WHOA, WHOA, WHOA ---- easy Flicker... Put your arrows back in thier quiver, and
each one of you go stand in the corner for 5 FULL minutes, no talking, and NO
turning around.
There, that's better.
Brandon, Tom, Rusty, Jeanette, Pierre, and the rest that contributed -- Thanks!
I learned a lot -- it has been a positive experience.
First, I learned that there may be an RS232 issue with the APC backup line that
I should take into consideration for my purchase;
Second, I learned that there are many alternatives available to APC. To wit:
UIS ABLER USA IN
Belkin Components
Best Power Technology, Inc.
Compaq Computer Corp. (you bet I'll run out and get this one ;-)
OPTI UPS CORPORATION
Tripp Lite Power Protection
All companies offer various backup time/models with different feature and
different price points.
Third, I learned that there are several Linux solutions for communicating with
these beasts:
o APC - PowerChutePlus-4_5_3-1_RedHat_i386.rpm (Which is huge and not GPL)
o Mandrake - smartupstools-0_41_2-4mdk_i586.rpm (Which is much smaller and
has since been rolled into NUT "http://www.exploits.org/nut/"; it's worth a look
and claims to be APC compliant)
o nut-0_44_3_tar.gz whch is the latest releast from
"http://www.exploits.org/nut/"; which claims to do in 240k what it takes
powerchute to do in 2.5M (the proposed next release of NUT is
nut-0_45_0-pre6_tar.gz (available at the site) - so it should be fairly stable)
Lastly, I learned that we have some awesome, intellegent and spirited folks on
the list that have a great deal to offer, especially to an idiot like myself
that new nothing about UPS this morning except that my server had gone down for
the 4th time and I had to manually fsck /dev/hda7 to get the thing to boot and,
that being so, it was time to learn about UPSs.
Now, I know enough to know what I am looking for, and know enough to know what
to look out for (the important part). I have got to say -- I'm amazed. This
open source concept, and its supporting contributors, really does work.
Now, the 5 FULL minutes is up. You can pull your arrows back out of your
quivers. Just use them wisely.........
Many thanks
Brandon Caudle wrote:
> I will say this @ school we have a Apc BackUPS 650 on a sun to and it
> works.. I know because we tested it just a few weeks ago...
>
> Brandon
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tom Schutter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "Brandon Caudle" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 6:49 PM
> Subject: Re: [expert] APC UPS shutdown script? How does it work?
>
> > He is talking about the issues that I have run into as well. On my
> > Gateway PC box, I can get a signal from my APC BackUPS 650 that it
> > has gone to battery power, but I can not get the low battery signal.
> > After much testing, swapping of cables, etc, I agree 100% with Rusty.
> > The APC BackUPS series is not RS232 compliant, and will not work with
> > all serial cards. It may work with yours, but that is no reason to
> > label Rusty as a "wako". Speaking of which, it is "whacko" not "wako".
> > If you are going to flame, you may as well learn to spell, so you only
> > look half as stupid.
>
> Half as stupid >>>>> we'll for a 15 year old thats making 33.95 and hour as
> a network administrator for a HUGE country club i'n not as stupid as you
> think.. GPA: 4.25 and i speek 5 languages FLUENTLY
>
> >
> > Brandon Caudle wrote:
> > >
> > > I had a APC BackUps 650 and it work flawlessly. Can say any thing
> better.
> > > Have no clue what this wako is talking about..
> > >
> > > brandon caudle
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Pierre Fortin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > To: "Rusty Carruth" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
> > > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 12:42 PM
> > > Subject: Re: [expert] APC UPS shutdown script? How does it work?
> > >
> > > > Rusty Carruth wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Second, DO NOT BUY APC! ESPECIALLY DO NOT BUY a BackUps! But I'd
> > > > > say just avoid them. (Sorry for yelling, but their supposedly
> > > > > RS232-C 'signaling' scheme is not RS232 compliant, and if your
> > > > > serial port requires valid RS232 signal levels you wont' be able
> > > > > to detect low battery (as it only goes to zero VOLTS - some (most?)
> > > > > pc hardware is really sloppy and will take a zero volt as a valid
> > > > > level, but that's not according to spec - and some hardware (like,
> > > > > say, Sun) actually meets spec and will NOT see LB from the UPS
> > > > > without a fair amount of hassle. why do I say all this, and
> > > > > where do I get my knowledge? I'm trying to get 4 stupid APC
> > > > > BackUPS' to work with our Sun Ultra5s - and if there was any
> > > > > way I could SEND THE RETARDED THINGS back and get something
> > > > > else I would do it in a nanosecond!)
> > > >
> > > > Not sure if this will help; but since I have several APC UPS which I
> > > haven't
> > > > setup to monitor (will do when I move my office) I did a quick search
> for
> > > RS232
> > > > 1488 chips and came across this link:
> > > >
> > > > http://www.kpumis.gdansk.tpnet.pl/etrad/upsd.htm
> > > >
> > > > HTH,
> > > > Pierre
> > > >
> > > >
> >
> > --
> > Tom Schutter (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
> > Platte River Associates, Inc. (http://www.platte.com)
> >
--
David Rankin
Nacogdoches, Texas
