# DUMMY-UPS(8)

## NAME

dummy-ups - Driver for multi-purpose UPS emulation or relay

## SYNOPSIS

dummy-ups -h

dummy-ups -a UPS_NAME [OPTIONS]

Note | This man page only documents the specific features of the dummy-ups driver. For information about the core driver, see nutupsdrv(8).

## DESCRIPTION

This program is a multi-purpose UPS emulation tool. Its general behavior depends on the running mode: "dummy" ("dummy-once" or "dummy-loop"), or "repeater".

### Dummy Mode

In this mode, dummy-ups looks like a standard NUT device driver to upsd(8) and allows one to change any value for testing purposes.

It is both interactive, controllable through the upsrw(8) and upscmd(8) commands (or equivalent graphical tool), and batchable through script files.

It can be configured, launched and used as any other "real" NUT driver. This mode is mostly useful for development and testing purposes.

Note | See below about the differences of `dummy-once` vs. `dummy-loop` modes — the former may be more suitable for "interactive" uses and tests.

### Repeater Mode

In this mode, dummy-ups acts as a NUT client, simply forwarding data.

This can be useful for supervision purposes. This mode can also allow some load sharing between several `upsd` instances communicating with ultimate NUT clients, with a "central" one using a point-to-point communication with the actual UPS or ePDU device.

This arrangement can also help with networked UPSes, whose network management cards can be overwhelmed with a whole farm of servers directly polling SNMP or other networked protocols every few seconds.

## IMPLEMENTATION

The `port` specification in `ups.conf` depends on the running mode, and allows the driver to select the right mode of operation.

Since NUT v2.8.0, the `mode` specification in `ups.conf` allows users to override the mode of operation which would be otherwise guessed by the driver.

### Dummy Mode

In this context, `port` in the `ups.conf` block specifies a "definition file" name for the dummy-ups to read data from. This can either be an absolute or a relative path name. In the latter case the NUT sysconfig directory (i.e. `/etc/nut`, `/usr/local/ups/etc`, …) is prepended.

Note | The "sysconfig" location is built-in according to `configure` script arguments, but can be tuned at run time by `NUT_CONFPATH` environment variable. See the `tests/NIT/nit.sh` script in NUT sources, which heavily relies on this driver, for more examples.

Since NUT v2.8.0 two aspects of this mode are differentiated:

- `dummy-once` reads the specified file once to the end (interrupting for `TIMER` lines, etc.) and does not re-process it until the filesystem timestamp of the data file is changed; this reduces run-time stress if you test with a lot of dummy devices, and allows use/test cases to `upsrw` variables into the driver instance — and they remain in memory until the driver is restarted (or the file is touched or modified);

  Since NUT v2.8.0 `dummy-once` is assigned by default to files with a `*.dev` naming pattern.

- `dummy-loop` reads the specified file again and again, with a short sleep between the processing cycles; for sequence files using a `TIMER` keyword (see below), or for use/test cases which modify file contents with external means, this allows an impression of a device whose state changes over time.

  Before NUT v2.8.0 this was the only aspect, so a simple `dummy` mode value maps to this behavior for backwards compatibility.

  Since NUT v2.8.0 `dummy-loop` is assigned by default to files with a `*.seq` naming pattern, and `dummy` is assigned by default to files with other naming patterns that the driver could not classify.

Note | Said defaulting based on filename pattern can break third-party test scripts which earlier expected `*.dev` files to work as a looping sequence with a `TIMER` keywords to change values slowly. Now such files should get processed to the end once. Specify `mode=dummy-loop` driver option or rename the data file used in the `port` option for legacy behavior. Use/Test-cases which modified such files content externally should not be impacted.

For instance:

            [dummy1]
                    driver = dummy-ups
                    port = evolution500.seq
                    desc = "dummy-ups in dummy-loop mode"

            [dummy2]
                    driver = dummy-ups
                    port = epdu-managed.dev
                    desc = "dummy-ups in dummy-once mode"

This definition file, specified by the `port` argument in the example above, is generally named `something.dev` or `something.seq`. It contains a list of all valid variables and associated values (you can later use `upsrw` only to modify values of these variables), and has the same format as an upsc(8) data dump (`<varname>: <value>`). This means you can easily create definition files from an existing UPS using `upsc > file.dev`.

Note that the Network UPS project provides an extensive DDL (Devices Dumps Library) with files which can be used for modelling real devices. Entries for the DDL library are best prepared with the `tools/nut-ddl-dump.sh` script from NUT sources instead of plain `upsc`, to provide some additional data points from other NUT clients as well.

The file can also be empty, in which case only a basic set of data is available: `device.*`, `driver.*`, `ups.mfr`, `ups.model`, `ups.status` as filled by the driver itself.

Some sample definition files are available in the `data` directory of the NUT source tree, and generally in the "sysconfig" or "share" directory of your system distribution.

Since dummy-ups will usually loop on reading this file, you can dynamically modify it with some external process to "interact" with the driver. This will avoid message spam into your system log files, if you are using NUT default configuration.

Note | By default since NUT v2.8.0, it will not loop on files in `dummy-once` mode, e.g. those with a `.dev` extension, unless their timestamp changes.

