if you plug it in to an OS X box, do
> you see an "UPS" tab in the "Energy Saver" control panel?

I visit the site with the UPS on Wednesday's so I'll verify it then, but 
I'm fairly sure it's supported.

I was also pointed to this for the OS-X side of things:

http://developer.apple.com/hardwaredrivers/download/usbdebug.html

It mentions that these kernel extension replacements offer some degree of 
logging.  I'll get that loaded up before my visit and see what exactly the 
logging facilities look like.

Thanks so much for you help...

Charles

> -- 
> - Charles Lepple
>