# UPSDRVCTL(8)

## NAME

upsdrvctl - Network UPS Tools driver controller

## SYNOPSIS

upsdrvctl -h

upsdrvctl [OPTIONS] {start | stop | shutdown | status} [ups]

upsdrvctl [OPTIONS] {list | -l} [ups]

upsdrvctl [OPTIONS] -c COMMAND [ups]

## DESCRIPTION

upsdrvctl provides a uniform interface for controlling your UPS drivers. You should use `upsdrvctl` command instead of direct calls to the drivers whenever possible.

When used properly, `upsdrvctl` lets you maintain identical startup scripts across multiple systems with different UPS configurations.

Warning

For operating systems with service management frameworks, such as Solaris/illumos SMF or Linux systemd, the upsdrvsvcctl(8) may be a better choice.

In fact, service instances prepared by nut-driver-enumerator(8) based on contents of your ups.conf(5) file and automatically maintained by the respective framework can conflict with manual execution of drivers. In this case, `upsdrvctl` would emit a warning in NUT builds with that capability (can be silenced by exporting a `NUT_QUIET_INIT_NDE_WARNING` environment variable with any value).

You may be required to stop service units (if used) and run driver programs directly rather than via `upsdrvctl` for troubleshooting, e.g. to facilitate debug log collection or test any custom builds of drivers without conflict with a normally running packaged instance.

## OPTIONS

-h

  Display the help text.

-r directory

  If starting a driver, this value will direct it to chroot(2) into directory. This can be useful when securing systems.

  This may be set in the ups.conf(5) with the `chroot` directive in the global section.

-t

  Enable testing mode. This also enables debug mode. Testing mode makes upsdrvctl display the actions it would execute without actually doing them. Use this to test out your configuration without actually doing anything to your UPS drivers.

  This may be helpful when defining the `sdorder` directive in your ups.conf(5) section for the device.

-u username

  If starting a driver, this value will direct it to setuid(2) to the user id associated with username.

  If the driver is started as root without specifying this value, it will use the username that was compiled into the binary. This defaults to nobody (if not otherwise configured), which is far from ideal.

  This may be set in ups.conf(5) with the `user` directive in the global section.

-D

  Raise the debug level. Use this multiple times for additional details.

  Note that this does not preclude the `upsdrvctl` tool from exiting after its job is done (however an explicit -F option does).

  Also note that this option alone modifies the debug verbosity of the tool, but not of the drivers it launches. See the additional -d option for that.

-d

  Pass the selected debug level from `upsdrvctl` to launched drivers.

  Note that by default for NUT daemons, enabled debugging means running in foreground mode; you can specify -B additionally to avoid that.

-F

  Driver will run in the foreground (not fork away from the `upsdrvctl` process), regardless of debugging settings. It would also keep the tool program itself foregrounded with driver daemons running as its children (in case of a single driver startup, it would not even fork).

  It would also not wait for drivers to complete initialization, so `upsdrvctl` will warn about such situations.

  Specify twice (`-FF` or `-F -F`) to save the driver PID file even in this mode (not saved by default when staying in foreground).

-B

  Drivers will run in the background, regardless of debugging settings, as set by -D and passed-through by -d options.

-l

  Alias for `list` command.

## COMMANDS

`upsdrvctl` supports three active commands —`start`, `stop` and `shutdown`. It also supports passing requests to running drivers using `-c COMMAND` syntax, similar to that in some other daemons. A couple of helper commands are also available —`list` and `status`.

They all can take an optional argument which is a UPS name from ups.conf(5). Without that argument, they operate on every UPS that is currently configured.

Note | `upsdrvctl` can not manage devices not listed in `ups.conf` (such as test drivers started with `-s TMP` option).

start

  Start the UPS driver(s). In case of failure to start within maxstartdelay time-frame, further attempts may be executed by using the maxretry and retrydelay values. Conversely, the nowait global option can be used, especially to speed up parallel start of many drivers.

  See ups.conf(5) about these options. Built-in defaults are: maxstartdelay=75 (sec), maxretry=1 (meaning one attempt at starting), retrydelay=5 (sec).

stop

  Stop the UPS driver(s). This does not send commands to the UPS.

shutdown

  Command the UPS driver(s) to run their shutdown sequence. This assumes that the driver is no longer running, and starts a fresh instance via `drivername -k`. It is intended to be used as the last step in system shutdown, after the filesystems are no longer mounted rw. Drivers are stopped according to their `sdorder` value — see ups.conf(5).

Warning | This will probably power off your computers, so don’t play around with this option. Only use it when your systems are prepared to lose power.

