magnusviri

Raspbery Pi's and APC UPS'es

I use Raspberry Pi's to monitor the status of my APC UPS'es (Uninterruptible Power Supplies). I don't know if it will work with brands other than APC. I install Raspian on them. After I lay down the image I do these things to get this working. I compiled this from various notes that are over a year old so I'm not promising they work. The next time I go through this process though I'll update this with any corrections.

Updating the Raspberry Pi

I run these commands. Enter a new password when you run passwd.

sudo -s
passwd
apt-get -y -q update
apt-get -y -q upgrade
nano /etc/hosts

In /etc/hosts change "127.0.1.1 .*" to "127.0.1.1 your_hostname"

nano /etc/hostname

/etc/hostname should contain "your_hostname" and that's all.

Configure ssh and authorized_keys. I'll leave that to you.

Setting up UFW (firewall)

Change "10.0.0.0/24" below to the CIDR that you wish to allow access.

apt-get -y -q install ufw
ufw status
ufw allow from 10.0.0.0/24
ufw --force enable
ufw status numbered

Setting up apcupsd

apt-get -y -q install apcupsd

nano /etc/default/apcupsd

In /etc/default/apcupsd change "ISCONFIGURED=no" to "ISCONFIGURED=yes".

nano /etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf

In /etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf make sure the following values are set as below. Change "pick_a_name" to the name you wish to use.

UPSNAME pick_a_name
UPSCABLE usb
UPSTYPE usb
DEVICE
NISIP 0.0.0.0

Start it up.

apcupsd restart
apctest
apcaccess status
/etc/init.d/apcupsd status

Setting up apcupsd-cgi

apt-get -y -q install apache2
apt-get -y -q install apcupsd-cgi

nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

In /etc/apache2/apache2.conf add the line "ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/" to the end.

Start it up.

service apache2 restart

Edit /etc/apcupsd/hosts.conf to look like this.

# /etc/apcupsd/hosts.conf
#
# Network UPS Tools - hosts.conf
#
# This file does double duty - it lists the systems that multimon will
# monitor, and also specifies the systems that upsstats is allowed to
# watch.  It keeps people from feeding random addresses to upsstats,
# among other things.  upsimage also uses this file to know who it
# may speak to. upsfstats too.
#
# Usage: list systems running upsd that you want to monitor
#
# MONITOR <address> "<host description>"
#
# Please note, MONITOR must start in column 1 (no spaces permitted)
#
MONITOR 10.0.0.1 "pick_a_name"

Add a line 'MONITOR 10.0.0.1 "pick_a_name"' for each Raspberry Pi running apcupsd (change the IP and name to the correct info).

Open in web browser (change 10.0.0.1 to the IP of your Raspberry Pi): http://10.0.0.1/cgi-bin/apcupsd/multimon.cgi

Setting up email and text notifications

apt-get -y -q install mailutils
apt-get -y -q install ssmtp

In the files below change 1234567890 to your phone number and all example.com's to the correct info.

Edit /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf to look like this.

#
# Config file for sSMTP sendmail
#
# The person who gets all mail for userids < 1000
# Make this empty to disable rewriting.
root=postmaster

# The place where the mail goes. The actual machine name is required no
# MX records are consulted. Commonly mailhosts are named mail.domain.com
mailhub=smtp.example.com

# Where will the mail seem to come from?
#rewriteDomain=

# The full hostname
hostname=your_hostname.example.com

# Are users allowed to set their own From: address?
# YES - Allow the user to specify their own From: address
# NO - Use the system generated From: address
FromLineOverride=YES

Edit /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol/changeme to look like this.

#!/bin/sh
#
# This shell script if placed in /etc/apcupsd
# will be called by /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol when apcupsd
# detects that the battery should be replaced.
# We send an email message to root to notify him.
#
SYSADMIN="poc@example.com"
APCUPSD_MAIL="mail"

HOSTNAME=`hostname`
MSG="$HOSTNAME UPS battery needs changing NOW."
#
(
   echo "Subject: $MSG"
   echo " "
   echo "$MSG"
   echo " "
   /sbin/apcaccess status
) | $APCUPSD_MAIL -aFrom:no-reply@example.com -s "$MSG" $SYSADMIN

curl "http://textbelt.com/text" -d "number=1234567890" -d message="$MSG"

exit 0

Edit /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol/commfailure to look like this.

#!/bin/sh
#
# This shell script if placed in /etc/apcupsd
# will be called by /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol when apcupsd
# loses contact with the UPS (i.e. the serial connection is not responding).
# We send an email message to root to notify him.
#
SYSADMIN="poc@example.com"
APCUPSD_MAIL="mail"

HOSTNAME=`hostname`
MSG="$HOSTNAME Communications with UPS lost"
#
(
   echo "Subject: $MSG"
   echo " "
   echo "$MSG"
) | $APCUPSD_MAIL -aFrom:no-reply@example.com -s "$MSG" $SYSADMIN

curl "http://textbelt.com/text" -d "number=1234567890" -d message="$MSG"

exit 0

Edit /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol/commok to look like this.

#!/bin/sh
#
# This shell script if placed in /etc/apcupsd
# will be called by /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol when apcupsd
# restores contact with the UPS (i.e. the serial connection is restored).
# We send an email message to root to notify him.
#
SYSADMIN="poc@example.com"
APCUPSD_MAIL="mail"

HOSTNAME=`hostname`
MSG="$HOSTNAME Communications with UPS restored"
#
(
   echo "Subject: $MSG"
   echo " "
   echo "$MSG"
   echo " "
   /sbin/apcaccess status
) | $APCUPSD_MAIL -aFrom:no-reply@example.com -s "$MSG" $SYSADMIN

curl "http://textbelt.com/text" -d "number=1234567890" -d message="$MSG"

exit 0

Edit /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol/offbattery to look like this.

#!/bin/sh
#
# This shell script if placed in /etc/apcupsd
# will be called by /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol when the
# UPS goes back on to the mains after a power failure.
# We send an email message to root to notify him.
#
SYSADMIN="poc@example.com"
APCUPSD_MAIL="mail"

HOSTNAME=`hostname`
MSG="$HOSTNAME Power has returned"
#
(
   echo "Subject: $MSG"
   echo " "
   echo "$MSG"
   echo " "
   /sbin/apcaccess status
) | $APCUPSD_MAIL -aFrom:no-reply@example.com -s "$MSG" $SYSADMIN

curl "http://textbelt.com/text" -d "number=1234567890" -d message="$MSG"

exit 0

Edit /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol/onbattery to look like this.

#!/bin/sh
#
# This shell script if placed in /etc/apcupsd
# will be called by /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol when the UPS
# goes on batteries.
# We send an email message to root to notify him.
#
SYSADMIN="poc@example.com"
APCUPSD_MAIL="mail"

HOSTNAME=`hostname`
MSG="$HOSTNAME Power Failure !!!"
#
(
   echo "Subject: $MSG"
   echo " "
   echo "$MSG"
   echo " "
   /sbin/apcaccess status
) | $APCUPSD_MAIL -aFrom:no-reply@example.com -s "$MSG" $SYSADMIN

curl "http://textbelt.com/text" -d "number=1234567890" -d message="$MSG"

exit 0

Test

You should get an email and a text when you do any of these actions.

You will also get a text when the battery is bad but I can't remember how to (or if you can) test that.

Published: 2017-02-08, last edited: 2020-05-11

Copyright © 2024 James Reynolds