DETECTUPS(8)

🦋 detectups(8) — the UPS whisperer 💅

ok so real talk, bestie: this is page DETECTUPS(8) from the System Manager's Manual, and it's about to make your UPS talk to your computer. no cap. 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

detectups — the UPS detection / powerd configuration generator, aka the little icon that figures out what your backup battery is screaming about 👑

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

/sbin/detectups [tty]

that's it. that's the whole vibe. one optional tty and you're off 🫶

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

okay so here's the tea 🍓 — detectups monitors the serial port that's connected to your UPS device and tries to figure out the method your UPS uses to tell you the power went out. like, every UPS has its own love language and this tool is here to translate 💅

it will literally ask you to yank the power cord out of the wall (the one going to the UPS, bestie, not your whole setup 😭) — or alternatively, to push the UPS's test button. Then it watches what all happened, and asks if you want to generate a config file based on your UPS and cable configuration. slay. ✨

🚨 heads up: detectups needs to watch a tty with modem control properties. if it doesn't have those, it's giving nothing and it won't work.

for further information, please refer to the powerd documentation — it's the main character energy of this whole operation 👑

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🧚 ARGUMENTS 🧚

• Serial-Device — some serial port that is not being used by some other device, and does not share an interrupt with any other serial port. fr fr, don't share. sharing is not caring here. 🙈
• /etc/powerd.conf — yep, this is just listed here in the ARGUMENTS section. we keep the facts, we don't question the formatting. 💀

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🌈 FILES 🌈

• /etc/powerd.conf — the powerd configuration file that detectups generates. this is the whole point of the exercise 🎀
• /etc/inittab — because init is what actually issues the shutdown. like, detectups writes the config, but init is the one who shows up and does the thing. respect the chain of command 👑

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⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

powerd(8), shutdown(8), wall(1), inittab(5) — go read these, iykyk 📚

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💜 AUTHOR 💜

James Brents <James@nistix.com> — with parts of this man page borrowed from all over the Linux community 🫶 (community effort, iconic behaviour, we love to see it)

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and that's the page, bestie 🦋 — it came from the System Manager's Manual, and the footer says DETECTUPS(8) down at the bottom, so you know it's official. go detect some UPSes, you've got this 💖✨