[PLUG] APCUSB utility can't see UPS

John Jason Jordan johnxj at comcast.net
Sun Jan 30 08:35:59 UTC 2011


On Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:13:02 -0500
EJ Vincent <ej at ejane.org> dijo:

>You touched upon several issues in your email, so here's my wack at
>what I think you need to do.  While I have no experience using the
>BX1500G, I have configured apcupsd with BE750G (on Ubuntu 10.10) which
>uses a similar RJ45<->USB plug.  I agree the gnome panel doesn't
>provide much information.  Regardless, you can (and should) adjust
>your unit's configuration solely from apcupsd.conf (for me 
>/etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf)-- I set UPSCABLE to usb, UPSTYPE to usb,
>and commented out DEVICE-- not a required option as it will
>autodetect. (Naturally any changes you make to this file should be
>accompanied with a restart of the service).   

I can't figure out the name of the service. But it probably doesn't
matter because the DEVICE line was blank and the others were already
set the way you said. I did comment out the DEVICE.

>You can ask your unit for data by invoking `apcaccess`.  Here's a
>sample of mine:

$ apcaccess
Error contacting apcupsd @ localhost:3551: Connection refused

I get the same error message if I do it as root.

>You said you're having problems identifying the device? Here's a
>sample of (my) dmesg output identifying the device upon startup:
>generic-usb 0003:051D:0002.0001: hiddev96,hidraw0: USB HID v1.10
>Device [American Power Conversion Back-UPS ES 750 FW:841.I3 .D USB
>FW:I3 ] on usb-0000:00:1a.1-2/input0

$dmesg | grep USB (snipped):

[    2.333380] generic-usb 0003:051D:0002.0001: hiddev96,hidraw0: USB
HID v1.00 Device [American Power Conversion Back-UPS BX1500G
FW:866.L5 .D USB FW:L5 ] on usb-0000:00:1a.7-4.1/input0 [   10.035631]
Bluetooth: Generic Bluetooth USB driver ver 0.6 [ 2567.208036] usb
1-4.1: USB disconnect, address 5 [ 2627.230271] usb 1-4.1: new full
speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 6 [ 2627.317507] usb 1-4.1:
New USB device found, idVendor=051d, idProduct=0002 [ 2627.317518] usb
1-4.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 2627.317527] usb 1-4.1: Product: Back-UPS BX1500G FW:866.L5 .D USB
FW:L5 [ 2627.338296] generic-usb 0003:051D:0002.0004: hiddev96,hidraw0:
USB HID v1.00 Device [American Power Conversion Back-UPS BX1500G
FW:866.L5 .D USB FW:L5 ] on usb-0000:00:1a.7-4.1/input0

I'm not sure what in the above is the actual name of the device. Or
what to do with the name once I figure it out.

>Alternatively, lshw can output system bus information, so you could 
>locate the unit that way (not as fun mind you):

lshw doesn't seem to be installed on my Fedora 14 x86_64 computer. 

>To take this a step further, if you have apache2 setup, you can
>install the apcupsd-cgi addon, which will show you (imho) more
>meaningful graphs via a web interface.  Hope this pushes you in the
>right direction.

I don't really have any experience with Apache. I do have the
apcupsd-gci add-on installed, and I noted when I installed it that it
said it was for a web interface. Problem is, I don't know how to find
it with the web browser. 



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