Automated shutdown for both PC and Mac...?

[Anonymous user]

Hi All,

Was wondering whether anyone has both a Mac and a PC connected to a UPS and able to automatically have them shutdown using either APC or natively via the OS. I believe the Mac has built in software to handle this as part of OSX and this would be handled by the Powerchute software on the PC workstation.

I have spoken with a couple of people (including someone from APC) who have told me its not possible to have this type of setup and that I would need a seperate UPS for each machine which I would like to ideally avoid.

Any help/suggestions/ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Vin.

[voidstar_apc]

Hi Vin,

>
Thanks for the feedback. I purchased a used Smart UPS (SUA1500) which I have heard great things about and assume I can install one of these network management cards. However, I haven't heard great things about this on the Mac and was wondering if there was anyone out there who has experience with this type of setup on the Mac before I purchase. I guess the burning question here is how well does this work in practice using both platforms on one UPS using the network based product?
>

Powerchute Network Shutdown is pretty much the same code on both Windows and Mac so there's feature parity. It seems to work well in practice, although one guy had to change the shutdown script to use it on his XServe ([see this apc-forums thread|http://forums.apc.com/spaces/5/smart-ups-symmetra-lx-rm/forums/general/6119/apc-5000rmi5u-avr-relay-...]).

>
The other question I have on this, is why can the USB port on the UPS not be shared between two computers?
>

USB hubs allow you to connect multiple devices to one computer, but does not work the other way around. USB provides no option to connect one device to multiple computers.

Ethernet hubs do not have this limitation so the network management card can connect to multiple computers over Ethernet.

[Anonymous user]

Hi Vin,

The only option that I can see if you want to have 2 computers with different operation systems (eg. MAC OSX and Windows) to receive a shutdown signal without using a different UPSs, is to use a Network Management Card. This is compatible with Smart UPS and those Network Management Cards are being used with PowerChute Network Shutdown Link: [SFPCNS223:http://www.apc.com/tools/download/index.cfm]. In which, the signal will use the network to send shutdown commands. PCNS is both compatible with MAC OSX and Windows operating systems.

Hope this helps

[voidstar_apc]

(delete)

[Anonymous user]

Thanks for the feedback. I purchased a used Smart UPS (SUA1500) which I have heard great things about and assume I can install one of these network management cards. However, I haven't heard great things about this on the Mac and was wondering if there was anyone out there who has experience with this type of setup on the Mac before I purchase. I guess the burning question here is how well does this work in practice using both platforms on one UPS using the network based product?

The other question I have on this, is why can the USB port on the UPS not be shared between two computers? I assume the signal from the UPS would be sent via the UBS port and would then go into a USB hub where one would have multiple computers connected to and be able to communicate with the UPS. Is this at all possible? Sorry if this is way off the mark but as you can probably tell, I have little experience and thought I would also throw this in the mix as an option.

Appreciate the help in advance...!

Cheers,
Vin.

[Anonymous user]

Thanks again for the feedback.

I think I am going to go with the network management card as was kindly recommended and use the Powerchute network shutdown software on both my Mac and PC. The only thing I just need to confirm, is whether the APC Network Shutdown softwre is compatible on OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard as the documenation from APC does not seem to suggest this as it refers to the server version of the product and on a G5 rather than Intel. I had a live chat with an APC support person but they were not able to confirm - they basically said to install it and see what happens...

Cheers,
Vin.

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

Hi VinBob,

One of my collegues has tried using the PowerChute Network Shutdown on her MAC OSX Home Edition and it just worked fine. You just need to know the administrator rights to install it properly on the computer.

Hope that helps.