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Subsections
Planning Your Installation
Quick Start for Beginners
apcupsd is a complex piece of software, but most of its complexities are meant
for dealing with older hardware and operating systems. On current hardware
and software getting it running should not be very complicated.
The following is a help guide to the steps needed to get apcupsd set up and
running as painlessly as possible.
- Check to see if apcupsd supports your UPS and cable
(see Supported UPSes and Cables).
- Check to see if apcupsd supports your operating system
(see
Supported Operating Systems).
- Plan your configuration type (see
Choosing a Configuration
Type). If you have just one UPS
and one computer, this is easy. If you have more than one machine being
served by the same UPS, or more than one UPS supplying power to computers that
are on the same local network, you have more choices to make.
- Figure out if you have one of the easy setups. If you have a USB
UPS, and a supported operating system and you want to use one UPS with one
computer, that's an easy setup. APC supplies the cable needed to talk with
that UPS along with the UPS. All you need to do is check that your USB
subsystem is working (see USB Configuration);
if so, you can go to the build and install step.
- If you have a UPS designed to communicate via SNMP over Ethernet, that
is also a relatively easy installation. It's in Advanced Topics (see
Advanced topics) mainly because it's an
unusual situation.
- If you have a UPS that communicates via an RS232C serial interface and
it is a SmartUPS, then things are relatively simple, otherwise, your life is
about to get interesting.
- If you have a vendor-supplied cable, find out what cable type you have
by looking on the flat ends of the cable for a number, such as 940-0020A,
stamped in the plastic. Check the cables column of the table of types (see
type_table) to see if it's a supported
type.
- If you don't have a vendor-supplied cable, or your type is not
supported, you may have to build one yourself (see
Cables). Here is hoping you are good with a
soldering iron!
- Now you are ready to read the Building and Installing (see
Building and Installing
apcupsd) section of the manual
and follow those directions. If you are installing from an RPM or some other
form of binary package, this step will probably consist of executing a single
command.
- Tweak your /etc/apcupsd/apcupd.conf file as necessary. Often it will not
be.
- Change the BIOS settings (see
Arranging for Reboot on
Power-Up) on your computer
so that boots up every time it gets power. (This is not the default on most
systems.)
- To verify that your UPS is communicating with your computer and will do
the right thing when the power goes out, read and follow the instructions in
the Testing (see
Testing Apcupsd) section.
- If you run into problems, read the Troubleshooting (see
Troubleshooting Your
Installation) section of this
manual.
- If you still need help, send a message to the developer's email list
apcupsd-users at lists.sourceforge.net
describing your problem, what version of apcupsd you
are using, what operating system you are using, and anything else you think
might be helpful.
- Read the manual sections on
monitoring and
maintaining your UPS.
Next: Supported Operating Systems
Up: Apcupsd User's Guide
Previous: Basic User's Guide
Contents
Index
2009-11-06