Apple Raid and SMT2200

[Anonymous user]

I have a apple xserve raid that I need to connect via db9 simple signaling to a smt2200. The only way I can see so far to do that is with a legacy card, problem is I am using the smart slot for a network card. Is there a way to use the rj45 jack to connect to raid via simple signaling. I have attached the specs apple gives for connecting a ups via serial port below. When I talked to APC before buying it they said all I needed to do was put it in simple signaling mode and connect it. I can't find config function anywhere in any manual on how to do this. It would also seem that from what I am reading the smart signaling cable that comes with it has a different pin out.

UPS Interface Specifications

DB-9 interface, compatible with APC uninterruptible power supply

UPS interface pinouts:

Specifications

9-pin DB9 connector

Pin signals

1: (CD) UPS battery low (20%)

2: Not used

3: Not used

4: (DTR) handshake option

5: Ground

6: Not used

7: (RTS) reserved

8: (CTS) Line fail—switch to UPS battery

9: (RI) reserved

Serial cable to UPS should be number 940-0020B (or comparable cable) for APC basic signaling

[Anonymous user]

I just need to talk to it, don't care what it thinks or wants..lol. Once it is notified it is on UPS power it will do what it needs to. It had a handshake pin, but I have no clue what that does or means. Pinout says it has a diode in it and it looks like it may be a way for the raid to send the shutdown command back to the UPS. You can find details about this Raid at http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/xserve/specs/xserve_raid_sfp.htm There isn't an OS the user can access on this raid. It is slaved to an Apple server with fibre optic. The only weird catch is that the only way to shutdown other than a user manually doing so is the UPS db9 port on the back. Not really sure what they were thinking when they did that......

On a much brighter note I managed to get a hold of a 940-0128A today and was able to test it. It does work with the RAID and the raid was getting the signal when the UPS was on battery. The only concern I have now would be how to split this signal out. I don't really like the idea of a Y cable cable because if I read the pinouts right there is a line back to the UPS.

I saw the legacy card and had the same thought, but the network card is just too powerful a tool to give up. I have found pinouts for most of your cables online, but I can't find the pin-out for the built in cable on the Share-UPS that plugs into the UPS. From everything I have read about the way it works and the way the serial port works it seems like it would be a matter of getting the right RJ-25->DB9 to make it work with my UPS. Really what I would be looking for is a simple way to split out the simple signal to various ports. Do you have the pinout for the line in on the Share-UPS?

[BillP]

I will have to bounce it around a bit more tomorrow with some more experienced folks but so far what I have been told is to just splice ground power and low battery and on battery in parallel. Originally with the the Y cable,  it was suggested to send the shutdown imminent pin but you may need a buffer chip - which admittedly, I don't really know what that means.

The legacy card (AP9620) was more intended for users who need a DB-9 Smart Signaling or USB connection from our older style UPSs. It also speaks the older style communication protocol if users built applications around that. It did simple signaling though. The AP9624 interface expander was more for what you needed and provided two simple signaling ports.

Anyway, on the AP9207, some of that old school serial port stuff is available here, and refer to the basic port -> http://www.apc.com/whitepaper/?an=12

(if you can't tell, that application note was probably last updated when Share-UPS was considered modern - it is really a legacy accessory today, I don't even know if you can purchase it today to be honest.)

I was under the impression that the cable that connects the Share-UPS to the UPS is just a straight through serial cable that extends the basic port through to additional ports.

[Anonymous user]

Yea the buffer chip is why I wanted to try to use the share-ups. I was looking at cables and it would seem the the older ups use Part# 940-0024C, # 940-0024B, # 940-0024D or 940-1524 (db9->db9) and the new ones use APC part# 940-0625A (rj45->db9). Interesting part is that if you look at the pins on the db9 side both kinds of those put the data pins in the same place on the db9. They also both have the same pinout RDx; Chassis GND; Sig GND and TDx. Which would mean the new still has all the serial pins in the right place to make it work. The real question I have is if the SMT does smart signaling what exactly would make it not work with the Share-UPS. It obviously does the older signaling protocols. I am also wondering if maybe it is just certain feature that don't work

[Anonymous user]

After more reading and fun with pin-out diagrams I think I may know why they say it is "incompatible" if I am right it will be a super easy thing to solve. Hopefully you can check on your end to see if I am spinning the wheels or if I am onto something. Here is what I think the issue may be. The "TO UPS" cable on the share-ups has a built in cable with a db9 meant to go straight to the UPS with nothing between it and the UPS port. ALL the adapters are supposed to plug into the UPS then into the devices port, they all go between other plugs. These cables all have different pin layouts on each side, none are pin-2-pin. This means if you tried to use a rj-45 ->DB9 the pins are would be in the wrong place for the Share-UPS, BUT the right place for everything else since it is the same cable as was used before only with a rj-45 on one side instead of a db9. In the case of Share-UPS there is no adapter that goes from the Rj-45 to the old pinout of  the DB9, because all the adapters  go straight to what would have been on the other side of that cable. This would mean that the smart-UPS with Rj-45 vs. the old db9 would no long work without an adapter. At that point I am guessing someone decided the share-UPS was old anyway it wasn't worth making that adapter because they had no demand for it. This would explain why the the Share-UPS can function with all the Smart-UPS lines except the SMT/SMX. Again not 100% sure so anyone that could give input would be a huge help.

If this is the issue/incompatibility I can make a rj-45 -> DB9 that would just go to what the old plug would have been pinned as. OR if the cable isn't too thick just lob off the DB9 and put a rj-45 in it's place with the right pin out for RDx, GND, and TX.

