Symmetra LX 16000 - Restore output power after UPS shuts down

[Anonymous user]

I talked to APC tech support on this issue. After a prolonged power outage and the UPS shuts itself off when the power is restored shouldn't it also turn itself back on and restore output power to the connected devices? I really do not want to have to manually push a couple buttons to restore power to all of our servers and network equipment (especially in the middle of the night). I know you can turn the UPS on via the network interface; doesn't help much when the router/firewall is not powered on though... Tech support says there is no way to automate turning on output power after the UPS is turned off. Is this true?

[BillP]

the UPS should boot back online. i tested this myself after hearing different answers about this. I tested it with a Symmetra LX myself.

as long as you have the setting in the network management card set to "Restart when power is restored" it should power back up (this setting is located, in the newest firmware, under the UPS tab->Powerchute configuration). any servers that you want to power back on need to be set correctly in the BIOS to "last state" or "always on" or something along those lines.

say the power goes out, the servers shut down but before the UPS turns off, the power returns, the UPS will NOT have rebooted so thus the servers will not turn back on (they have seen either utility power or battery power during the entire outage so that is why the UPS needs to reboot for them to turn back on). to get around this issue, you can set the last server to shutdown to turn off the UPS as well so that when the power comes back on, the UPS will have been shutdown and thus power back up.

hope this helps! let me know if you have any other questions.

[Anonymous user]

That is what always happened in the past. Never had a problem. This is the second time this has happened though. Here is the log:

10/13/2008 01:22:14 Environment: Restored the local network management interface-to-integrated Environmental Monitor Input T Sensor (Integrated at Int Sensor Loc) communication.
10/13/2008 01:21:16 UPS: The output power is turned off.
10/13/2008 01:21:16 UPS: Restored the local network management interface-to-UPS communication.
10/13/2008 01:20:47 System: Network service started. System IP is 172.16.2.93 from manually configured settings.
10/13/2008 01:20:47 System: Warmstart.
10/13/2008 01:09:03 UPS: The output power is turned off.
10/13/2008 01:04:25 UPS: A graceful shutdown process is being used to shut down the load equipment before the UPS turns off. Initiated by PowerChute ns from 172.16.2.41.
10/13/2008 00:59:43 UPS: No longer on battery power.
10/13/2008 00:58:57 UPS: On battery power in response to an input power problem.

Seems kind of odd that the UPS was only on battery power for a minute and 5 min later shuts everything down. My main concern right now though is "The output power is turned off." When input power is restored the output power remains off. I have to manually turn it back on through the control panel or web interface.

[BillP]

can you tell me what configuration you have on the powerchute client at IP address 172.16.2.41? is it set to shutdown on a particular event (such as UPS: on battery)? this is located at http://172.16.2.41:3052 under the server name->configure events. there will be a check mark in the shutdown column if any special settings are configured.

also, please tell me how much runtime you have on the UPS and confirm what the low battery duration is set to inside of the network management card.

[Anonymous user]

Yes, I want to shut down the system. checked
Shutdown the system only when the event lasts this long (seconds): 600

Runtime is 19min
Low battery duration is set to 2min

Thanks for your quick response!

[BillP]

are there any other events configured to shutdown? the power outage was only very brief yet this server sent a shutdown command even though that event didnt last 600 seconds.

can you post the event log from the powerchute network shutdown interface on this server?

[Anonymous user]

Runtime: Exceeded: 300 sec

guessing this is what caused it.

10/13/2008 01:51:10 Shutdown process started. Windows 2003 will shut down soon.
10/13/2008 01:51:10 Available runtime is sufficient.
10/13/2008 01:46:30 Input power has been restored: UPS has switched to On Line operation
10/13/2008 01:46:10 Available runtime has been exceeded.
10/13/2008 01:45:43 UPS has switched to battery power

[BillP · Accepted solution]

yeah.

sounds like that event happened and then unfortunately, the power came back on but the server was already starting to shutdown and couldnt stop.

maybe you can just have it configured to shutdown based on "UPS: on battery" instead of "Runtime exceeded" in addition.