Re: APC UPS PowerChute PLUS exploit...

[Doug.Hughes () ENG AUBURN EDU (Doug Hughes)]

> Rick Perry <perry () NEWS VILL EDU> writes:
<much deleted>
> I'm sure there are far more possible explits than this ...
> Don't run PowerChute, it seems.
>
> Anyone know of a good replacement for use with an APC BackUPS ?
> :(

Not wanting to pay $150 for software that I didn't need, I wrote a very, very
simple replacement for powerchute. It shuts down the machine after a fixed
(in my case 5 min) amount of time after the power is off. It does no
power signal monitoring, no quality monitoring, no monitoring of any kind.
If the power has been off for 5 minutes, the machine shuts down. It is
possible that if you have the power off for 4 minutes, and then comes back
on for a second, then off 4, then on quick, then off 4 again, that you could
kill the battery, but I consider this very unlikely (in our environment).
It's small and simple.

You will have to make your own cable.

Details on the software (very small), and the cable are available at
http://www.eng.auburn.edu/~doug/ups.html

There are other free implementations of APC management software as well.
I don't know where they are. They seem to move. One I'd read about appeared
to be much closer to powerchute, but since mine worked-for-us, I didn't
investigate further.