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.

Unplug the UPS from the wall outlet
Plug it back in
Unplug the USB cable
Plug it back in

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