NETXML-UPS(8)

💖 NETXML-UPS ✨

okay bestie, welcome to the manual page for netxml-ups, a driver for Eaton / MGE Network Management Card / Proxy (XML/HTTP Protocol) equipment. it lives in the NUT Manual, section 8, and it's genuinely so iconic. let's get into it 🫶

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🌸 NAME 🌸

netxml-ups — the driver that talks to Eaton / MGE Network Management Card / Proxy (XML/HTTP Protocol) equipment. no cap, that's the whole vibe.

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

netxml-ups -h

netxml-ups -a UPS_NAME [OPTIONS]

note bestie 💅 this man page only spills about the hardware-specific stuff for the netxml-ups driver. for the core driver tea, go read nutupsdrv(8). iykyk.

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🎀 SUPPORTED HARDWARE 🎀

netxml-ups supports all the recent Eaton / MGE models that use a Network Management Card or Proxy (MGE XML/HTTP protocol based). that means both Eaton (previously MGE Office Protection Systems) and MGE UPS SYSTEMS. the supported card and proxy models are:

• NMC Minislot (Ref 66102, firmware EA or newer),
• SNMP/Web Minislot card (Ref 66244)
• NMC Transverse (Ref 66074),
• NMC & Modbus/JBus (Ref 66103),
• Network Management Proxy,
• ePDU Monitored (newer version).

older models — like the SNMP card (Ref 66062 and Ref 66045) — use the SNMP protocol instead, so they should use the snmp-ups(8) driver with the mibs=mge parameter. different era, different driver, we don't judge 💀

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💅 EXTRA ARGUMENTS 💅

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

• timeout=value — the timeout for connecting to and reading from the UPS. defaults to 5 seconds. do not change this value unless you know exactly what you're doing, fr fr.

this value must never be higher than half the MAXAGE value specified in upsd.conf(5). otherwise you run the risk that upsd(8) declares the driver stale while it's waiting for a connection to timeout. that's the drama we're avoiding 🙈

• subscribe — connect to the NMC in subscribed mode. this lets you receive notifications and alarms more quickly, on top of the standard polling requests. lowkey faster, highkey useful ✨
• login=value — set the login value for authenticated mode. this feature also needs the password argument, and it allows value settings in the card. this feature is not used yet. (it's giving "coming soon", but for real it's just not used yet.)
• password=value — set the password value, needed with the login for authenticated mode. this feature is not used yet. same energy as above, bestie.
• shutdown_duration=value — set the shutdown duration of the operating system, in seconds. this represents the amount of time needed by the system to operate a clean shutdown. defaults to 120 seconds.
• shutdown_timer=value — set the shutdown timer, in seconds. after value seconds running on battery, the local system will receive a notification to shut down. defaults to "none" (disabled).
• do_convert_deci — if this flag value is present, the driver assumes you have a very old MGE networked UPS (or rather an old network management card firmware) which serves certain measurements spelled 10x too big in the XML markup.

originally such measurements were decimated by the driver — but this is wrong for newer, more sane, devices — so this behavior was deprecated and is now disabled by default. enabling this flag in configuration of a particular driver instance restores the old behavior for those measurements. legacy vibes only, handle with care 👑

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🌈 IMPLEMENTATION 🌈

the hostname of the networked UPS is specified with the port value in ups.conf, i.e.:

[mgexml]
        driver = netxml-ups
        port = http://netxml-ups.example.com:80

specifying the method to connect to the UPS (http, https) is mandatory. if the port is equal to the default for the method specified (80 for http, 443 for https) it may be omitted. cute little shortcut, we love efficiency 🎀

in order not to overload older NMCs by polling them too frequently, it is recommended to increase the "pollinterval" (see nutupsdrv(8)) and ups.conf(5)) to at least 5 seconds.

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💀 KNOWN ISSUES 💀

HTTP(S) proxies

don't connect to the UPS through a proxy. although it would be trivial to add support for proxies, this is not recommended and don't ask for it. not only because it will prevent the driver to make a persistent connection to the UPS, but also it adds an additional failure mode. if the proxy goes down (for whatever reason), the driver will no longer be able to reach the UPS. periodt.

Using host names for UPS NMC

an UPS network management card may be assigned a fixed/static IP address or a dynamic one (e.g. by DHCP) in your network. because of this, you may want or have to use a dynamic naming service to access the UPS. note that this may become a problem specifically during large outages and shutdowns, when your DHCP/DNS server might already go down while the driver needs to resolve the name involved (especially during late-shutdown hooks, when a new instance of the driver program might start just to tell the UPS to power off or to power-cycle). 😭 the timing is so bad, genuinely.

it may be wise to ensure your OS name service client can cache the UPS name sufficiently long, or to use fixed IP addressing (and an entry in /etc/hosts for good measure, so you only have one spot to eventually re-configure this). main character energy: be prepared 💜

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👑 AUTHORS 👑

Arjen de Korte <adkorte-guest@alioth.debian.org>

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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 monitor those UPSes responsibly 💖✨🌸