apcsmart-old(8)

apcsmart-old8

Driver for american power conversion smart protocol ups equipment

Usage

apcsmart-old -h

apcsmart-old -a UPS_NAME [OPTIONS]

Supported hardware

apcsmart-old should recognize all recent APC models that use a serial protocol at 2400 bps. This is primarily the Smart-UPS, Matrix-UPS and Back-UPS Pro lines.

The driver attempts to support every bell and whistle of the APC reporting interface, whether or not this is strictly sensible.

Some older hardware may only report a handful of variables. This is usually not a bug—they just don’t support anything else.

Cabling

This driver expects to see a 940-0024C cable or a clone by default. You can switch to the 940-0095B dual-mode cable support with the cable= definition described below.

If your 940-0024C cable is broken or missing, use this diagram to build a clone:

https://www.networkupstools.org/cables/940-0024C.jpg

Extra arguments

This driver supports the following optional settings in the ups.conf(5):

cable=940-0095B

Configure the serial port for the APC 940-0095B dual-mode cable.

sdtype=num

Use shutdown type num, according to this table:

0

soft shutdown or powerdown, depending on battery status

1

soft shutdown followed by powerdown

2

instant power off

3

power off with grace period

4

"force OB" hack method for CS 350

Modes 0 and 1 will power up the load when power returns. Modes 2 and 3 will keep the load turned off when the power returns.

Mode 4 exploits an oddity in the CS 350 models since they only seem to support the S command, but then only when running on battery. As a result, the driver will force the UPS to go on battery if necessary before sending the shutdown command. This ensures that the load gets reset.

Authors and history

Nigel Metheringham <[email protected]> (drawing heavily on the original apcsmart driver by Russell Kroll).

This driver was called newapc for a time and was renamed in the 1.5 series.

In 2.6.2 the driver was renamed to apcsmart-old, being superseded by updated version with new features which currently holds the apcsmart name.

Releases

8 releases since Debian 7 (Wheezy); the text changed 5 times.

  1. 7
  2. 8
  3. 9–11
  4. 12
  5. 13
  6. Arch

Bugs

Some older APC UPS models return bogus data in the status register during a front panel test. This is usually detected and discarded, but some other unexpected values have occasionally slipped through.

APC UPS models with both USB and serial ports require a power cycle when switching from USB communication to serial, and perhaps vice versa.

From nut 2.8.5-2 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.