NUT package (2.8.0 and below)

Nuggets 0

@Nuggets-0

Do
chown nut /var/db/nut
and restart the service.

So naturally, my previous steps didn't fix it.

Running chown as requested didn't fix it as /var/db/nut was already owned by nut.

However, with the dev usbhid-ups, I set user=nut in ups.conf and it came up. For the record, user=root worked too but I wanted to get it working with the nut user instead of root. Not sure why user=nut works. The daemon is supposed to start as the user nut and nut has all the right properties (owner and 750). But at least it's working on the dev usbhid-ups now.

I'll monitor for a bit and come back.

incith

@Nuggets-0 it's a local daemon just run it as root why complicate things

Nuggets 0

@incith said in NUT package:

@Nuggets-0 it's a local daemon just run it as root why complicate things

Both user=root and user=nut worked both the same. I merely tested using user=nut on a whim and it worked.

I have my upsd hosting the NUT server so it's available to other servers running on the same UPS. I want pfsense to be the last server running should everything else need to go down, so it makes sense to host it on pfsense. I have rules in place as well as a user/password to prevent from unfettered access. So having it run as root is a potential risk to me, not so much others.

What I don't understand is WHY it works when using user=nut. usbhid-ups is supposed to start as the nut user anyways. Here usbhid-ups running on the original file:
79502 nut 1 20 0 13M 3420K select 0 0:00 0.01% usbhid-ups

Using user=nut The nut user is the owner and has full access to associated files. user=nut is telling the nut user to act like itself. Of course, this could all be my confusion with what is getting started with nut vs root.

Edit: Forgot to mention, it had been running fine under user=nut for at least 12 hours. Telegram bots had an outage yesterday so it did some funky stuff in pfsense with my notifications, so I restarted the NUT service so it would initiate monitoring again. Will update probably tomorrow to give it more time to run into any issues.

dennypage

@Nuggets-0 The old version wanted to be "uucp" and the new version wants to be "nut", so now there is a disagreement between the NUT executable and the pfSense NUT package.

Samlink

Hello, I recently re-activated the SMTP notifications after 1 year of using only telegram (because of https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/14031), but I no longer receive NUT notifications on email, only telegram.

On nut settings, the Enable notifications is checked.
I'm running 2.8.0_2.

Am I missing something?

dennypage

@Samlink Unfortunately, the fix for the Redmine issue you referred to broke the smtp notification mechanism for non root processes. I am hoping this gets fixed in the next release set.

In the interim, you should be able to work around the issue by adding

RUN_AS_USER root

in the "Additional configuration lines for upsmon.conf" section.

daplumber

So here's another data point:

Finally got around to buying a new UPS for my pfsense box (A 4 core i5-6500 Dell Optiplex)
pfsense 23.05.1-RELEASE and nut 2.8.0_2
CyberPower CST135UC2 $120 from Costco - I really should have known better, but I'd used CPS UPS' with pfsense NUT before with no issues. Sigh.

After much futzing and the dreaded CPS disconnect yo-yo and much searching I finally found this thread.

So I now have a stable UPS, yay.

All it took was adding the "user=root" to ups.conf
AND
"interruptonly" to driver arguments.

I see far fewer parameters, but I can live with the workarounds. For grins and giggles they are:

Variable	Value
battery.charge	100
battery.runtime	16525
battery.runtime.low	300
device.mfr	CPS
device.model	CST135UC2
device.serial	CDZNP7001732
device.type	ups
driver.flag.interruptonly	enabled
driver.name	usbhid-ups
driver.parameter.pollfreq	30
driver.parameter.pollinterval	2
driver.parameter.port	auto
driver.parameter.synchronous	auto
driver.version	2.8.0
driver.version.data	CyberPower HID 0.6
driver.version.internal	0.47
driver.version.usb	libusb-1.0.0 (API: 0x1000102)
ups.beeper.status	disabled
ups.mfr	CPS
ups.model	CST135UC2
ups.productid	0601
ups.serial	CDZNP7001732
ups.status	OL
ups.vendorid	0764

and here's the "usbconfig -v -d ugen0.5 show_ifdrv" output:

ugen0.5: <CPS CST135UC2> at usbus0, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=FULL (12Mbps) pwr=ON (100mA)

  bLength = 0x0012 
  bDescriptorType = 0x0001 
  bcdUSB = 0x0200 
  bDeviceClass = 0x0000  <Probed by interface class>
  bDeviceSubClass = 0x0000 
  bDeviceProtocol = 0x0000 
  bMaxPacketSize0 = 0x0040 
  idVendor = 0x0764 
  idProduct = 0x0601 
  bcdDevice = 0x0200 
  iManufacturer = 0x0003  <retrieving string failed>
  iProduct = 0x0001  <CST135UC2>
  iSerialNumber = 0x0002  <CDZNP7001732>
  bNumConfigurations = 0x0001 


