I have installed two UPSs, "Powercool", which come with a USB cable and
an application to set parameters and power-fail actions and to monitor
performance. However, the application reports "Communication Failure".
lsusb shows the connection as 0001:0000 Fry's Electronics MEC0003.
Changing permissions to the corresponding Bus/Device has no effect.
Googling for Fry's Electronics MEC0003 shows many posts but all seem to
rely on installing NUT and nut-monitor, which I don't want, because I
want to use the supplied application. I suspect udev may be involved in
correcting the problem, but I don't know enough to go further.
Can anyone help please?

--
Grimble
Machine 'Haydn' running Plasma 5.20.4 on 5.10.33-desktop-1.mga8 kernel.
Mageia release 8 (Official) for x86_64

On Thu, 13 May 2021 16:19:46 +0100, Grimble wrote:
> I have installed two UPSs, "Powercool", which come with a USB cable and
> an application to set parameters and power-fail actions and to monitor
> performance. However, the application reports "Communication Failure".
> lsusb shows the connection as 0001:0000 Fry's Electronics MEC0003.
> Changing permissions to the corresponding Bus/Device has no effect.
> Googling for Fry's Electronics MEC0003 shows many posts but all seem to
> rely on installing NUT and nut-monitor, which I don't want, because I
> want to use the supplied application. I suspect udev may be involved in
> correcting the problem, but I don't know enough to go further.
> Can anyone help please?

Not me but you mention changing permissions which reminded me
that I added my login to the usb group. If you do so on your
system you will need to log out/in to pick up the new group.

You might also want to "cat /etc/group" to see if there is
a new group added by your ups software. If so you might
also add your login id to that group and log out/in.

On Thu, 13 May 2021 11:19:46 -0400, Grimble <grimble@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:

> I have installed two UPSs, "Powercool", which come with a USB cable and
> an application to set parameters and power-fail actions and to monitor
> performance. However, the application reports "Communication Failure".
> lsusb shows the connection as 0001:0000 Fry's Electronics MEC0003.
> Changing permissions to the corresponding Bus/Device has no effect.
> Googling for Fry's Electronics MEC0003 shows many posts but all seem to
> rely on installing NUT and nut-monitor, which I don't want, because I
> want to use the supplied application. I suspect udev may be involved in
> correcting the problem, but I don't know enough to go further.
> Can anyone help please?

I have a usb connected ups. I do use nut to monitor it. A couple of things
from it's settings may help though ...

driver = "usbhid-ups"
port = /dev/auto

It's installation script creates the user/group ups.

The program that actually accesses the ups (usbhid-ups) runs as the user ups
which is a member of the groups dialout, tty, and usb.

Don't forget to logout/in for any group changes to take effect.

The nut-server package includes the file /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/70-nut-usbups.rules
which sets MODE="664", GROUP="ups" for the actual usb device.

Connecting the usb cable adds a line to the journal with ...
kernel: hid-generic 0003:051D:0002.0007: hiddev1,hidraw0: USB HID v1.00 Device [American Power Conversion Back-UPS XS 1300G FW:864.L6 .D USB FW:L6 ] on usb-0000:00:12.0-5/input0

lsusb shows ...
Bus 008 Device 003: ID 051d:0002 American Power Conversion Uninterruptible Power Supply

I do recommend using nut. The values returned from the ups are standardized,
so using the software that comes with it rather then a Mageia package likely
doesn't add anything.

Hope some of this helps.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

--
Change dwhodgins@nomail.afraid.org to davidwhodgins@teksavvy.com for
email replies.

On 13/05/2021 18:32, Bit Twister wrote:
> On Thu, 13 May 2021 16:19:46 +0100, Grimble wrote:
>> I have installed two UPSs, "Powercool", which come with a USB cable and
>> an application to set parameters and power-fail actions and to monitor
>> performance. However, the application reports "Communication Failure".
>> lsusb shows the connection as 0001:0000 Fry's Electronics MEC0003.
>> Changing permissions to the corresponding Bus/Device has no effect.
>> Googling for Fry's Electronics MEC0003 shows many posts but all seem to
>> rely on installing NUT and nut-monitor, which I don't want, because I
>> want to use the supplied application. I suspect udev may be involved in
>> correcting the problem, but I don't know enough to go further.
>> Can anyone help please?
>
> Not me but you mention changing permissions which reminded me
> that I added my login to the usb group. If you do so on your
> system you will need to log out/in to pick up the new group.
>
Bit: thanks for the tip. Did that
> You might also want to "cat /etc/group" to see if there is
> a new group added by your ups software. If so you might
> also add your login id to that group and log out/in.

