APCUPSD-UPS(8)

💖 apcupsd-ups 💖

okay bestie, so this is the apcupsd-ups driver page from the NUT Manual (that's Network UPS Tools, iykyk). It's a manual page for section 8 — system administration commands — and it's giving "small driver, big interop energy" fr fr. 🌸

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✨ NAME ✨

apcupsd-ups — a driver that lets you access an apcupsd client. literally that's the whole thing, no cap. 🦋

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

apcupsd-ups -h

apcupsd-ups -a UPS_NAME [OPTIONS]

📌 Note, bestie: this man page only covers the specific features of the apcupsd-ups driver. For the core driver stuff, you gotta go read nutupsdrv(8). don't come for me, that's just how it is. 💅

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

So this driver is a client to apcupsd — and apcupsd is a whole other UPS monitoring project, not us. Different house, same vibe. 🏠

What apcupsd-ups does is just… be an apcupsd client and forward the data along. That's it. It's the middleman. The group chat relay. The friend who repeats what everyone said but with better formatting. 💅

When is that actually useful? Two scenarios, periodt:

• When you need both protocols kicking around in one network, and
• When the apcupsd code base has some UPS access mode that NUT is missing. (Not us being shady, it just happens.)

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✨ EXTRA ARGUMENTS ✨

This driver supports these optional settings in nut.conf(5):

• port=<hostname>[:<port>] — the name of a remote host that's running apcupsd, plus an optional port if you're feeling fancy. 🌈

For instance, bestie:

[apcupsd]
        driver = apcupsd-ups
        port = localhost
        desc = "apcupsd client"

And for IPv6 addresses, you use square brackets around the hostname part — so the colons inside the address don't get mistaken for the port separator, especially if you're using the default port. important!! 😭

[apcupsd]
        driver = apcupsd-ups
        port = "[::1]:3551"
        desc = "apcupsd client"

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✨ BACKGROUND ✨

Not me reading the lore but: this driver was originally written in one evening to allow interoperating with apcupsd. one evening. main character speedrun energy, honestly iconic. 👑

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✨ SUPPORTED VARIABLES ✨

The following variables get translated from apcupsd over to NUT. 💫

⚠️ All times should be converted to seconds. If you notice a mismatch in units, please file a bug — that's not a vibe, that's a bug. 🐛

• BCHARGE → battery.charge
• MBATTCHG → battery.charge.low
• RETPCT → battery.charge.restart
• BATTDATE → battery.date
• TIMELEFT → battery.runtime
• MINTIMEL → battery.runtime.low
• BATTV → battery.voltage
• NOMBATTV → battery.voltage.nominal
• LINEFREQ → input.frequency
• SENSE → input.sensitivity
• HITRANS → input.transfer.high
• LOTRANS → input.transfer.low
• LASTXFER → input.transfer.reason
• LINEV → input.voltage
• MAXLINEV → input.voltage.maximum
• MINLINEV → input.voltage.minimum
• NOMINV → input.voltage.nominal
• LINEFREQ → output.frequency
• OUTPUTV → output.voltage
• NOMOUTV → output.voltage.nominal
• DATE → ups.date, ups.time
• DSHUTD → ups.delay.shutdown
• DWAKE → ups.delay.start
• FIRMWARE → ups.firmware, ups.firmware.aux
• UPSNAME → ups.id
• LOADPCT → ups.load
• MANDATE → ups.mfr.date
• NOMPOWER → ups.realpower.nominal
• SERIALNO → ups.serial
• STATUS → ups.status
• ITEMP → ups.temperature
• STESTI → ups.test.interval
• SELFTEST → ups.test.result

👀 yes, LINEFREQ shows up twice — once for input.frequency and once for output.frequency. that's not a typo bestie, that's just the list. 💜

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✨ LIMITATIONS ✨

okay so this is the part where I hold your hand: access to apcupsd here is strictly read only. No commands can be issued. none. zero. the vibes are observational only. 🙈

Why? It comes from the design of apcupsd itself — the settings get changed in apctest, not through this driver. And in order to run apctest, apcupsd must be stopped. Also, reminder: it's apcupsd that exposes the UPS to the network and to this NUT driver as its client. So the whole chain matters, fr fr. 🦋

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✨ AUTHOR ✨

Andreas Steinmetz 💖 (shoutout, thank you for your service)

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✨ SEE ALSO ✨

• ups.conf(5)
• nutupsdrv(8)

Internet Resources 🌐

• The NUT (Network UPS Tools) home page: https://www.networkupstools.org/historic/v2.8.5/
• The apcupsd home page: http://www.apcupsd.org/
  • Development of the apcupsd project itself seems to have stalled in 2016/2017, with release 3.14.14 being the latest official tag. Its community discussions do remain quite active, however. 💬
  • Just in case, a replica of its sources is stored at https://github.com/networkupstools/apcupsd

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! 🎀 this was Network UPS Tools 2.8.5, dated 10/07/2026, and honestly? slay. go plug in your UPS and stay charged (emotionally and electrically) 💅🔋✨