 Configuration index 0

    bLength = 0x0009 
    bDescriptorType = 0x0002 
    wTotalLength = 0x0029 
    bNumInterfaces = 0x0001 
    bConfigurationValue = 0x0001 
    iConfiguration = 0x0000  <no string>
    bmAttributes = 0x00c0 
    bMaxPower = 0x0032 

    Interface 0
      bLength = 0x0009 
      bDescriptorType = 0x0004 
      bInterfaceNumber = 0x0000 
      bAlternateSetting = 0x0000 
      bNumEndpoints = 0x0002 
      bInterfaceClass = 0x0003  <HID device>
      bInterfaceSubClass = 0x0000 
      bInterfaceProtocol = 0x0000 
      iInterface = 0x0000  <no string>

      Additional Descriptor

      bLength = 0x09
      bDescriptorType = 0x21
      bDescriptorSubType = 0x11
       RAW dump: 
       0x00 | 0x09, 0x21, 0x11, 0x01, 0x21, 0x01, 0x22, 0xd6, 
       0x08 | 0x02

     Endpoint 0
        bLength = 0x0007 
        bDescriptorType = 0x0005 
        bEndpointAddress = 0x0081  <IN>
        bmAttributes = 0x0003  <INTERRUPT>
        wMaxPacketSize = 0x0040 
        bInterval = 0x0020 
        bRefresh = 0x0000 
        bSynchAddress = 0x0000 

     Endpoint 1
        bLength = 0x0007 
        bDescriptorType = 0x0005 
        bEndpointAddress = 0x0002  <OUT>
        bmAttributes = 0x0003  <INTERRUPT>
        wMaxPacketSize = 0x0040 
        bInterval = 0x0020 
        bRefresh = 0x0000 
        bSynchAddress = 0x0000

The really weird part is the id wasn't recognized on some of the ports, which considering they're all ugen0 was a little freaky.

So that's what I get for being lazy and cheap. Sigh again.

Now I just have to remember to remove everything when the nut package eventually gets updated.

Thank you for all the hard work here, and I volunteer as guinea pig for testing patched code if needed. Since the Optiplex is Intel i5, 4 cores, 8GB of RAM and about half a TB of SSD free it's not exactly a constrained test platform. Happy to set up a user for ssh or VPN remote access during test periods My home fiber is 1G/1G uncapped so slinging large files around isn't much of an issue either.

keyser

@daplumber I would just like to add, that while there are “bad” UPS’s out there, I think the BSD crowd should take a long breath and have a look in its own backyard. I have suffered the disconnect issues on two different pfSenses (x64 and Arm) with two different UPS’s (Eaton and CyperPower), and the only stable solution was to connect the UPSes to my Windows Server or my Linux Raspberry Pi. None of those platforms suffered the disconnect issue and both UPS’s were perfectly stable there.
So I would still argue your issue is just as likely with the USB implementation in BSD.

dennypage

@keyser The disconnect issue with CyberPower UPSs is fairly well known. It happens on Linux and Windows as well. Usually it is not a real issue because the reconnect logic covers it. The issue which exposes it here is that we are using the 2.8.0 release of NUT, which has some significant USB library issues. Almost all other distributions have abandoned 2.8.0 and moved to the dev version.

I've been patiently waiting for 2.8.1, but it keeps getting pushed out so I've started working on moving to dev. I remain utterly convinced that 2.8.1 will be released the day after I complete the move to dev.

daplumber

@dennypage said in NUT package:

I've been patiently waiting for 2.8.1, but it keeps getting pushed out so I've started working on moving to dev. I remain utterly convinced that 2.8.1 will be released the day after I complete the move to dev.

Hah, a fellow believer in Saint Murphy the patron saint of software development! (Amongst many other things.)

Of course if you DON’T move to dev, nut 2.8.1 will never see the light of day. Sigh.

Oh, and USB is a crazy collection of not-particularly-well-defined-standards where weird… stuff happens on a regular basis. It’s the worst possible interface… except for all the others. Shrug.

abs0new

Hi folks

hope you're doing well

I got big issues with nut on multiple sites.

see : https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/14795

Correct me if i'm wrong i need to use the devel package instead of the 2.8.0 port right ?

