Talk:Apcupsd

Thanks a lot. I have a APC and forgot about this /dev/hid* and wondered why it's not working...

Serial Interface
With USB this might work quite easy. But for those with old serial APC-UPS-systems this might help:

1. You need a special cable. It is not a Null-Modem-cable. APC has a huge bunch of different ones, all connected with DB-9, so this might get tricky.

2. Stop everything, what might try to use the /dev/ttySx you want to use.

In the config-file mentioned in the page you need to put the correct UPS-type (dumb or smartups) and the cable-type. Comments are in the config-file, if you need to look up the cable-type.

It took me nearly a week to figure out why I couldn't connect to the UPS.

My error was agetty, which tried to use /dev/ttyS0 as a terminal.

Result: apcupsd had a panic after 30 seconds.

After resolving this issue, the UPS works like a charm and indicates things I never thought it might bother with.

kernel config
Is "/dev/hiddrev" for 2.4 a typo?

"/dev/hidraw raw HID device support" should not be needed. According to, the following is required: A USB UPS needs all of these drivers -- the USB device filesystem, the USB hub, the Human Interface Device subsystem driver, and the Human Interface Device driver. If you are compiling your own kernel, you want to enable CONFIG_USB CONFIG_USB_HID CONFIG_USB_HIDDEV CONFIG_USB_DEVICEFS ...as well as at least one USB Host Controller Driver... CONFIG_USB_UHCI_HCD (linux-2.6.x) CONFIG_USB_OHCI_HCD (linux-2.6.x) CONFIG_USB_UHCI    (linux-2.4.x) CONFIG_USB_OHCI     (linux-2.4.x)

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unnecessary udev rule
I don't see why this udev rule is necessary. apcupsd runs as root, so changing the device's group from root (the default?) to wheel shouldn't be necessary. As for the NAME and the MODE, those are set that way even without the udev rule. Also, apcupsd automatically scans for the device for the APC UPS, so there is no need to place it in any particular place.

The part of the article I'm talking about: Firstly you will need to make an entry to the file as follows:

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stop apcupsd before running apctest
This wiki currently says: For the purposes of testing force a manual start using:

From now on the application can be tested from the shell using the command.

However, the apcupsd manual says: Shutdown apcupsd if it is running. Make sure your /etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf file has UPSTYPE apcsmart and UPSCABLE has one of the smart cables that are supported.

Run apctest by invoking it with no arguments.

That is, shutdown apcupsd before running apctest; don't start apcupsd to run apctest as this wiki suggests.

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