You can also use the `TIMER <seconds>` instruction to create scheduled event sequences (such files are traditionally named with the `.seq` extension). For example, the following sequence will loop on switching `ups.status` between "OL", "OB" and "OB LB" every minute:

    ups.status: OL
    TIMER 60
    ups.status: OB
    TIMER 60
    ups.status: OB LB
    TIMER 60

It is wise to end the script for `dummy-loop` mode with a `TIMER` keyword. Otherwise `dummy-ups` will directly go back to the beginning of the file and, in particular, forget any values you could have just set with `upsrw`.

Note that to avoid CPU overload with an infinite loop, the driver "sleeps" a bit between file-reading cycles (currently this delay is hardcoded to one second), independently of (and/or in addition to) any `TIMER` keywords and possibly the common `pollinterval` setting.

Another, more recently introduced instruction is `ALARM`, which allows the simulation of UPS alarms in much the same way they would be raised by real driver implementations. Modern drivers decouple alarm states from the `ups.status` variable, and raising `ALARM` by setting it as a status token is discouraged in favor of using modern, common functions for raising alarms within the driver code.

The `ALARM` instruction is intended to simulate this behavior as closely as possible. The value following an `ALARM` instruction is treated as the alarm message and is eventually published as the `ups.alarm` variable, with the `ALARM` token also set in `ups.status` by internal driver mechanisms, rather than by directly manipulating the variable. Multiple `ALARM` instructions will have their messages combined into the `ups.alarm` variable, just as would happen with real driver logic.

Conversely, any `ALARM` instruction on its own will clear active alarm states. See below for an example of setting and resetting alarms:

    ALARM [UPS too warm to charge]
    ALARM [UPS circuit is overheating]
    TIMER 5
    ALARM
    TIMER 5
    ALARM [UPS too cold to charge]

### Repeater Mode

In this context, `port` in the `ups.conf` block is the name of the target UPS, using the NUT format, i.e.:

    <upsname>@<hostname>[:<port>]

For instance:

    [repeater]
            driver = dummy-ups
            port = ups1@remotehost
            desc = "dummy-ups in repeater mode"

Unlike UPS specifications in the rest of NUT, the `@hostname` portion is not optional — it is the `@` character which enables Repeater Mode. To refer to an UPS on the same host as dummy-ups, use `port = upsname@localhost`.

Note that to avoid CPU overload with an infinite loop, the driver "sleeps" a bit between data-requesting cycles (currently this delay is hardcoded to one second), so propagation of data updates available to a remote `upsd` may lag by this much.

Beware that any error encountered at repeater mode startup (e.g. when not all target UPS to be repeated or their `upsd` instances are connectable yet) will by default cause the dummy-ups driver to terminate prematurely. This behaviour can be changed by setting the `repeater_disable_strict_start` flag, making such errors non-fatal.

## INTERACTION

Once the driver is loaded in dummy mode, you can change any variables, except those of the `driver.*` and `server.*` collections. You can do this by either editing the definition file, or use the upsrw(8) and upscmd(8) commands.

Note that in simulation mode, new variables can be added on the fly, but only by adding these to the definition file (and waiting for it to be re-read). That is, the driver should not allow to define a new variable via `upsrw`.

Conversely, if you need to remove a variable (such as transient ones, like `ups.alarm`), simply update these by setting an empty value. As a result, they will get removed from the data.

In repeater mode, the driver acts according to the capabilities of the UPS, and so supports the same instant commands and settable values.

## BACKGROUND

Dummy Mode was originally written in one evening to replace the previous dummycons testing driver, which was too limited, and required a terminal for interaction.

dummy-ups is useful for NUT client development, and other testing purposes.

It also helps the NUT Quality Assurance effort, by automating some tests on the NUT framework and the NIT (NUT Integration Test suite). See the `tests/NIT/nit.sh` script in NUT sources, which heavily relies on this driver, for more examples.

It now offers a repeater mode. This will help in building the Meta UPS approach, which allows one to build a virtual device, composed of several other devices (either UPS, PDUs), or perhaps represent the same device which supports several communication protocols and different media (Serial, USB, SNMP…)

## BUGS

Instant commands are not yet supported in Dummy Mode, and data need name/value checking enforcement, as well as boundaries or enumeration definition.

## CAVEATS

If you use service management frameworks like systemd or SMF to manage the dependencies between driver instances and the data server, and some of these drivers are `dummy-ups` in repeater mode representing data from another driver running on the same system, then you may have to set up special dependencies (e.g. with systemd "drop-in" snippet files) to allow your `nut-server` to start after the "real" device drivers and before such repeater drivers (without a responding server, they would fail to start anyway). This may also need special care in `upsd.conf` and/or `ups.conf` files to not block the system start-up for too long while the repeater driver has not started.

## AUTHOR

Arnaud Quette

## SEE ALSO

upscmd(8), upsrw(8), ups.conf(5), nutupsdrv(8)

### Clone drivers:

The "repeater" mode of dummy-ups driver is in some ways similar to the clone and clone-outlet drivers, which sit on top of another driver socket (or named Windows pipe) locally, and allow users to group clients to a particular outlet of a device and deal with this output as if it were a normal UPS. Notably, in this mode the dummy-ups driver is a client to the networked NUT protocol and can relay information of local or remotely served devices, and requires a running NUT data server upsd to represent the "real" device for this to work.

clone(8), clone-outlet(8)

### Internet Resources:

The NUT (Network UPS Tools) home page: https://www.networkupstools.org/historic/v2.8.4/