On Wednesday 25 April 2007 10:49, "Tim Green" timothy.j.green@gmail.com wrote:
Have you simulated a power cut yet?
Indeed I have, and I've found the snag, my monitor runs from a transformer, that has a standard three pin plug, and even though the computer doesn't go down I cant see what's happening enough to shut it off, (I work with/through the GUI). I'll have to find a way round that, but at the moment I'm happy that it will run the computer long enough that the power will come back before it gets shut down involuntarily.
On 25-Apr-07 11:09:51, J.R. Seago wrote:
On Wednesday 25 April 2007 10:49, "Tim Green" timothy.j.green@gmail.com wrote:
Have you simulated a power cut yet?
Indeed I have, and I've found the snag, my monitor runs from a transformer, that has a standard three pin plug, and even though the computer doesn't go down I cant see what's happening enough to shut it off, (I work with/through the GUI). I'll have to find a way round that, but at the moment I'm happy that it will run the computer long enough that the power will come back before it gets shut down involuntarily.
Presumably the UPS has the same sort of power output sockets as mine, namely the same sort of closely-grouped 3-pin as you have for power input into a desktop (I don't know what these are officially called).
What I did was hijack an old spare desktop-to-CRT-monitor power cable, cut off one end (leaving the end that will plug into a UPS socket), then wire the cut end into a 4-gang extension socket block.
With that arrangement, I have 4 standard 3-pin "mains" sockets hanging off the UPS. Useful for thingies with 3-pin transformer units, such as the TFT monitor, network switch, cordless phone; and even for my radio ...
(And there's nothing against going up to a 6-gang socket, provided you don't plan to plug things in which would overload the UPS).
Best wishes, Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 25-Apr-07 Time: 14:19:11 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On Wed, 2007-04-25 at 14:19 +0100, ted.harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk wrote:
Presumably the UPS has the same sort of power output sockets as mine, namely the same sort of closely-grouped 3-pin as you have for power input into a desktop (I don't know what these are officially called).
IEC-320...Plugs are type C13 sockets C14
What I did was hijack an old spare desktop-to-CRT-monitor power cable, cut off one end (leaving the end that will plug into a UPS socket), then wire the cut end into a 4-gang extension socket block.
Yes I have done that for UPS fed wallwart style adaptors before..most mains socket strips have an internal fuse that could be downgraded to 3A to prevent an accidental overload when you plug something heavy in from damaging the UPS or causing a trip that would take out your PC :-)
(although even a 3A fuse would allow a current draw that is perhaps beyond the design limits of a very small UPS) So I would still mark up the socket as "Computer Equip only!"
On Wednesday 25 April 2007 14:19, Ted Harding wrote:
Presumably the UPS has the same sort of power output sockets as mine, namely the same sort of closely-grouped 3-pin as you have for power input into a desktop (I don't know what these are officially called).
They were referred to as kettle sockets by the people who supplied the UPS, and seeing them they look, just like the ones in plastic jug kettles in hotels, (we've got a gas stove and a stainless steel whistling kettle).
What I did was hijack an old spare desktop-to-CRT-monitor power cable, cut off one end (leaving the end that will plug into a UPS socket), then wire the cut end into a 4-gang extension socket block.
With that arrangement, I have 4 standard 3-pin "mains" sockets hanging off the UPS. Useful for thingies with 3-pin transformer units, such as the TFT monitor, network switch, cordless phone; and even for my radio ...
(And there's nothing against going up to a 6-gang socket, provided you don't plan to plug things in which would overload the UPS).
Best wishes, Ted.
Having got the transformer for my monitor out from the dust bunnies and wires between the wall and the six gang surge protected socket it was plugged into, (how do electrical leads manage to plait themselves), I did find that the the lead into the transformer is not integral with the transformer, and there was a lead in the box of leads that came with UPS that went from the UPS to the transformer. That's snag one solved. Now I just need to do what you've described above, and I can then plug in the transformer for my router into the UPS.
J.R. Seago wrote:
On Wednesday 25 April 2007 14:19, Ted Harding wrote:
Presumably the UPS has the same sort of power output sockets as mine, namely the same sort of closely-grouped 3-pin as you have for power input into a desktop (I don't know what these are officially called).
