NUT package (2.8.0 and below)

dennypage

But i found a Problem with the override values. As i said above, i have set the following to the additional ups.conf field in pfSense:
ignorelb
override.battery.charge.low = 50
override.battery.runtime.low = 1200
BUT These values are added on top of the ups.conf file, which means in my case, they are ignored. When i edit the ups.conf manually from ssh / Shell, and set thes override values at the bottom of the file and restart the daemon, the everything works and also the Monitoring in pfsense Show the new values. Is this a bug? Problem is, after reboot or restart the daemon, These values are not the anymore…

The section entitled "Additional configuration lines for ups.conf" in Advanced settings is for global directives. The values you are trying to set are UPS specific arguments. UPS specific arguments should be entered in the section above that says "Extra Arguments to driver"

Sorry this isn't clear. I'll have a look at clarifying.

dennypage

@alanper:

When I click on Services->UPS I get an alert "Status Alert: The UPS requires attention". The NUT service is setup as a Remote NUT Server. The service is connecting fine to the UPS as I can see values and graphs being populated (correctly). The service is working as expected as well, as when I drop power to the UPS, NUT detects it and does what it is setup to do. Yet I still get the "Status Alert: The UPS requires attention" every time I go to Services->UPS.

Can you clarify some things please?

What do you mean by "The NUT service is setup as a Remote NUT Server"? Is the UPS attached to the pfSense host or to another host?

When you say "I can see values and graphs", are you seeing this on the Services / UPS / Status page?

If present, can you post the content of the UPS Detail section of Services / UPS / Status?

Thanks

endy66

@dennypage:

@alanper:

When I click on Services->UPS I get an alert "Status Alert: The UPS requires attention". The NUT service is setup as a Remote NUT Server. The service is connecting fine to the UPS as I can see values and graphs being populated (correctly). The service is working as expected as well, as when I drop power to the UPS, NUT detects it and does what it is setup to do. Yet I still get the "Status Alert: The UPS requires attention" every time I go to Services->UPS.

Can you clarify some things please?

What do you mean by "The NUT service is setup as a Remote NUT Server"? Is the UPS attached to the pfSense host or to another host?

When you say "I can see values and graphs", are you seeing this on the Services / UPS / Status page?

If present, can you post the content of the UPS Detail section of Services / UPS / Status?

Thanks

Thank you very much for the help, it works perfectly! :)

One last question i have:

When my UPS reaches the Limit which i set, my Server (slave) and my pfsense box are shutting down. But when do they (especally the pfsense box), boot again? Does the UPS Needs to dischagre completely to cut the power from the devices and then after power restore they get the power and boot again (with bios Setting ac restore)?

Best Regards

dennypage

Did you mean to quote a different posting?

@endy66:

@dennypage:

@alanper:

When I click on Services->UPS I get an alert "Status Alert: The UPS requires attention". The NUT service is setup as a Remote NUT Server. The service is connecting fine to the UPS as I can see values and graphs being populated (correctly). The service is working as expected as well, as when I drop power to the UPS, NUT detects it and does what it is setup to do. Yet I still get the "Status Alert: The UPS requires attention" every time I go to Services->UPS.

Can you clarify some things please?

What do you mean by "The NUT service is setup as a Remote NUT Server"? Is the UPS attached to the pfSense host or to another host?

When you say "I can see values and graphs", are you seeing this on the Services / UPS / Status page?

If present, can you post the content of the UPS Detail section of Services / UPS / Status?

Thanks

Thank you very much for the help, it works perfectly! :)

One last question i have:

When my UPS reaches the Limit which i set, my Server (slave) and my pfsense box are shutting down. But when do they (especally the pfsense box), boot again? Does the UPS Needs to dischagre completely to cut the power from the devices and then after power restore they get the power and boot again (with bios Setting ac restore)?

Best Regards

dennypage

@endy66:

When my UPS reaches the Limit which i set, my Server (slave) and my pfsense box are shutting down. But when do they (especally the pfsense box), boot again? Does the UPS Needs to dischagre completely to cut the power from the devices and then after power restore they get the power and boot again (with bios Setting ac restore)?

