[Nut-upsuser] Are UPS shutdown commands automatically sent?

[Rob Groner]

Roger,

Following your guide, it now works great, shutting down the UPS after the system has shutdown.  I went with the bash script method.

I have noticed, however, that the command to the UPS to do the delayed shutdown comes RIGHT as openSUSE is shutting down.  While that is a good thing as far as timing and the potential race is concerned, I have seen it once where the UPS received the command to do the delayed shutdown, but *not* the command to do the delayed restart.  While that's not a critical failure, it would be if the UPS doesn't get the delayed shutdown command instead.

I'm wondering if the system (openSUSE ) died before that particular command could be sent over USB to the UPS.

Sincerely,
Robert G. Groner
Software Engineer

RTD Embedded Technologies, Inc.
ISO 9001 and AS9100 Certified
Ph: 814-234-8087
www.rtd.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Nut-upsuser [mailto:nut-upsuser-bounces+rgroner=rtd.com at lists.alioth.debian.org] On Behalf Of Roger Price
Sent: Saturday, May 23, 2015 6:02 AM
To: nut-upsuser Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Nut-upsuser] Are UPS shutdown commands automatically sent?

On Fri, 22 May 2015, Rob Groner wrote:

> So I'm pursuing the strategy of issuing the "upsdrvctl shutdown" 
> command script when the OS (Porteus, in this case) is shutting down.  
> I so far can't get it to do it, but I'm sure I'll overcome it, but I 
> realized something else might be a problem.
>
> Won't that script execute every time Linux is shutting down, including 
> rebooting?  So, if I choose to reboot my system, I would most likely 
> see the UPS shutoff and then turn back on, somewhere in the middle of 
> my system booting back up.

Hello Robert, The command /sbin/shutdown -r used to reboot the box is incompatible with a UPS which receives a delayed shutdown order. If you have offdelay = 30 in /etc/ups/ups.conf, then 30 seconds after the upsdrvctl shutdown, when the box has now probably restarted, the UPS will shutdown with total loss of power to the box.  Not good.

> I can think of a couple solutions: 1) Have the script verify that the 
> UPS is actually in a OB state before giving the shutdown command.  
> That should prevent unintended UPS power cycles when simply rebooting 
> the system. 2) Have the UPS itself not respect any "load.off.delay" or 
> similar commands when it is online.

This adds complexity, and in a critical system component simplicity is a virtue.  To reboot my box, I turn off the wall power and wait until I hear the "clunk" as the shutdown relay operates in the UPS.  I then turn the wall power back on.

> Looking over UPS documentation and various helps, it seems most people 
> would expect their UPS to turn the load off and then back on, even if 
> it has wall power the entire time.  That would facilitate testing at a 
> minimum.  So I'm guessing option #2 isn't a good one.

If you have decided to use a UPS capable of shutting down and restarting when wall power comes back, then you have to respect the UPS cycle.  You can't pretend it isn't there.

Best regards, Roger

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