I need a little hint on how i can install the devel package which presumably correct the problem.

i tried make the package :

git clone https://github.com/pfsense/FreeBSD-ports.git
cd sysutils/nut-devel/
make package

i got :

make: "/usr/share/mk/bsd.port.mk" line 32: Cannot open /usr/ports/Mk/bsd.port.mk
make: "/root/nut-devel/Makefile" line 149: Malformed conditional (${PORT_OPTIONS:MUSB})
make: "/root/nut-devel/Makefile" line 156: Malformed conditional (${PORT_OPTIONS:MBASH})
make: "/root/nut-devel/Makefile" line 160: Malformed conditional (${PORT_OPTIONS:MDOCS})
make: "/usr/share/mk/bsd.port.mk" line 32: Cannot open /usr/ports/Mk/bsd.port.mk
make: Fatal errors encountered -- cannot continue
make: stopped in /root/nut-devel

so i tried with gmake :

gmake package

i got this :

Makefile:137: *** missing separator.  Stop.

Can someone give me some hint here ?

Thank you ;)

dennypage

@abs0new farther back in this thread you will find dev build executables that have been shared.

zeemaffin

Hi!

I came across this problem and I can't seem to find the answer in the thread.
I have a PFsense 6100 MAX , its on 23.05.1-Release at the moment.

Installed NUT services and connected my Lenovo UPS (55942KX) via USB to the firewall.
I am using an SRS232 to USB cable.

The summary says its failed to retrieve status.
Logs:
Oct 11 12:04:43 upsmon 54986 Poll UPS [Lenovo_UPS] failed - Driver not connected
Oct 11 12:04:45 upsd 56388 Can't connect to UPS [Lenovo_UPS] (usbhid-ups-Lenovo_UPS): No such file or directory
Oct 11 12:04:53 upsmon 54986 Poll UPS [Lenovo_UPS] failed - Driver not connected
Oct 11 12:04:58 upsmon 54986 Poll UPS [Lenovo_UPS] failed - Driver not connected
Oct 11 12:05:03 upsmon 54986 Poll UPS [Lenovo_UPS] failed - Driver not connected
Oct 11 12:05:08 upsmon 54986 Poll UPS [Lenovo_UPS] failed - Driver not connected
Oct 11 12:05:08 upsmon 54986 UPS Lenovo_UPS is unavailable

I have tried with all of the drivers from the drop-down menu without success.
I am sure I am missing something from the configuration, but I am technically stuck at this point. Maybe I am just dumb to even try to use the USB option, but unfortunatly I don't have other solutions for this UPS.

Can you guys show me a path where should I start poking around?
Kind regards,
Zee Muffin man,

Maltz

@zeemaffin

That should probably be using a serial driver, not USB. The serial port is connected via USB, but the UPS is connected via serial. I.e., the UPS isn't going to show up as a USB device for the USB driver to communicate with.

dennypage

@zeemaffin said in NUT package:

Installed NUT services and connected my Lenovo UPS (55942KX) via USB to the firewall.
I am using an SRS232 to USB cable.

Does the UPS have a direct USB interface? If so, you absolutely should use that interface instead of a USB to serial cable.

Now, assuming that it does not have a native USB interface and that you have no choice other than to use a USB serial emulator cable...

If the emulator chip in the cable is supported by FreeBSD, the device will show up as a serial port in /dev when you connect the USB cable to the pfSense system. If it doesn't, you're out of luck.

To use a serial port emulator, in the NUT configuration you would select "Local Serial" as the UPS Type, and then select the correct port in the Serial port drop-down list (Hint: on the 6100, it's not cuau0 or cuau1).

Now comes the hard part. You will have to select the correct driver, and it's a long list to choose from. Without knowing who actually made the UPS that Lenovo rebranded, you have to guess and test. My best guess would be mge-shut, but that is only a guess.

JonathanLee

Did the USB Cyber Power connection drop issue ever get resolved? I noticed they closed that redline....

dennypage

@JonathanLee The new NUT version is still pending. I'm switching from nut (8.0) to nut-devel (pre 8.1), which unfortunately has required some fixes in the upstream BSD Port. The fixes are completed, but now have to flow down to pfSense. I don't know how long that will take.

abs0new

@dennypage Thank you for your suggestion.

Do i need to search through 1212 posts to find the executable ?

Gertjan

@abs0new

When its ready, you see it here, signaled as "an update has arrived" :

There will be a yellow sign after the "i".

zeemaffin

@dennypage Hi!

Thank you for the tips, I am going through the serial drivers.
In the UPS settings page the serial port is a drop down menu and /dev/cuau0 and /dev/cuau1 is the 2 option, theres nothing else.
SO this case can't understand your hint regarding the 6100.

Sofar I had no luck... Would you suggest and USB-B to USB-A cable? ( the UPS has the usb port similiar to printers do)

Kind regards,