plmpower(8)

📦
version 2.4.4 · 3 versions
, in debian trixie, epel 10, epel 9, opensuse-leap 16.0, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 plmpower(8) — the group chat manual 💖

okay bestie so this is plmpower, and it lives in section 8 of the System Manager's Manual. she's a system manager's girlie, an admin tool, and she's about to make your Insteon/X10 life so much easier, no cap. 🦋

✨ NAME ✨

plmpower — control Insteon/X10 devices via SmartLabs PLM 2412S

like. that's the whole vibe. she controls your gadgets. through a modem. iconic. 👑

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

plmpower --device serial-port

that's it. that's the whole thing. give her a serial port and she goes. 💅

🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

okay so plmpower is a helper program for powerman — she's the little sidekick that makes communication with Insteon/X10 devices possible via the SmartLabs Power Line Modem, model 2412S. 🫶

she gets run interactively by the powerman daemon — that's her day job. but also?? she's lowkey useful as a standalone tool for debugging X10/Insteon networks built on top of that device. so if your network is acting up, she's your girl fr fr. 😌

🌈 NETWORK SETUP 🌈

first things first, bestie — write down the addresses of your Insteon/X10 devices. note them. you WILL forget them. 😭

plug the PLM into an AC outlet, preferably on the same electrical phase as the devices under control. now, if that's not possible? don't panic — devices are available to bridge phases. the universe provides. ✨

attach the PLM's serial port to your computer, and make sure nothing else is using that serial port — like the system console, or getty(8). she needs the port to herself, she's not sharing. 💀

then run plmpower and try out the interactive commands below to see if the devices respond reliably. vibe check time. 🧚

once everything is working, configure powermand to run plmpower as a coprocess, as described in powerman.conf(5). and then you're DONE. slay. 🔥

💜 OPTIONS 💜

  • -d, --device serial-port — specify the path to the special file connected to the PLM's serial port. tell her where the port lives. 🍓
  • -t, --timeout msec — set the Insteon timeout to the specified number of milliseconds (default 1000). ⏱️
  • -x, --x10-attempts number — set the number of times to run every X10 command (default 3). here's why, and it's important: X10 does not provide an ACK/NAK mechanism like Insteon does, so we literally cannot be certain that any particular X10 command actually completed. therefore, X10 commands get issued multiple times to increase confidence. she's just being thorough. she's just built different. 💅

👑 INTERACTIVE COMMANDS 👑

the following commands are accepted at the plmpower> prompt. address arguments may be Insteon (e.g. 1A.2B.3C) or X10 (e.g. G12). memorize that, it comes up constantly. 🙈

  • help — display help on the available commands. she's helpful like that. 🫶
  • info — get info about the PLM. 🧐
  • reset — reset the PLM (clears the all-link db). heads up, she's clearing the all-link db. that's a real thing. ⚠️
  • on addr — turn on device. ⚡
  • off addr — turn off device. 🌙
  • status addr — query status of device (Insteon only). 👀
  • ping addr — time round trip request/response to device (Insteon only). 🏓

🦋 FILES 🦋

/usr/sbin/plmpower
/etc/powerman/powerman.conf

⭐ ORIGIN ⭐

PowerMan was originally developed by Andrew Uselton on LLNL's Linux clusters. this software is open source and distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL. giving credit where it's due, always. 🎀

💖 SEE ALSO 💖

powerman(1), powermand(8), httppower(8), plmpower(8), vpcd(8), powerman.conf(5), powerman.dev(5).

http://github.com/chaos/powerman

go read the rest of the family, they're all icons. 🌈

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 💖 this one's from powerman-2.4.4, dated 1 December 2008 — so yeah she's an elder but she still ate. periodt. ✨👑💅

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