UPS firmware upgrade

[Anonymous user]

I've gone through the forums and have seen the different articles on how to upgrade the UPS firmware in the newer smartUPSs. (not the webcard firmware, the UPS firmware).
I've also downloaded and looked over the instructions where it says remove power, attach serial cable, etc. We have a bunch of the newer UPSs and all the NMC2s are v5.1.7.

Under the UPS tab, there is a firmware upgrade option. There are instructions to manually upload a new firmware file into the upsfw directory on the card. According to the directions
there it says the if there is an upgrade file in that directory, it will be shown, and you can press the "update UPS" button. It also says that the UPS must be off to do this.

So my question is (and I have not found this documented anywhere yet), how is the upgrade done with this method? Most of our UPSs are remote, so would someone have to
be onsite to turn off the ups? Is there a document that describes how to do this through the web interface?

Just curious about this. I am compiling a list of the UPSs and firmware versions, and will open a case to get the updated firmware. If someone has to be onsite, we can easily make
these upgrades part of site visits. I'm just trying to determine how the upgrade using the web interface works. Once again, I have not found anything specific to this, other than the
FA article with the directions to update via a serial connection.
Thanks - chris

[voidstar_apc]

>
So my question is (and I have not found this documented anywhere yet), how is the upgrade done with this method? Most of our UPSs are remote, so would someone have to be onsite to turn off the ups? Is there a document that describes how to do this through the web interface?
>

You can turn off the UPS remotely on the Control page under the UPS tab. I think the "UPS must be off" warning message even links directly to the control page. If you try to update the UPS and it isn't off, it just won't succeed, and you can try again.

Once you press the "Update UPS" button, the NMC takes care of transferring the firmware file in the upsfw directory to the UPS.

I thought the help did a decent job describing it, but I'm terribly biased so let me know if it's missing important details.

[Anonymous user]

voidstar, thanks for the response. I don't have a problem with the help link, I understood what that said.

The confusion was in the message about the output having to be off. Obviously, with remote sites that could cause problems
without someone on site (turn off ups, router/switch go down, no connectivity hence can't press the update ups button),
if for no other reason to turn the ups back on. Unless I am missing something here, which is entirely possible.

I think step 1 is just to open a case to get updated firmware. Once I have that, I'll put one on the testbed and run
through things. As stated in the previous post, we can always roll this into our site maintenance procedures if someone
has to be onsite.

At any rate, thanks for the reply, I appreciate it.

[voidstar_apc · Accepted solution]

>
Obviously, with remote sites that could cause problems without someone on site (turn off ups, router/switch go down, no connectivity hence can't press the update ups button), if for no other reason to turn the ups back on. Unless I am missing something here, which is entirely possible.
>

That's a good point: you'd want the network router/switch to be powered by the UPS for PowerChute Network Shutdown to function, yet under those conditions the NMC can't easily be commanded to do a remote upgrade because an upgrade requires the UPS to be off.