A simplified description of what happens with NUT when shutdown time arrives: The master sends a message to all slaves saying "initiate shutdown"; the master sends a command to the UPS saying "wait X seconds, then turn load power off"; the master initiates a local shutdown; the UPS turns off load power. When the mains return, the UPS restores load power, and the attached systems boot.

If possible, network systems attached to a UPS should be configured to always boot when power is applied. Otherwise, you can run into problems with shutdown vs power off.

endy66

Oops, yes sorry i quoted the wrong post. Thank you for the clarification. As i set the override.battery.charge.low to 50%, does my pfsense then power off the UPS? And can i set this "delay-value"? or can i see this somewhere? Because i waited about 10mins after my pfsense and my Server are shutdown, but the UPS did not power off.

Best Regards

openletter

The latest update for NUT has a link to view the changelog:

https://github.com/pfsense/FreeBSD-ports/commits/devel/sysutils/pfSense-pkg-nut

I have been getting the "This page is taking way too long to load." page from GitHub for the past few days.

How about updating the first post of this thread with each new changelog?

dennypage

@endy66:

As i set the override.battery.charge.low to 50%, does my pfsense then power off the UPS? And can i set this "delay-value"? or can i see this somewhere? Because i waited about 10mins after my pfsense and my Server are shutdown, but the UPS did not power off.

You control this with the "offdelay" parameter to the driver. See the NUT usbhib-ups man page for information. Setting this controls the variable "ups.delay.shutdown". You can read about the various variable in the NUT Variables man page.

dennypage

@dennypage:

@alanper:

When I click on Services->UPS I get an alert "Status Alert: The UPS requires attention". The NUT service is setup as a Remote NUT Server. The service is connecting fine to the UPS as I can see values and graphs being populated (correctly). The service is working as expected as well, as when I drop power to the UPS, NUT detects it and does what it is setup to do. Yet I still get the "Status Alert: The UPS requires attention" every time I go to Services->UPS.

Can you clarify some things please?

What do you mean by "The NUT service is setup as a Remote NUT Server"? Is the UPS attached to the pfSense host or to another host?

When you say "I can see values and graphs", are you seeing this on the Services / UPS / Status page?

If present, can you post the content of the UPS Detail section of Services / UPS / Status?

Thanks

Alanper, did you get your issue resolved?

dennypage

@openletter:

The latest update for NUT has a link to view the changelog:

https://github.com/pfsense/FreeBSD-ports/commits/devel/sysutils/pfSense-pkg-nut

I have been getting the "This page is taking way too long to load." page from GitHub for the past few days.

How about updating the first post of this thread with each new changelog?

It will be updated if there is something meaningful in a new version. The update released last week was solely to remove the orphan "NUT" menu item that would occur if the old package was not removed before install as discussed earlier in this thread. You can view the diff directly here.

alanper

@dennypage:

@dennypage:

@alanper:

When I click on Services->UPS I get an alert "Status Alert: The UPS requires attention". The NUT service is setup as a Remote NUT Server. The service is connecting fine to the UPS as I can see values and graphs being populated (correctly). The service is working as expected as well, as when I drop power to the UPS, NUT detects it and does what it is setup to do. Yet I still get the "Status Alert: The UPS requires attention" every time I go to Services->UPS.

Can you clarify some things please?

What do you mean by "The NUT service is setup as a Remote NUT Server"? Is the UPS attached to the pfSense host or to another host?

When you say "I can see values and graphs", are you seeing this on the Services / UPS / Status page?

If present, can you post the content of the UPS Detail section of Services / UPS / Status?

Thanks

Alanper, did you get your issue resolved?

Sorry for the delayed response. Trying to catch up on everything…
I have attached screenshots of my UPS status and settings page. Yep, seeing the values on the UPS Status page. The UPS is not attached to the pfSense host, it is attached to another host on the local network.

Capture2.PNG_thumb

Capture1.PNG_thumb

dennypage

@alanper:

I have attached screenshots of my UPS status and settings page. Yep, seeing the values on the UPS Status page.

