[Nut-upsuser] Multiple instances of the same model, with same ID and no serial number!

[Steve Ballantyne]

On Thu, Jul 10, 2014 at 10:33 PM, Charles Lepple <clepple at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sounds like we can merge that branch into master?

I thought I had discovered a firmware difference (or something)
because I couldn't get the battery tests to run.  But then I realized
that I wasn't running the actual test under the right user, with the
right permissions.  Duh.  So I then went back and tested it against
three other Rpi/Tripp-Lite SMARTUPS500RT1U units and had success with
every one of them.  I am not sure how variant the firmware is, but I
can tell you that some of these units were purchased almost a full
year ahead of one of the others and they all work the same.  So I
would say that you are fine to commit your changes!

> Plugging into the same hub usually assigns them the same bus.

:-(  Yep, it did.

> To kludge around this, add a hub in front of one UPS, and plug the other UPS directly into the host.

I hadn't thought of that.  I am actually using a "2 port hub", or a
non-powered splitter so that I can attach three UPS's to a two USB
port RPi.  But I hadn't thought about trying to identify the UPS by
the hub it's plugged into?  Perhaps I will play with that.  I could
chain two splitters together, use a native port, and make all three
work!  Hah!  Kidding of course.  This may be a multiple RPi job.

> I guess I assumed you had a 1:1 mapping between the UPS and Raspberry Pi boards.

Yep, there is only this one rack in my environment with multiple
Tripp-Lites in it.  Kind of peed' me off when a vendor came in and
dropped all this crap into my rack.  I had purchased a Liebert 2500
watt UPS just for their stuff, and now all that is plugged into it is
one of my small switches.  When the batteries go in them, I will
probably yank them out and get everyone onto the one monitored
Liebert.

Thanks again for your help Charles.  I have written some shell scripts
to do some testing for me which I can share to the community if you
think it might be helpful.  My environment is probably far different
than the common user.  I don't care to run shutdown scripts, because
instead of servers I have a single Cisco switch plugged into most of
mine.  Since the switch is running off of flash, and has no "safe
shutdown routine", with the power is gone, it's gone!  But I still
need to know about it.  So my shutdown routine is more of an alert
routine.

Anyhow, let me know if you think that would be useful.  Otherwise, I
will keep it under my hat.  I'm not out to de-rail or confuse people
who are using the product as it was intended.  ;-)

Steve Ballantyne
Network Engineer
MCSE/MCDST; Novell CLA; LPIC-1; CTT+; A+; Network+; Linux+; Server+;
I-Net+; Security+; SonicWALL CSSA