Resetting AP9617 Network Management Card user ID takes card offline

[DominikHoffmann]

After getting a pcap dump on the Ethernet interface of my AP9617 I figured out its IP address. I can bring it up in a browser, and I can telnet to it.

When I reset  the user ID and password by following the procedure “How to Recover from a Lost Password” on Page 17 of the manual (Document ID 990-7142D-001) in Step 5:

Press the Reset button. The Status LED will flash alternately orange and green. Press the Reset button a second time immediately while the LED is flashing to reset the user name and password to their defaults temporarily.

I expect to be able to then enter apc/apc at either the web page or the telnet login prompt. Instead, the card’s web page becomes unresponsive, and the existing telnet session is dropped. I cannot re-establish either connection before the user ID and password have been flipped back to what they were before.

The procedure from the manual calls for a serial terminal connection to be made, but the AP9617 doesn’t have a serial interface, only Ethernet.

[DominikHoffmann · Accepted solution]

I do understand the process much better now. Yes, following the above procedure restarts the card.

I have since purchased the USB RS-232-to-DB9 Communication Cable for APC UPS (940-0024C) cable from Amazon. It has an integrated USB-to-RS-232 interface with the male DB-9 connector on the other end. With that cable, I can access the serial console of the UPS. I am using the excellent Serial app for macOS to do so.

This allowed me to bootstrap myself to getting its http interface going. I first had to set a new username and password and turned on DHCP on the card in the process. With a static lease for the card’s MAC address set in my router I was then able to connect to it via telnet first and http later. One of the stumbling blocks along the way was removed by following the instructions on how to log in, when there was a message saying, “Someone is currently logged into the APC Management Web Server.”