[Anonymous user]

I have a apple xserve raid that I need to connect via db9 simple signaling to a smt2200. The only way I can see so far to do that is with a legacy card, problem is I am using the smart slot for a network card. Is there a way to use the rj45 jack to connect to raid via simple signaling. I have attached the specs apple gives for connecting a ups via serial port below. When I talked to APC before buying it they said all I needed to do was put it in simple signaling mode and connect it. I can't find config function anywhere in any manual on how to do this. It would also seem that from what I am reading the smart signaling cable that comes with it has a different pin out.

UPS Interface Specifications

DB-9 interface, compatible with APC uninterruptible power supply

UPS interface pinouts:

Specifications

9-pin DB9 connector

Pin signals

1: (CD) UPS battery low (20%)

2: Not used

3: Not used

4: (DTR) handshake option

5: Ground

6: Not used

7: (RTS) reserved

8: (CTS) Line fail—switch to UPS battery

9: (RI) reserved

Serial cable to UPS should be number 940-0020B (or comparable cable) for APC basic signaling

[BillP]

Does this help?

http://www.apc.com/whitepaper/?an=181

[Anonymous user]

I read this and it doesn't seem to talk at all about the simple signaling protocol. It talks about serial connection, but not with the same pin-out as what is described as needed.

EDIT

When I went through it in more detail it started to click and I found 940-0128 but I wasn't sure the pinout on the RJ-45 on the SMT2200 itself.

[BillP]

It should be what you need. Here is the pinout I found below. 940-0020 would work if you did use AP9620 but on the UPS RJ-45 serial port, 940-0128 is the right cable part number. AP or even 0J before the part just indicates a spare part. So, once you confirm this on your end and with the pinout below from what you can tell, you can pursue ordering the part # you found or 0J-940-0128D.

[Anonymous user]

First off Angela you are AWESOME thank you for your help so far. From what I see I am getting really close to solving this. I only have a few questions left. Do you know if I need to somehow set my smt-2200 to a simple signaling mode somehow? I can't seem to find anything on how to do that. Also what is the letter after the cable mean? Those two items aside below it what I think I would need to make this work. My plan would be to go from the RJ-45 serial port on the back of the UPS to a share-ups and then to each raid card from there. This will also allow me to have 6 more ports to use for other raids. I would also then use a network management card and the UBS port to connect to other servers

                                                                            _____________

SMT2200->0J-940-0128D or AP940-0128D -> | SHARE - UPS |---> AP940-0020 ---> Xserve Raid

|          |                                                               | ____________|---> AP940-0020 ---> Xserve Raid

|          > USB cable to Main Server

|

> Network Management Card (AP9630) ->

EDIT

I was reading through the share UPS manual and it seemed to imply I could use the smart signaling serial cable that came with my ups. Does this mean I wouldn't need the 940-0128 and it would convert the smart signaling to simple signaling?

It is also worth noting that in the manual for the ap9207 (share-ups) it says

Share-UPS requires:

•An APC UPS of one the following models:–Smart-UPS®, except models AP250, AP400, AP600, AP900, AP1250, AP2000, SUVS420, SUVS650, SUVS1000, SUVS1400, SU620.

–Matrix-UPS™, except models with serial numbers less than x9412.

– Symmetra™PowerArray™

BUT in the product description it says

Smart-UPS Compatibility: Incompatible with SMX, SMT and SURTD Smart-UPS models.

Now I don't know what they mean by that in terms of the signaling and what not, but it doesn't seem to make sense. The only thing I could figure out is that it may be able to tell it to shutdown, but the SMT may not be able to read the replies back from it.

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Share-UPS was intended for older style units that spoke UPS-Link communication language. Your UPS speaks what we call Micro-link and is a completely different animal. I think there is some UPS-Link functionality going on inside the Share-UPS and it is not just straight voltages and high/low signals.

I lost you on:

ALL the adapters are supposed to plug into the UPS then into the devices port, they all go between other plugs. These cables all have different pin layouts on each side, none are pin-2-pin. This means if you tried to use a rj-45 ->DB9 the pins are would be in the wrong place for the Share-UPS, BUT the right place for everything else since it is the same cable as was used before only with a rj-45 on one side instead of a db9. In the case of Share-UPS there is no adapter that goes from the Rj-45 to the old pinout of  the DB9, because all the adapters  go straight to what would have been on the other side of that cable. This would mean that the smart-UPS with Rj-45 vs. the old db9 would no long work without an adapter.

I am not really understanding what you mean by adapters? The idea of the Share UPS was that your older UPS would have a DB-9 on it. You connect the Share-UPS to it via the molded/embedded connector and the UPS both powers the Share-UPS and then provides 7 "basic/simple" ports and one "advanced" port to replace the "advanced/smart" port on the UPS you just used up to power/connect the Share-UPS. The basic ports would connect to your servers using 940-0020 and then the advanced/smart port would be connected to one server. These servers would run PowerChute Business Edition (or Plus) in Smart or Simple mode respectively. The Smart port would give two way communication so that the user can change settings, view voltage, battery, etc information. It had some dipswitches to support some modes of shutdown, depending on your set up.

So, in investigating so far, we do not believe the Share-UPS will work (and wouldn't be able to support this anyway), because it takes UPS-Link in and generates simple signal out. What we do believe is required is to use a simple cable (like you have - 940-0128 - which is designed for this UPS) and then you need to make a break out for the two outputs you need. Beyond that, I can't really get any traction on further details since this is not something we've tested, built, etc and normally, we would just be pushing you to AP9624 but I understand the dilemma in wanting to use the Network Management Card.

Let me know if you have any questions on these comments.