Nothing found

--
Grimble
Registered Linux User #450547
Machine 'Bach' running Plasma 5.20.4 on 5.10.33-desktop-1.mga8 kernel.
Mageia release 8 (Official) for x86_64

On 2021-05-16, Grimble <grimble@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
> On 13/05/2021 18:32, Bit Twister wrote:
>> On Thu, 13 May 2021 16:19:46 +0100, Grimble wrote:
>>> I have installed two UPSs, "Powercool", which come with a USB cable and
>>> an application to set parameters and power-fail actions and to monitor
>>> performance. However, the application reports "Communication Failure".
>>> lsusb shows the connection as 0001:0000 Fry's Electronics MEC0003.
>>> Changing permissions to the corresponding Bus/Device has no effect.
>>> Googling for Fry's Electronics MEC0003 shows many posts but all seem to
>>> rely on installing NUT and nut-monitor, which I don't want, because I
>>> want to use the supplied application. I suspect udev may be involved in
>>> correcting the problem, but I don't know enough to go further.
>>> Can anyone help please?
>>
>> Not me but you mention changing permissions which reminded me
>> that I added my login to the usb group. If you do so on your
>> system you will need to log out/in to pick up the new group.
>>
> Bit: thanks for the tip. Did that

Note that you do not have to logout/in to test. just do
su - <yourusername> That new login will have the new group associated
with your username. However, you do need to logout/in so as to make it
the default on your current login. But if you are running in X, the
background x ( and all programs spawned by it) will still have the old
group identity of your username, rather than the new one, unless you get
out of that X session and go into a new one (logout/in fromthe X
session)

>> You might also want to "cat /etc/group" to see if there is
>> a new group added by your ups software. If so you might
>> also add your login id to that group and log out/in.
>
> Nothing found
>
>

On 13/05/2021 22:10, David W. Hodgins wrote:
> On Thu, 13 May 2021 11:19:46 -0400, Grimble <grimble@nomail.afraid.org>
> wrote:
>
>> I have installed two UPSs, "Powercool", which come with a USB cable and
>> an application to set parameters and power-fail actions and to monitor
>> performance. However, the application reports "Communication Failure".
>> lsusb shows the connection as 0001:0000 Fry's Electronics MEC0003.
>> Changing permissions to the corresponding Bus/Device has no effect.
>> Googling for Fry's Electronics MEC0003 shows many posts but all seem to
>> rely on installing NUT and nut-monitor, which I don't want, because I
>> want to use the supplied application. I suspect udev may be involved in
>> correcting the problem, but I don't know enough to go further.
>> Can anyone help please?
>
> I have a usb connected ups. I do use nut to monitor it. A couple of things
> from it's settings may help though ...
>
> driver = "usbhid-ups"
> port = /dev/auto
>
> It's installation script creates the user/group ups.
>
> The program that actually accesses the ups (usbhid-ups) runs as the user
> ups
> which is a member of the groups dialout, tty, and usb.
>
> Don't forget to logout/in for any group changes to take effect.
>
Checked that
> The nut-server package includes the file
> /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/70-nut-usbups.rules
> which sets MODE="664", GROUP="ups" for the actual usb device.
>
The line for my vendor/product was already there

> Connecting the usb cable adds a line to the journal with ...
> kernel: hid-generic 0003:051D:0002.0007: hiddev1,hidraw0: USB HID v1.00
> Device [American Power Conversion Back-UPS XS 1300G FW:864.L6 .D USB
> FW:L6 ] on usb-0000:00:12.0-5/input0
>
I found something similar

> lsusb shows ...
> Bus 008 Device 003: ID 051d:0002 American Power Conversion
> Uninterruptible Power Supply
>
> I do recommend using nut. The values returned from the ups are
> standardized,
> so using the software that comes with it rather then a Mageia package
> likely
> doesn't add anything.
>
I got the application to load but it bombed with some display problems,
so I'll take your advice and set up nut.
Thanks
> Hope some of this helps.
>
> Regards, Dave Hodgins
>

--
Grimble
Registered Linux User #450547
Machine 'Bach' running Plasma 5.20.4 on 5.10.33-desktop-1.mga8 kernel.
Mageia release 8 (Official) for x86_64

On Sun, 16 May 2021 10:55:12 -0400, Grimble <grimble@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
> I got the application to load but it bombed with some display problems,
> so I'll take your advice and set up nut.

I have nut and nut-server installed on the system the ups is connected to.
I've chosen to use the device name nutdev1 for my ups, and in the following
replaced the actual password with the word munged.

