POWERMAN-PDU(8)

📦
version 2.8.4+really · 8 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

👑 powerman-pdu — Driver for Powerman PDU (aka the POWERMAN-PDU(8) page, sect. 8 of the NUT Manual, hey bestie)

okay so real talk, this is the manual page for powerman-pdu, section 8, from the NUT Manual. it's giving "let me control your PDU" and honestly? iconic. let's get into it 💅

✨ NAME ✨

powerman-pdu — Driver for Powerman PDU 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

powerman-pdu -h

powerman-pdu -a PDU_NAME [OPTIONS]
Note 📌 This man page only documents the hardware-specific features of the powerman-pdu driver. For information about the core driver, see nutupsdrv(8). (We do not do the core stuff here, bestie, we stay in our lane 🫶)

🦋 SUPPORTED HARDWARE 🦋

This driver supports a whole wide range of PDUs through the Powerman project. Like, a LOT. 🌈

That includes various models from APC, Baytech, Cyclades — but also, and this is the fun part, it supports IPMI and various blade management modules from HP, IBM and Sun. so many brands, so much slay 💖

🌸 EXTRA ARGUMENTS 🌸

Lowkey the most chill section ever: this driver doesn't support any optional settings. that's it. that's the whole vibe. ✨

🧚 INSTALLATION 🧚

Heads up bestie — this driver may be not built by default. 😭 If you want it, you build it by installing the prerequisites and then going:

configure --with-powerman=yes

do that and you're set 🫶

⚡ UPS COMMANDS ⚡

The following instant commands (see upscmd(8)) are available for each outlet of the PDU, with X standing for the outlet number:

  • outlet.X.load.on — Power on the outlet. 💡
  • outlet.X.load.off — Power off the outlet. 🌙
  • outlet.X.load.cycle — Cycle the outlet (power off then power on, possibly with a delay). 🔁

so like X is a placeholder babe, don't go typing the letter X into your terminal and then acting surprised, iykyk ✋

🔧 IMPLEMENTATION 🔧

The hostname of the Powerman server is specified using the "port" value in ups.conf, i.e.:

[pdu]
        driver = powerman-pdu
        port = host.example.com:port

The port used to reach powermand is optional if the default port is used. so you can just give the hostname and vibe 🦋

💀 KNOWN ISSUES 💀

In the current NUT version as of this writing (2.4.1), ups.status is still exposed, with the value "WAIT". Some other values from the ups collection are also exposed. yeah. that's just how it is rn, no cap 😭

🙈 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. Due to 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). 💀

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). 🫶

like pls, plan ahead, your future self will thank you 🥺

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Arnaud Quette <arnaud.quette@gmail.com> — periodt. legends only.

🔗 SEE ALSO 🔗

The core driver:

Internet resources:

and that's the whole page bestie, you ate it up fr fr 💅✨ this was Network UPS Tools 2.8.4, dated 06/20/2026 — go forth and power-cycle responsibly, mwah 🎀💖🦋

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