Note | Refer to ups.conf(5) for using the nowait parameter. It can be overridden by `NUT_IGNORE_NOWAIT` environment variable (e.g. used to work around certain issues with systemd otherwise).

list

  Without a further argument, report all currently known device configuration names to `stdout`, one per line. With an argument, also try to report that name, but exit with an error code if that name is not known.

Note | The tool would exit with an error if `ups.conf` file is not found, readable, or does not define any device sections (whose names are reported here and managed in other commands).

Note | The tool name and NUT version banner line is also printed to `stdout` before any other processing. This can be suppressed by `NUT_QUIET_INIT_BANNER` environment variable (exported by caller and empty or "true"):

    :; NUT_QUIET_INIT_BANNER=true upsdrvctl list
    dummy
    UPS1
    UPS2

status

  Similar to `list`, but reports more information — also the driver name, the PID if it is running, and result of a signal probe to check it is responding. The `NUT_QUIET_INIT_BANNER` suppression can be helpful for scripted parsing. If there is anything to print (at least one device is known), the first line of status report would be the heading with column names:

      :; NUT_QUIET_INIT_BANNER=true upsdrvctl status
      UPSNAME              UPSDRV  RUNNING PF_PID  S_RESPONSIVE    S_PID   S_STATUS
      dummy             dummy-ups  N/A     -3      NOT_RESPONSIVE  N/A
      eco650           usbhid-ups  RUNNING 3559207 RESPONSIVE      3559207 "OL"
      UPS2              dummy-ups  RUNNING 31455   RESPONSIVE      31455   "OL BOOST"

  Values are TAB-separated, but UPSNAME and UPSDRV may be padded by spaces on the right and on the left respectively. Any complex string values would be encased in double-quotes.

  Fields reported (`PF_*` = according to PID file, if any; `S_*` = via socket protocol):

  UPSNAME

    driver section configuration name

  UPSDRV

    driver program name per `ups.conf`

  RUNNING

    `RUNNING` if `PF_PID` or `S_PID` is valid, `STOPPED` if at least one PID value was parsed but none was found running with a correct program name; `N/A` if no PID file/socket reply or failed to parse. First the PID file is consulted, but it may be absent either due to command-line parameters of daemons, or due to platform (WIN32). If no PID value was found and confirmed this way, we fall back to checking the PID reported via protocol (if available and different).

  PF_PID

    PID of driver according to PID file (if any), or some negative values upon errors (as defined in `common.c`) including an absent PID file, invalid contents, or unsupported platform for this mechanism (e.g. WIN32)

  S_RESPONSIVE

    `RESPONSIVE` if `PING`/`PONG` during socket protocol session setup succeeded; `NOT_RESPONSIVE` otherwise

  S_PID

    PID of driver according to `GETPID` active query, or `N/A` if the query failed

  S_STATUS

    Quoted value of `ups.status` variable

  This mode does not discover drivers that are not in `ups.conf` (e.g. started manually for experiments with many `-x` CLI options).

-c command

  Send command to the background process as a signal. Valid commands are:

  dump

    tell the driver(s) to dump currently known state information to their `stdout` (if attached anywhere)

  reload

    reread configuration files, ignoring modified settings which can not be applied "on the fly"

  reload-or-error

    reread configuration files, ignoring but counting changed values which require a driver restart (can not be changed on the fly), and return a success/fail code based on that count, so the caller can decide the fate of the currently running driver instance

  reload-or-exit

    reread configuration files, exiting the old driver process if it encounters modified settings which can not be applied "on the fly" (so caller like systemd can launch another copy of the driver)

  exit

    tell the currently running driver instance to just exit (so an external caller like the new driver instance, or the systemd or SMF frameworks would start another copy)

If the `upsdrvctl` was launched to remain in memory and manage NUT driver processes, it can receive supported signals and pass them to those drivers.

## ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

NUT_DEBUG_LEVEL sets default debug verbosity if no -D arguments were provided on command line, but does not request that the daemon runs in foreground mode.

NUT_CONFPATH is the path name of the directory that contains `ups.conf` and other configuration files. If this variable is not set, upsdrvctl (and the drivers) use a built-in default, which is often `/usr/local/ups/etc`.

NUT_ALTPIDPATH is the path name of the directory in which upsd and drivers store .pid files. If this variable is not set, upsd and drivers use either NUT_STATEPATH if set, or ALTPIDPATH if set, or otherwise the built-in default STATEPATH.

## DIAGNOSTICS

`upsdrvctl` will return a nonzero exit code if it encounters an error while performing the desired operation. This will also happen if a driver takes longer than the maxstartdelay period to enter the background.

## SEE ALSO

upsdrvsvcctl(8), nut-driver-enumerator(8), nutupsdrv(8), upsd(8), ups.conf(5)

### Internet resources:

The NUT (Network UPS Tools) home page: https://www.networkupstools.org/historic/v2.8.4/