Configuring UPS for Mac Pro

[alphaod]

I picked up a new UPS last week for my Mac Pro (finally!) and I wasn't able to configure the Mac Pro to work as I wanted.

I would not find many options other than to sleep or shutdown the machine should the power be cut off. There is the option to restart your computer in the event of a power failure and restart your machine should the computer "freeze"; none of these options is looking for.

I want the computer to automatically shutdown after a predefined time and then start back up when the power is resumed (when the AC is back up). Due to my RAID card, sleep and hibernation options are no open to me.

Is this possible?

I'm not running any third party software and the UPS to connected to my Mac Pro via USB.

The UPS model is an APC Smart UPS SUA1500RM2U.

Thanks.

 

[mdgm]

OS X can't do this by default, I think.

I think I've read it's possible using apcupsd: http://www.apcupsd.com/

I'd recommend you do some researching of apcupsd.

 

[DanielCoffey]

I see you are using the USB handshake cable you got with the UPS. You should see the OS X UPS panel in the Energy Saver preferences along with a button marked "Shutdown Options". In that panel I see the following...

Checkbox - Shut down the computer after using the UPS battery for 1 min to 15 min.

Checkbox - Shut down the computer when the time remaining on the UPS battery is 1 min - 15 min

Checkbox Shut down the computer when the battery level is below 1% to 100%

There is, of course also the Start up automatically after a power failure.

I would assume that there might be an option in the UPS itself on its control panel to deal with restarts after shutdown.

I am using an SMT1000I so if you want me to have a look in the options on it, just PM me.

 

[DanielCoffey]

I have just had a look at the SMT1000I manual and there are extensive options for the primary and secondary outlets on the back to be shut down, manually or automatically brought back on load and parameters for reboot delays per outlet bank so I suggest you tell the MP to restart when power returns and then read the manual for your UPS model to make it behave just how you want it. APC are also very good at answering queries. It looks like you have a RM (Rack Mount?) model so I suspect their business user team would be able to assist you.

EDIT : your model of UPS seems to have 1 bank of 4 outlets but I see the following on the spec page...

Automatic restart of loads after UPS shutdown - Automatically starts up the connected equipment upon the return of utility power.

 

[dyn]

I'd vote for apcupsd, it's a great tool for anyone with an APC UPS. There is one slight problem with it though: it can only run with the 32 bit kernel. The 2010 MP uses the 64 bit kernel by default so you need to set it up to permanently boot with the 32 bit kernel. Most people won't notice the difference between the 32 bit and 64 bit kernel, you can still run 64 bit software.

 

[DanielCoffey]

Given that you can tell OS X how and when to shut down when running on battery and you can tell the UPS how to run *after* a shutdown, do we really need apcupsd?

 

[dyn]

Yes, since you can do quite a lot of advanced stuff with it that you can't do with OS X. Apcupsd is comparable to the powerchute software regarding features. OS X built in UPS software is nowhere near that feature set. Also, I've found it to be much more reliable than OS X's implementation.

Knowing exactly what the load is and what runtime you have is very nice. You don't need to rely on the LEDs on the device (which is the only way of telling if your using OS X's implementation; if you're lucky OS X will tell you the runtime).

The option to restart the Mac after a power failure means that it will restart the Mac after the power comes back. Depending on how long the power outage lasts you get into a situation where the battery of the UPS isn't completely empty. In other words, the UPS is still powering the Mac rendering that reboot option completely useless. You need to choose some sensible values so that the batteries are completely dead. The option to choose what the UPS does after it has shutdown the Mac isn't in the OS X settings at all, the only options in OSX are shutting down the Mac when the battery level reaches a certain percentage and/or you have $time on battery left and/or it has been running $time on the UPS. It only shutsdown the machine but it doesn't kill the power. For that you need apcupsd.

The following links shows the options and it also shows one of the problems with OS X's implementation: http://www.sysarchitects.com/node/104 & http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/UPS.html

 

[DanielCoffey]

Ah, I understand - so OS X would turn off the Mac while the UPS would have still been happy to power it, then the power comes back on and the UPS recharges to full but never tells the Mac to reboot. I see.

I assume then that you have to really ignore the majority of the OS X shutdown options and just let the UPS control it all. On the SmartUPS family many of the models let you do that (shutdown times/percentages and restart options).

 

[dyn]

A bit differently: the Mac hasn't noticed the poweroutage so it won't trigger the "boot after powerloss". What apcupsd does is first shutdown the Mac and then shutdown the ups cutting the power to the Mac. When powering up the ups the Mac will boot up. This saves the batteries, in case of a second poweroutage the batteries still have enough juice to power the machine for a second shutdown. Very useful when you have lots of outages.

If you use apcupsd the entire ups option in osx will be disabled to avoid conflicting settings, etc.