[OmniOS-discuss] usb hid ups monitoring

[Paul B. Henson]

> From: Georgi Todorov
> Sent: Monday, June 02, 2014 7:53 AM
>
> I have a Cyber Power ups that I'm monitoring via USB and it works just fine.

To clarify, this is under OI, not omnios? Did you compile nut/libusb yourself, or did you use packages in the OI repository?

> The tricky part is to use ugen omnios driver not hid. My device is 764,501.1
> and this is what I did:
[...]
> # rem_drv ugen
> # add_drv -i '"usb764,501.1"'  -m '* 0666 ups ups'  ugen

That magic number is from 'prtconf -v'? Looks like mine would be "usb51d,2.6". Did you need to do a reconfiguration reboot after this change? I've seen some threads claiming that was required.

I'm starting to think it's just not worth the effort to try and get this going, it would probably be easier to just find the serial cable 8-/. USB support for applications wanting to use libusb under illumos looks like a real mess <sigh>, particularly if there are no OS packages available.

So is the lack of support in libusb-1.x for solaris/illumos simply the result of no one being interested enough to develop the appropriate backend, or is it indicative of limitations of the illumos usb api preventing the functionality libusb is looking for?

Hmm, after digging around through my altogether too large collection of cables, I found one that's got an APC label, with a part number of 940-0020C, and another one with no brand name on it but a part number of 940-1524C. I *think* the first one came with some desktop UPS, and despite the lack of branding on the second one I'm pretty sure it's an APC cable… Ah, yes, google confirms it. Interesting though, the NUT APC serial documentation says "APC UPS models with both USB and serial ports require a power cycle when switching from USB communication to serial, and perhaps vice versa." That sounds annoying. I wonder if just a USB connection being made, even if it was never actually initialized and used to manage the unit, counts? I don't particularly want to have to power cycle it <sigh>.