They were referred to as kettle sockets by the people who supplied the UPS, and seeing them they look, just like the ones in plastic jug kettles in hotels
I think you mean C13/C14 IEC connectors, one of the useful facts I learnt while sound engineering :P Not quite kettle leads (that is you can use an electric kettle cable for a computer, but not a computer cable to for a kettle - there are blocks and notches in different places).
Wow, what an interesting person I am!
When I can afford to buy my own house (in about 2099) I intend to install a 12V DC power supply throughout the house which is topped up by solar cells on the roof - that way I don't need power strips full of power bricks around the house turning all my electricity into unwanted heat and I have some redundancy when I lose my connection to the grid.
Seriously though, I'd really like a UPS for my home server and router because it's in a rural area with unreliable power. Are UPSs well supported in Linux for clean shut downs?
Ben
-- Ben Francis http://tola.me.uk
On Wed, 2007-04-25 at 18:44 +0100, Ben Francis wrote:
Seriously though, I'd really like a UPS for my home server and router because it's in a rural area with unreliable power. Are UPSs well supported in Linux for clean shut downs?
apcupsd will support many (if not all) APC UPS devices, USB or Serial interface.
nut and it's associated interface packages also supports APC devices (but not as well as apcupsd) and a reasonable selection of others.
On advantage of nut is that multiple machines can react basted on a single UPS event, as nut has a client/server architecture. Although to be honest with Linux that behaviour is only a shell script away regardless of what method you use to shut down.
Of course you need to check compatibility before purchasing a UPS but I have never had much problem with APC's
On Wed, 2007-04-25 at 12:09 +0100, J.R. Seago wrote:
I've found the snag, my monitor runs from a transformer, that has a standard three pin plug, and even though the computer doesn't go down I cant see what's happening enough to shut it off, (I work with/through the GUI). I'll have to find a way round that, but at the moment I'm happy that it will run the computer long enough that the power will come back before it gets shut down involuntarily.
Does your UPS not have an interface to shut down the machine for you when there is only just enough runtime to do a clean shutdown ? Or does it have one that is not Linux friendly ?
Plugging a monitor in will just reduce runtime on the UPS (and therefore it's usefulness) and a UPS that doesn't tell a PC to shut down when the battery is getting too low is only slightly better than no UPS at all (IMO)
Also depending on your hardware and kernel it should be possible to set up a clean shutdown from a ACPI powerbutton press event, in fact this should be the standard configuration. Of course that doesn't save existing open documents etc.
Wayne Stallwood ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk wrote:
Also depending on your hardware and kernel it should be possible to set up a clean shutdown from a ACPI powerbutton press event [...]
I've still not got around to doing this and the guides I found are a bit conflicting: what's the best guide out there? As in: what works?
Thanks,
On Wed, 2007-04-25 at 14:58 +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
Also depending on your hardware and kernel it should be possible to set up a clean shutdown from a ACPI powerbutton press event [...]
I've still not got around to doing this and the guides I found are a bit conflicting: what's the best guide out there? As in: what works?
Well to be honest with Ubuntu is has always just been one of those things that has just worked out of the box for me so I have never paid that much attention to exactly how it works :-)
I can see that under /etc/acpi I have a collection of shell scripts, including one called powerbtn.sh.
This script looks for gnome or KDE and signals them to logout/shutdown and if all else fails simply runs a 'shutdown -h now'
This script appears to be launched by acpid via /etc/acpi/events/powerbtn which contains the lines
event=button[ /]power action=/etc/acpi/powerbtn.sh
So I guess assuming your Kernel supports ACPI on your hardware then all acpid does is watch /proc/acpi/events for events and then act on them based on the scripts and events defined in /etc/acpi/
The power button event scripts where added by the acpid package itself on my system, other events and scripts were added by the package acpi-support (most of which seem to be very much Laptop centric)
Hope that helps Wayne
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Ben Francis -
J.R. Seago -
MJ Ray -
ted.harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk -
Wayne Stallwood