In /etc/ups/ups.conf I've added the lines ...
[nutdev1]
driver = "usbhid-ups"
port = /dev/auto

In /etc/ups/upsd.conf I've added the line
LISTEN 127.0.0.1 3493

In /etc/ups/upsd.users I've added the lines ...
[admin]
password = munged
actions = SET
instcmds = ALL
[upsmon]
password = munged
upsmon master

In /etc/ups/upsmon.conf I have the line ...
MONITOR nutdev1@localhost 1 upsmon munged master
with the rest of the uncommented lines being the from the rpm package.

The command "upsc nutdev1" returns 43 lines such as ...
battery.charge: 100
battery.charge.low: 10
battery.charge.warning: 50
battery.date: 2001/09/25
battery.mfr.date: 2013/01/12
battery.runtime: 579

Regards, Dave Hodgins

--
Change dwhodgins@nomail.afraid.org to davidwhodgins@teksavvy.com for
email replies.

On 16/05/2021 18:04, David W. Hodgins wrote:
> On Sun, 16 May 2021 10:55:12 -0400, Grimble <grimble@nomail.afraid.org>
> wrote:
>> I got the application to load but it bombed with some display problems,
>> so I'll take your advice and set up nut.
>
> I have nut and nut-server installed on the system the ups is connected to.
> I've chosen to use the device name nutdev1 for my ups, and in the following
> replaced the actual password with the word munged.
>
> In /etc/ups/ups.conf I've added the lines ...
> [nutdev1]
>         driver = "usbhid-ups"
>         port = /dev/auto
>
> In /etc/ups/upsd.conf I've added the line
> LISTEN 127.0.0.1 3493
>
> In /etc/ups/upsd.users I've added the lines ...
>         [admin]
>                 password = munged
>                 actions = SET
>                 instcmds = ALL
>         [upsmon]
>                 password  = munged
>                 upsmon master
>
> In /etc/ups/upsmon.conf I have the line ...
> MONITOR nutdev1@localhost 1 upsmon munged master
> with the rest of the uncommented lines being the from the rpm package.
>< snip>
Thanks Dave, that was very useful. In fact I used nut-scanner and
modified ups.conf with its output.
upsdrvctl indicated it could communicate with the UPS:
"Supported UPS detected with megatec protocol
Vendor information read in 1 tries"
but upsc gave
"Error: Connection failure: Connection refused"
I guess I'll have to trace the various permissions to see what's wrong.
Best,

--
Grimble
Registered Linux User #450547
Machine 'Bach' running Plasma 5.20.4 on 5.10.37-desktop-2.mga8 kernel.
Mageia release 8 (Official) for x86_64

On 22/05/2021 16:49, Grimble wrote:
> On 16/05/2021 18:04, David W. Hodgins wrote:
>> On Sun, 16 May 2021 10:55:12 -0400, Grimble
>> <grimble@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:
>>> I got the application to load but it bombed with some display problems,
>>> so I'll take your advice and set up nut.
>>
>> I have nut and nut-server installed on the system the ups is connected
>> to.
>> I've chosen to use the device name nutdev1 for my ups, and in the
>> following
>> replaced the actual password with the word munged.
>>
>> In /etc/ups/ups.conf I've added the lines ...
>> [nutdev1]
>>          driver = "usbhid-ups"
>>          port = /dev/auto
>>
>> In /etc/ups/upsd.conf I've added the line
>> LISTEN 127.0.0.1 3493
>>
>> In /etc/ups/upsd.users I've added the lines ...
>>          [admin]
>>                  password = munged
>>                  actions = SET
>>                  instcmds = ALL
>>          [upsmon]
>>                  password  = munged
>>                  upsmon master
>>
>> In /etc/ups/upsmon.conf I have the line ...
>> MONITOR nutdev1@localhost 1 upsmon munged master
>> with the rest of the uncommented lines being the from the rpm package.
>> < snip>
> Thanks Dave, that was very useful. In fact I used nut-scanner and
> modified ups.conf with its output.
> upsdrvctl indicated it could communicate with the UPS:
> "Supported UPS detected with megatec protocol
> Vendor information read in 1 tries"
> but upsc gave
> "Error: Connection failure: Connection refused"
> I guess I'll have to trace the various permissions to see what's wrong.
Forget that - hadn't started nut-server. Lots of output now, but lots of
zero values!
> Best,
>

--
Grimble
Registered Linux User #450547
Machine 'Bach' running Plasma 5.20.4 on 5.10.37-desktop-2.mga8 kernel.
Mageia release 8 (Official) for x86_64