--- title: 'Grafana Series Part 2: Monitoring a UPS with Grafana on Linux' url: 'https://www.linuxserver.io/blog/2018-11-15-monitoring-a-ups-with-grafana-on-linux' markdown: 'https://www.linuxserver.io/blog/2018-11-15-monitoring-a-ups-with-grafana-on-linux.md' date: '2018-11-15' description: 'I recently purchased a new UPS which has a USB interface, the APC BX1500M to be precise. After piecing together a few blog posts I had a working Grafana dashboard giving me information about the power consumption of the devices connected to the UPS. Nice. Part 1: Setting up InfluxDB, Grafana and …' taxonomy: tag: - linux - 'grafana series' - grafana - ups --- I recently purchased a new UPS which has a USB interface, the [APC BX1500M](https://www.apc.com/shop/us/en/products/APC-Back-UPS-Pro-BX1500M-Compact-Tower-1500VA-AVR-LCD-120V/P-BX1500M) to be precise. After piecing together a few blog posts I had a working Grafana dashboard giving me information about the power consumption of the devices connected to the UPS. Nice. - [Part 1: Setting up InfluxDB, Grafana and Telegraf with Docker on Linux](https://blog.linuxserver.io/2017/11/25/how-to-monitor-your-server-using-grafana-influxdb-and-telegraf/) - **Part 2: Monitoring a UPS with Grafana on Linux** - Part 3: Grafana integration with 3rd party services such as Nest and weather.com - *coming soon* If you followed Part 1 of this series you'll already have Grafana and InfluxDB setup and working. I will assume that you have this for the rest of this guide. > A big thanks in particular goes to @MariusGilberg for the awesome Grafana dashboard used in this article via [this post on his blog](https://technicalramblings.com/blog/setting-grafana-influxdb-telegraf-ups-monitoring-unraid/). Also to Viaduct (unraid forums) for writing the PHP script used. --- # Debian Linux Host Setup As you know by now I use Debian to run the '[Perfect Media Server](https://blog.linuxserver.io/2017/06/24/the-perfect-media-server-2017/)' and therefore this guide will be applicable to Debian hosts but easily adapted for other Linux OSs. I assume you have connected the UPS to a free USB port on your motherboard and it shows up using `lsusb` thus: ``` Bus 002 Device 003: ID 051d:0002 American Power Conversion Uninterruptible Power Supply ``` On Debian install the required APC UPS daemon and PHP packages with: ``` apt install apcupsd php -y ``` Once installed stop the `apcupsd` service if it started automatically with ``` systemctl stop apcupsd ``` You'll next need to edit the configuration file for the service which lives at `/etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf`. If you'd like enter a `UPSNAME` that makes sense (mine looked like `UPSNAME awesomo`). Then the default version of this file on my system had a line that looked like `DEVICE /tty/xxx0`, comment out or delete this line and restart the service with: ``` systemctl start apcupsd systemctl status apcupsd ``` If everything looks good in status you should now be able to run ``` root@awesomo:~# apcaccess APC : 001,036,0874 DATE : 2018-11-14 20:53:55 -0500 HOSTNAME : awesomo VERSION : 3.14.14 (31 May 2016) debian UPSNAME : awesomo CABLE : USB Cable DRIVER : USB UPS Driver UPSMODE : Stand Alone STARTTIME: 2018-11-14 20:53:54 -0500 MODEL : Back-UPS XS 1500M STATUS : ONLINE LINEV : 119.0 Volts LOADPCT : 34.0 Percent BCHARGE : 100.0 Percent TIMELEFT : 17.2 Minutes MBATTCHG : 5 Percent MINTIMEL : 3 Minutes MAXTIME : 0 Seconds SENSE : Medium LOTRANS : 88.0 Volts HITRANS : 139.0 Volts ALARMDEL : 30 Seconds BATTV : 27.3 Volts LASTXFER : Unacceptable line voltage changes NUMXFERS : 0 TONBATT : 0 Seconds CUMONBATT: 0 Seconds XOFFBATT : N/A SELFTEST : NO STATFLAG : 0x05000008 SERIALNO : 3B1828X67626 BATTDATE : 2018-07-13 NOMINV : 120 Volts NOMBATTV : 24.0 Volts NOMPOWER : 900 Watts FIRMWARE : 947.d7 .D USB FW:d7 END APC : 2018-11-14 20:54:04 -0500 ``` If you see this output, you've completed the UPS / host setup. # InfluxDB Setup Whether you're creating an InfluxDB setup just for this purpose or you're tacking onto an existing instance I'd suggest putting all the data from your UPS into a separate database. First, we'll need to create it