The warning that the UPS requires attention appears to be correct. Note that the status is "On line, Bypass"? Bypass is bad. Bypass means that the UPS inverter has been bypassed and will not take over if the mains fail. If you scroll down to the bottom of the UPS Detail section, you should see a field titled "ups.alarm" which will hopefully give you a better indication of why bypass is active.

I'm surprised that there wouldn't be an alarm going off on the thing.

alanper

@dennypage:

@alanper:

I have attached screenshots of my UPS status and settings page. Yep, seeing the values on the UPS Status page.

The warning that the UPS requires attention appears to be correct. Note that the status is "On line, Bypass"? Bypass is bad. Bypass means that the UPS inverter has been bypassed and will not take over if the mains fail. If you scroll down to the bottom of the UPS Detail section, you should see a field titled "ups.alarm" which will hopefully give you a better indication of why bypass is active.

I'm surprised that there wouldn't be an alarm going off on the thing.

For all intents and purposes, the UPS is functioning correctly (aside from the bypass status reading). I am using a generic UPS driver for NUT (it was a trial and error process at the time to find a driver that worked as there was none from the UPS manufacturer), perhaps that is the cause for the "incorrect" bypass reading (I say incorrect because if I disconnect the mains the UPS functions correctly). Anyway, it's not a major problem for me as it is just aesthetics for now.

dennypage

Okay, glad it's working.

Was nutdrv_qx one of the drivers you tried?

alanper

@dennypage:

Okay, glad it's working.

Was nutdrv_qx one of the drivers you tried?

I don't recall specifically at the time if I tried the driver. However, I tried it today and it does not work. Currently the blazer_ser driver is working (the best) for my setup.

dennypage

Thanks alanper, appreciate you letting me know.

stevel

Hi

I have recently upgraded to 2.3 - specifically 2.3.2-RELEASE-p1 (i386) - on my Alix device. In the process NUT was upgraded to 2.7.4_3. On visiting the NUT service page I was asked to confirm the upgrade settings. The UPS Type (local serial) and Driver (apcsmart) had been preserved so I didn't think further and hit 'save'. NUT didn't work despite restart. I believe I know why as I have successfully worked around…

By hitting 'save' I overwrote the correct serial port setting with one of the ones presented by the drop-down on the serial port field. The issue seems to be this... the serial port only allowed me to choose from the two built in UARTS on the board /dev/cuau[0-1]. I have a USB-to-serial adapter and this assigns a character device called /dev/cuaU0 (note U/C 'U'). Once I had SSH'd into the box and spotted the issue, editing the conf file and restarting NUT cause everything to spring back into life.

I should also say that I am new to this sort of meddling with conf files. I think these are not really the masters as far as configuration is concerned, i.e. they are auto-generated from elsewhere. i can see, for example that my entries in the other ups*.conf files are not reflected in the NUT UI. Should I be doing this a different way?

BTW, thanks for all the efforts porting this service, I hope this feedback proves useful.

Regards

Steve

dennypage

Sorry about the problem Steve. Best that I can tell, in FreeBSD 10.3 and above call-out serial ports are all supposed to match the pattern "/dev/cuau?" which the device you have doesn't. Is the driver for this adapter included in the FreeBSD distribution or is it something that you had to install separately from the vendor? Can you tell me the name of the driver?

I don't have an issue adding support for uppercase 'U', but I would like to make I understand what's going on first. Thanks.

@stevel:

The issue seems to be this… the serial port only allowed me to choose from the two built in UARTS on the board /dev/cuau[0-1]. I have a USB-to-serial adapter and this assigns a character device called /dev/cuaU0 (note U/C 'U').

stevel

Hi,

The driver is called "uchcom.ko".

Cheers

Steve

bulldog5

Dennypage,

I've seen an issue going on where the NUT service gets reset if the WAN connection is lost causing UPS communication loss. My current setup has my ATT modem in a different area not on UPS backup, so when the power flickers the modem resets. This is not a permanent setup, eventually the modem will be relocated inside the main rack which it will then be powered by the same UPS as the pfsense box.

However, if my WAN link goes down, why should the NUT service be affected? If an extended power outage was to happen currently keeping my WAN link down, the pfsense box would never shutdown because its now lost communication with the UPS.