wbor-ups

Bowdoin faces regular power outages. As a result, we currently have three uninterrupted power supplies (UPS) feeding our broadcast equipment. A common feature of these devices is a communication port that outputs their statuses, including information about battery time remaining, health, and more. Using Raspberry Pi microcomputers running apcupsd, we're able to send messages remotely to station managers + view UPS status using an online dashboard.

• Info on setting up apcupsd

  • Make sure to set UPSNAME to something that helps you identify it in the studio.

• How to put a Raspberry Pi on a campus network

To check the UPS status via the Pi’s command line, run:

sudo apcaccess

apcupsd config files are stored at /etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf, and /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol stores service config files that primarily handle app variables and logic that determines what script to run when an even occurs (such as mains power loss). We changed SYSADMIN to be our primary station email and APCUPSD_MAIL to use "ssmtp", a program which delivers email from a local computer to a configured mailhost. In our case, we use our station-wide SMTP relay for Microsoft Office, which is what Bowdoin uses.

ssmtp needs to be installed on new devices by running sudo apt-get install ssmtp. Its config is located at /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf and must be configured with the relevant credentials.

The primary events we’re concerned with is power loss and restoration, so we have added to the onbattery/offbattery scripts at /etc/apcupsd/. These send an email and message to our GroupMe group of station managers. onbattery includes the estimated battery time remaining, and will send an update after fifteen minutes (if still on battery). To run this script manually for testing, run sudo ./apccontrol onbattery from /etc/apcupsd. apccontrol must have export APCUPSD_MAIL="ssmtp" and export SYSADMIN={INSERT EMAIL HERE}.