and can do so using `curl`: ``` curl -i -XPOST "http://localhost:8086/query?q=CREATE+DATABASE+ups" ``` We can verify successful DB creation again using `curl`: ``` alex@cartman:~$ curl -i -XPOST "http://localhost:8086/query?q=SHOW+DATABASES" HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Type: application/json Request-Id: 2fd65ad1-e87a-11e8-8009-0242ac120008 X-Influxdb-Build: OSS X-Influxdb-Version: 1.7.0 X-Request-Id: 2fd65ad1-e87a-11e8-8009-0242ac120008 Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2018 02:00:12 GMT Transfer-Encoding: chunked {"results":[{"statement_id":0,"series":[{"name":"databases","columns":["name"],"values":[["_internal"],["ups"]]}]}]} ``` Note that final entry is `ups` which is the database we just created. Now we have to move onto scraping the output the UPS generates and write it to the database. # Scraping the UPS output The following script is PHP based and was written by *Viaduct* over on the unraid forums. Note the section near the top `tagsArray` and compare the items in the array being scraped against the actual output of `apcacess` as shown above. Pick and choose the items you want and these are what will be written to the database. The name *must match exactly* else the scraping will fail. You will also need to modify, near the bottom, your InfluxDB IP. You needed this above for the `curl` commands. ``` #!/usr/bin/php ``` Save the script somewhere on your filesystem and make it executable `chmod +x /opt/scrape.php`. You can do a test run with `/opt/scrape.php` and then verify your InfluxDB logs and look for some successful writes via curl (code 204 = good). ``` 2018-11-15T02:11:16.965547498Z [httpd] 192.168.1.250 - - [15/Nov/2018:02:11:16 +0000] "POST /write?db=ups HTTP/1.1" 204 0 "-" "curl/7.52.1" bc1826d1-e87b-11e8-800a-0242ac120008 53295 2018-11-15T02:11:16.990611179Z [httpd] 192.168.1.250 - - [15/Nov/2018:02:11:16 +0000] "POST /write?db=ups HTTP/1.1" 204 0 "-" "curl/7.52.1" bc2193c2-e87b-11e8-800b-0242ac120008 16600 2018-11-15T02:11:17.014354572Z [httpd] 192.168.1.250 - - [15/Nov/2018:02:11:16 +0000] "POST /write?db=ups HTTP/1.1" 204 0 "-" "curl/7.52.1" bc253e9c-e87b-11e8-800c-0242ac120008 16297 2018-11-15T02:11:17.042864060Z [httpd] 192.168.1.250 - - [15/Nov/2018:02:11:17 +0000] "POST /write?db=ups HTTP/1.1" 204 0 "-" "curl/7.52.1" bc28ca91-e87b-11e8-800d-0242ac120008 215 ``` # Automating the scraping We'll use `cron` for automating the running of the scraping script. Do not edit the crontab with `crontab -e` instead you must edit `/etc/crontab` and specify a user in order for this work. Add the following line to `/etc/crontab` - this will run the scraping script every minute. Modify to suit your needs. ``` * * * * * root /usr/bin/php /opt/scrape.php >/dev/null 2>&1 ``` Again verify the InfluxDB logs for 204 response codes to check everything went OK. # Grafana Dashboard The next step is to add a data source in Grafana. Under the configuration menu in Grafana click "Add data source". ![](https://www.linuxserver.io/user/pages/content/images/2018/11/Screenshot-from-2018-11-14-21-30-39.png)Modify the `Name`, `Type = InfluxDB`, `URL = http://influxdb:8086`, `Database = ups`, `User = root`, `Pass = root`. If you modified these values obviously modify to suit. Then hit save & test. Next in Grafana click the + icon on the left and select 'import'. We'll be importing [this awesome dashboard](https://grafana.com/dashboards/7197)by Marius Gilberg. The ID you need is `7197`. Select your Influx UPS data source as the new data source we just created above and hit import. BOOM! That's it. ![](https://www.linuxserver.io/user/pages/content/images/2018/11/Screenshot-from-2018-11-14-21-35-24.png)Note in the top left you can dynamically configure this dashboard based on your currency, UPS capacity and kWh price. Fantastic stuff by Marius, thanks a lot!! That's it. We're done here. Thanks for reading. --- ## Navigation - Parent: [Blog](https://www.linuxserver.io/blog.md) - Previous: [Self hosting Bitwarden Password Manager](https://www.linuxserver.io/blog/2019-01-15-self-hosting-bitwarden.md) - Next: [1 Billion](https://www.linuxserver.io/blog/2018-10-30-1-billion.md)