MGE-UTALK(8)

💖 MGE-UTALK 💖

okay bestie, so this is the mge-utalk driver — it lives in the NUT Manual, section 8, and it's your girl for talking to MGE UPS SYSTEMS UTalk protocol equipment. like, the old-school ones. the legacy icons. 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

mge-utalk — the driver for MGE UPS SYSTEMS UTalk protocol equipment. that's it, that's the whole job. 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

mge-utalk -h

mge-utalk -a UPS_NAME [OPTIONS]

Note — this man page only spills the tea on the hardware-specific features of the mge-utalk driver. for the core driver deets, go read nutupsdrv(8). iykyk. 📖

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🎀 SUPPORTED HARDWARE 🎀

so mge-utalk supports these legacy units, all speaking the MGE UTalk protocol:

• Pulsar ESV+
• Pulsar ES+
• Pulsar EL
• Pulsar EX
• Pulsar EXtreme
• Comet EXtreme
• Comet (Utalk Serial Card, ref 66060)
• Galaxy (Utalk Serial Card, ref 66060)

it also supports some newer models that kept their backward UTalk compatibility, like the Pulsar Evolution and the Pulsar EXtreme C. but listen — those models also speak the SHUT protocol, so lowkey just use mge-shut(8) for serial communication instead, or use the USB port if you've got one, with the usbhid-ups(8)] driver. ✨

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🦋 EXTRA ARGUMENTS 🦋

this driver supports these optional settings over in ups.conf(5):

• lowbatt=num — sets the low battery warning threshold, aka the moment shutdown gets initiated by upsmon(8). the factory default is 30 (in percent), and whether you can actually set it depends on the exact model. 🙈
• offdelay=num — sets the timer before the UPS gets turned off after the kill power command is sent (that's via the -k switch, bestie). the default is 20 (in seconds).
• ondelay=num — sets the delay before the UPS turns back on, after the power comes back. the default is 1 (in minutes).
• oldmac — set this flag if you're running Linux on an Oldworld Macintosh box (you know, all beige Apple Macintosh energy). might also be needed for other OSs (like *BSD) running on PowerMac. 🍓

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💀 KNOWN ISSUES 💀

😭 Repetitive timeout and staleness

older models, like the ES/ESV ones, might hit you with repetitive "data stale" errors. it's giving dramatic, but it's not their fault — these models just don't support too much polling. to fix it: add pollinterval=20 in ups.conf, change the value of MAXAGE to 25 in upsd.conf, and change DEADTIME to 25 in upsmon.conf. problem solved, slay. 🔥

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👑 AUTHORS 👑

these icons made it happen:

• Hans Ekkehard Plesser
• Arnaud Quette
• Martin Loyer
• Patrick Agrain
• Nicholas Reilly
• Dave Abbott
• Marek Kralewski

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

🧚 The core driver

nutupsdrv(8)

⭐ Internet resources

the NUT (Network UPS Tools) home page: https://www.networkupstools.org/historic/v2.8.5/

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and that's the whole page, bestie 💜 this was Network UPS Tools 2.8.5, dated 10/07/2026 — go forth and poll responsibly, periodt. 💅✨