UPS monitoring

There are two options to monitor a UPS: the first is through a USB or serial connection with help of a subagent and the second one is through the network with help of SNMP.

A subagent can be used for monitoring a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) attached to a serial or USB port on a computer where the NetXMS agent is running. USB-attached devices are currently only supported on the Windows platform. Serial devices are supported on all platforms. One subagent can monitor multiple attached devices.

USB or serial UPS monitoring

You can monitor UPS devices attached to the hosts via serial cable or USB via the UPS subagent. Once you have your UPS attached to the host and the NetXMS agent installed, you should configure the UPS subagent. First, add the following line to the agents configuration file main section:

SubAgent = ups.nsm

Second, configure the attached UPS devices. Create a UPS section and for each UPS device attached to the host add a line in the following format:

Device = id:port:protocol

id is an arbitrary but unique number in the range 0 to 127, which is used to distinguish multiple UPS devices in further requests.

device is either the name of the serial port (e.g. COM1: or /dev/ttyS0) or the serial number of the USB device. For the MEC0003 protocol, this field should contain the USB device instance ID (e.g. 186144F5). The keyword ANY can be used instead of an exact serial number or instance ID to select the first available device.

protocol specifies which communication protocol should be used. Supported protocols are:

  • APC

  • BCMXCP - Some of the HP/Compaq, PowerWare, etc.

  • MEC0003 - Off-brand USB UPS devices with VID 0x0001/PID 0x0000 (Windows only, uses Fry’s Electronics MEC0003/megatec protocol)

  • MEGATEC

  • METASYS

  • MICRODOWELL

  • USB - HID UPS devices (currently Windows only)

A sample configuration section for two devices attached via serial ports where one is an APC device (configured as device 0) and one is a HP device (configured as device 1):

# UPS subagent configuration section
[UPS]
Device = 0:/dev/ttyS0:APC
Device = 1:/dev/ttyS1:BCMXCP

For USB devices using the MEC0003 protocol on Windows, you can specify the instance ID to distinguish between multiple connected devices, or use the ANY keyword to match the first available device:

# UPS subagent configuration section for MEC0003 devices
[UPS]
Device = 1:ANY:MEC0003
Device = 2:186144F5:MEC0003

Once the UPS subagent is configured, you can start monitoring the UPS device status via metrics provided by it:

Metric Name

Type

Meaning

UPS.BatteryLevel(*)

Integer

Battery charge level in percents.

UPS.BatteryVoltage(*)

Float

Current battery voltage.

UPS.ConnectionStatus(*

Integer
Connection status between agent and device. Can have the following values:

  • 0 - Agent is communication with the device

  • 1 - Communication with the device has been lost

UPS.EstimatedRuntime(*)

Integer

Estimated on-battery runtime in minutes.

UPS.Firmware(*)

String

Device’s firmware version.

UPS.InputVoltage(*)

Float

Input line voltage.

UPS.LineFrequency(*)

Integer

Input line frequency in Hz.

UPS.Load(*)

Integer

Device load in percents.

UPS.MfgDate(*)

String

Device manufacturing date.

UPS.Model(*)

String

Device model name.

UPS.NominalBatteryVoltage(*)

Float

Nominal battery voltage.

UPS.OnlineStatus(*)

Integer
Device online status. Can have the following values:

  • 0 - Device is online.

  • 1 - Device is on battery power.

  • 2 - Device is on battery power and battery level is low.

UPS.OutputVoltage(*)

Float

Output line voltage.

UPS.SerialNumber(*)

String

Device’s serial number.

UPS.Temperature(*)

Integer

Internal device temperature.

Please note that not all metrics are supported by all UPS devices. Many old or simple models will support only basic metrics like UPS.OnlineStatus. The most typical approach is to monitor UPS.OnlineStatus for going to 1 or 2, and then send notifications to administrators and shutdown affected hosts if needed. You can also monitor the UPS.EstimatedRuntime metric for the same purpose, if your device supports it.

SNMP UPS monitoring

Another option is to monitor the UPS using SNMP. NetXMS already includes MIBs for some UPSs, like APC UPS and the standard UPS MIB. The description for possible OIDs and some additional information for APC UPS configuration can be found on a NetXMS wiki.

Please check Import MIB for MIB loading and DCI configuration for metric collection.