bcmxcp - Experimental driver for UPS'es supporting the BCM/XCP protocol over USB

This man page only documents the hardwarespecific features of the bcmxcp_usb driver. For information about the core driver, see nutupsdrv(8). This driver is a variant of the serial driver bcmxcp and uses the same core code.

This driver should recognize all BCM/XCP-compatible UPS'es that are connected via USB. It has been developed and tested on Powerware PW3501 hardware. It also has been tested on PW5110 hardware.

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

shutdown_delay=delay

The number of seconds that the UPS should wait between receiving the shutdown command and actually shutting off.

shutdown_delay = 120

This driver supports the following Instant Commands:

shutdown.return

Turn off the load and return when power is back.

shutdown.stayoff

Turn off the load and remain off.

test.battery.start

Start a battery test.

Report UPS alarm status

BCM/XCP supports reporting a wide range of UPS alarm conditions.

Report UPS statistics informations

BCM/XCP supports reporting of UPS statistics data.

This driver has been tagged experimental, even if it has been reported to be stable. Thus it is not suitable for production systems and it is not built by default. This is mainly due to the fact that it is a new driver.

This driver is not built by default. You can build it by using "make usb", and install it using "make installusb". Note that it will also install other USB drivers. You also need to install manually the hotplug files (libhidups and libhid.usermap), generally in etc/hotplug/usb/, to address the permission settings problem. Lastly note that the libhidups file must have execution flag set (ie using chmod +x ...).

bcmxcp_usb only supports 1 UPS at this time. You can put the "auto" value for port in ups.conf, i.e.: [pw3105] driver = bcmxcp_usb port = auto

Got EPERM: Operation not permitted upon driver startup

Tore Ørpetveit <tore@orpetveit.net> Wolfgang Ocker <weo@weo1.de>

The core driver:

Internet resources: