Was unaware UPSes even talked to the computers they power, thought they were just backup batteries
this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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They can connect via USB so you can do things like perform a clean shutdown when it loses power
Don't forget rs232 and Ethernet! 😁
I'm picking a brand for a service offering HaaS. And am hoping I can find a brand that has central management.
All the modern enterprise ones will support network management, but the thing to keep in mind is a UPS is essentially an insurance policy - you've got to keep up with the premiums (maintenance, replacing the batteries as they age out, testing, ...) if you want to be able to trust that they'll work on the one day a year that you need them.
Related anecdote - I know of a company that spent several million dollars installing a backup diesel generator in their secondary DC. Several years later, a new CIO came in and decided that they should actually be practicing the DR plans that they had in place, and one of those plans involved shifting all their load off DC A onto DC B, then switching DC A onto backup power for half an hour or so. Test day came and they managed to switch the load over with minimal issues, then they switched the power over to backup and... nothing. UPS batteries were several years out of life and lasted less than a minute, and the generator failed to start because it had never been maintained - turns out fuel goes bad if you leave it sitting in a tank in the sun for years, and trying to start a large engine with no lubricant really messes stuff up. Cost them mid-6-figures to get the generator torn down and rebuilt - manufacturer laughed them out of the room when they tried to claim warranty. Don't know if they tried to start the generator at the primary DC, but I suspect some bricks were shat thinking about how far in breach of contract they could be with some of their clients
Oh wow, good thing they caught that.
Hey, is there any centralized system I can put on a Linux box that will notify me of battery health of multiple UPSs.
I started a managed Services business and I'm trying to find a battery backup solution. That I can centrally manage.
I've never looked into Central management for UPS's before. So I'm not sure if there's anything out there like that.
Given your experience though I'm guessing you might know.
I'm just trying to avoid running into the situation where I have a dying battery at a client's location. I'm trying to be proactive.
Most of my experience comes from being a developer who enjoys drinking beer with operations people cos I get to hear all the gnarly stories :D
From what I understand, UPSs tend to fall into one of two categories; small consumer desk mount boxes that are enough to keep a single modest workstation going for ~an hour, and larger enterprise grade rack mount systems.
- The consumer grade ones tend not to have network management built in, but through something like NUT you can check the status and get alerts about power/battery health etc
- The enterprise grade ones typically have network management, usually in the form of a control module that exposes a web interface and SNMP for monitoring - they are typically not very secure, and usually rely on being on a separate management network that requires VPN access or something
I am by no means an expert, but it sounds like you are planning on deploying machines at remote sites, and want to include a UPS as part of that package - I'd assume that you already have some infrastructure in place for monitoring these machines remotely, so I'd suggest leveraging that to monitor a UPS connected over USB as well
Yep even mid range ones did so way back in the early 90s. It was a common fairly cheap feature that used rs232 mostly. In those days non unix systems did not care as much if powered down without warning. So us early (me 1996) Linux users really found it useful to have the ups initiate shutdown before it died. Windows users of the time only tended to worry if they had the PC running when not sat their. Few had internet at home in the early 90s and those that did were dil up. So for many it was not worth the cost when you could just turn off the PC if a power cut was long term.
Now with most people using laptops for casual use. I really cant imagin anyone buying one without the feature.
If the computer gets notified that the battery has been activated, then it can save files, gracefully exit programs, etc. before power loss
It's possible for them to tell the computer to shutdown when the battery is getting low
My cyberpower UPS works well. There's a service you can run to shut your computer down or whatever when it goes to battery power (check arch wiki) but it also works with GNOME (its displayed how a laptop battery would be displayed, but its labeled as a UPS) and it works well with NUT too.
I have 3 cyber power UPSs on my network and I haven't had any issues with them. The web interface isn't the best but it does it job
There's also a linux command line interface for at least business class cyberpower UPSs. (Not sure on consumer end.)
Worked like a charm for me on a headless machine.
Their PowerPanel Personal and Business editions both seem to work with all of their UPS models. I used to run PowerPanel Business on a basic tower-style model.
I was happy with my cyber powers for years, but then the batteries died (official replacement batteries, after 3 years - the originals lasted 5) and the ups just stopped even passing power through. This is someone's old blog about this https://blog.networkprofile.org/cyberpower-ups-avoid/
Just get one that is supported by N.U.T and have N.U.T handle your shutdowns.
...and what better brand than EATON, which sponsors the NUT project IIRC.
Using NUTS, about every one of them, I'm using APC and TrippLite
Agreed; I have two Cyberpowers that NUTS works well with. That said, I hate configuring NUTS. It's like the sendmail of power supply management systems. I'm not aware of any others, though, so it's what there is.
Oh, and Home Assistant plays really well with NUTS!
I agree, configuration is text files like good old sendmail, what a nightmare memory, IIRC there was even books about configuring sendmail...
Anyway NUTS works well, at one time I even installed it on my ASUS router and set it as a IP server, and from a windows PC using winNUT I was able to see it.
I've used both APC (via apcupsd) and EATON (via nut), both work great.
I have good expreience with APC and Legrand. Small chinese noname brands are a hit or miss, but mostly miss.
Check the nut compatibility list: https://networkupstools.org/stable-hcl.html