10. NUT developers tools

NUT provides several tools for clients and core developers, and QA people.

10.1. Device simulation

The dummy-ups driver propose a simulation mode, also known as Dummy Mode. This mode allows to simulate any kind of devices, even non existing ones.

Using this method, you can either replay a real life sequence, recorded from an actual device, or directly interact through upsrw or by editing the device file, to modify the variables values.

Here is an example to setup a device simulation:

  • install NUT as usual, if not already done
  • get a simulation file (.dev) or sequence (.seq), or generate one using the device recorder. Sample files are provided in the data directory of the NUT source. You can also download these from the development repository, such as the evolution500.seq.
  • copy the simulation file to your sysconfig directory, like /etc/nut or /etc/ups
  • configure NUT for simulation (ups.conf(5)):

    [dummy]
            driver = dummy-ups
            port = evolution500.dev
            desc = "dummy-ups in dummy mode"
  • now start NUT, at least dummy-ups and upsd:

    $ upsdrvctl start dummy
    $ upsd
  • and check the data:

    $ upsc dummy
    ...
  • you can also use upsrw to modify the data:

    $ upsrw -s ups.status="OB LB" -u user -p password dummy
  • or directly edit /etc/nut/evolution500.seq. In this case, modification will only apply according to the TIMER events and the current position in the sequence.

For more information, refer to dummy-ups(8) manual page.

10.2. Device recording

To complete dummy-ups, NUT provides a device recorder script called nut-recorder.sh and located in the tools/ directory of the NUT source tree.

This script uses upsc to record device information, and stores these in a differential fashion every 5 seconds (by default).

Its usage is the following:

Usage: dummy-recorder.sh <device-name> [output-file] [interval]

For example, to record information from the device myups every 10 seconds:

nut-recorder.sh myups@localhost myups.seq 10

During the recording, you will want to generate power events, such as power failure and restoration. These will be tracked in the simulation files, and be eventually be replayed by the dummy-ups driver.