Need help with shutdown on PC Network Shutdown, redundant UPS setup

[boblowski_apc]

This was originally posted on APC forums on 1/15/2012

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Hello all,

I have a hard time understanding the way PC Network Shutdown handles different events and shutdown. This is all somewhat new for me, I try to be as clear as possible, so sorry for the long post.

What I have is a small department setup with:
- 2 identical smart-ups 1400RM with AP9617 network cards (latest firmware) and nearly new batteries, runtime checked and calibrated
- 2 nearly identical HP servers with redundant PS
- 5 workstations on independent power (not connected to these UPS's)
- network switch that connects everything
- PowerChute Network Shutdown latest version

Both servers have power supply A connected to the first UPS and power supply B to the second UPS, so in a redundant configuration. The first HP server runs Windows Server as domain/fileserver and has PC Network Shutdown installed. The second server runs VMware ESXi as development server.

Network communication is up and checked. The two UPS's are set up as independent UPS's, not in a synchronized control group.

I have written a small script that in case of a power failure firstly remotely switches off all workstations and then remote shutdowns all virtual machines on the ESXi server and then the ESXi server itself. This script has been checked and is working as it should. The script needs about 7 minutes to shut down everything.

But I don't get how PC Network Shutdown handles the actual shutdown. (And I did read the help info a couple of times.)

In PC Network Shutdown under Configure Shutdown I entered the path and name of the script I want to run and entered the time in seconds (420 seconds). In the AP9617 management interfaces the value Maximum Required Delay is automatically updated to 9 minutes. Under Configure Events in PCNS I did not set any extra events for shutdown.

I thought that this means that 9 minutes before the end of the available runtime, the UPS's/AP9617's will signal shutdown to the PCNS server, which in turn will run my script and afterwards will shut down the PCNS server itself.

But actually nothing is happening or is logged. The On Battery event is triggered and logged as expected, but for the rest nothing. I broke off my test about 1~2 minutes before the end of the advertised runtime for the UPS's (as shown in the AP9617 interface) to prevent an unmanaged shutdown.

What do I need to set to get the expected behavior? Or should I look for certain issues with my setup?

Thanks in advance! Bob

[boblowski_apc]

This was originally posted on APC forums on 1/23/2012

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Very polite bumb...

Over 100 views and no answers probably means the answer is too obvious to bother. Still, I really can't make this work and very much would appreciate some help 🙂 Or just a pointer to some sample setups or relevant docs, that would be great as well.

Thanks, Bob

[BillP · Accepted solution]

This reply was originally posted by Angela on APC forums on 1/23/2012

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hi bob,

can you show us the PowerChute Network Shutdown (v3.0 I assume by "the latest") logs from the clients if possible? i think you can copy and paste them to a word or text file.

as well as the AP9617 event.txt, data.txt and data.txt (instructions here|http://nam-en.apc.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/9321]? it'd be good if you can reference the time in the log that your test happened and didn't work properly, that'd be good too.

lastly, what model UPS is this? based on your description its a beige unit - SU1400RM2U? how much runtime does the UPS report at full capacity?