I just bought an MG Pulsar Ellipse 650S (S is for serial) and I'm trying to make it work with my Linux.
This UPS model includes a cable, which has a 9-pin serial connector on the side that connects to the computer, and some connector that looks much like an RJ-45 on the side that connects to the UPS. Since the Windows 2000 machine which I first tested the UPS on was able to correctly detect when the power was off, I assume the connections are okay. My machine uses a Debian distribution, so I want to avoid using mgeupsd since there is no debian package for it yet. Therefore what I am trying to do is use a generic tool such as powerd, upsd or genpower, or my own little Perl script to use the UPS in dumb mode, but still I would need to know what happens to the serial connection when the power is turned off or on. So I started by running "statserial" to monitor the serial port. statserial /dev/ttyS1 returns the following, which doesn't change when I turn the power on or off: Device: /dev/ttyS1 Signal Pin Pin Direction Status Full Name (25) (9) (computer) Name ----- --- --- --------- ------ ----- FG 1 - - - Frame Ground TxD 2 3 out - Transmit Data RxD 3 2 in - Receive Data RTS 4 7 out 1 Request To Send CTS 5 8 in 1 Clear To Send DSR 6 6 in 1 Data Set Ready GND 7 5 - - Signal Ground DCD 8 1 in 0 Data Carrier Detect DTR 20 4 out 1 Data Terminal Ready RI 22 9 in 0 Ring Indicator While statserial was running, I ran "gentest" (of the genpower package) with different settings, setting or clearing different combinations of the DTR and RTS bits each time. Neither of the four combinations would make the output of setserial dependent on the power status of the main plug. Based on the UPS HOWTO, I am under the impression that this experiment would have provided me with more useful results if I were using a different UPS. I wonder whether I'm doing something wrong, whether I should be doing something differently or if it is impossible to have an MGE Pulsar Ellipse UPS run in dumb mode. Any help will be very much appreciated. Thanks, - Alexander Karelas
