From owner-freebsd-stable Tue Sep 26 12:30: 7 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mail2.uniserve.com (mail2.uniserve.com [204.244.156.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 231F037B424 for ; Tue, 26 Sep 2000 12:29:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shell.uniserve.ca ([204.244.186.218]) by mail2.uniserve.com with esmtp (Exim 3.13 #1) id 13e0QA-000D2L-00; Tue, 26 Sep 2000 12:29:42 -0700 Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 12:29:39 -0700 (PDT) From: Tom X-Sender: tom@shell.uniserve.ca To: Lyndon Nerenberg Cc: Rahul Dhesi , freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Freebsd vs. UPS In-Reply-To: <200009261905.e8QJ5m132492@orthanc.ab.ca> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Tue, 26 Sep 2000, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote: > >>>>> "Rahul" == Rahul Dhesi writes: > > Rahul> I recommend against APC UPSs for three reasons: short > Rahul> battery life, poor quality control (sometimes they fail > Rahul> after 2-3 months of use), and refusal to provide > Rahul> specifications for control of the UPS (thus no support for > Rahul> open software). > > Rahul> In this world of open software, the third factor above > Rahul> should be considered very strongly. -- Rahul > > Work around them. The serial port protocols seem to be pretty simple. One > option is to put a BSD box in between the UPS and whatever runs their > proprietary software. E.g. UPS serial port connects to BSD ttyd0, machine > with UPS software connects to BSD ttyd1. BSD box runs a simple full-duplex > byte copy program to connect the two ttys. You run watch(8) against the tty > devices to snoop the protocol, reverse engineer, document, then post to > the net. > > --lyndon The APC BackUPS protocol raises and lowers control pins on the RS-232 cable. It can barely be called a protocol. Of course the BackUPS units are designed for desktop use. The SmartUPS protocol does a lot more. As far as UPSes go, APC makes some decent stuff. They have a battery life calculator on their site. Some people think that a UPS with a high VA rating have a long battery life. Run-length is based on the number and size of batteries. I like the XL version APC UPS that allow additional battery packs to be added. The APC SmartUPS 1000XL is nice UPS. Tom Uniserve To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message