Filed under: vmware
At customers I often need to setup ESX servers together with APC UPS devices. this guide describes how to do that.
APC has a guide on how to do this but it doesn’t totally cover the installation for VMware ESX 3.0.x For example it forgets to tell you about the firewall in ESX 3 that blocks some ports that need to be open to make the Powerchute Network Shutdown agent communicate with your APC ups (with network management card option installed)
Assumed:
you have an ESX 3 server running.
You have an APC UPS with a management card that is configured.
The IP address of the ESX server is registered to allow it to communicate with the management card.
You know the login, password and authentication phrase of the UPS management card.
This is a 3 step process
1. Configure the VMware ESX 3 firewall
2. Install the APC Network Shutdown agent
3. Configure the APC Network Shutdown agent
Step 1 - Configure the VMware ESX 3 firewall
Logon to your service console with your favorite ssh client (putty)
open up the firewall with the following commands
esxcfg-firewall -o 80,tcp,out,"APC tcp Port 80"
esxcfg-firewall -o 3052,tcp,in,"APC tcp Port 3052"
esxcfg-firewall -o 3052,udp,out,"APC udp Port 3052"
esxcfg-firewall -o 3052,udp,in,"APC udp Port 3052"
Move to the next step.
Step 2 - Install the APC Network Shutdown agent
Download the “PowerChute Network Shutdown v2.2.1 for VMWare” from the APC website called pcns-2.2.1-100.i386.rpm link(need an account to get it)
copy the file to the ESX service console and run the following command
rpm -ihv pcns-2.2.1-100.i386.rpm
Step 3 - Configure the APC Network Shutdown agent
Run the configuration script command:
/usr/local/bin/PowerChute/PCNSConfig.sh
Now a “wizard” will guide you to configure the agent follow the instructions.
after this you can configure the rest of the setup through a webinterface http://youresxserver:3052
In the event log link you can check if the esx server is communicating with the UPS. It should show a message that it established a connection.
Resource Links
APC install guide link
VMTN forum link (thanks box293)
(10 votes, average: 4.7 out of 5)
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Thank you for the great instructions. It worked fine for me.
Best regards from Austria, Henry
Thank you very much ,It worked for me. From kyue,china.
Comment by kyue 03.26.08 @ 10:06 amHi,
APC PowerChute Network Shutdown (PCNS) v2.2.1 does NOT support ESX 3.5.
APC are still working on releasing a compatible version, but knowing how slow APC are it may be availble in time for the next release of ESX.
Makka…
Comment by MakkaPakka 04.06.08 @ 2:55 pmAs an update to this, the software is no longer linked from apc.com but it is still on their ftp site. ftp://ftp.apcc.com/apc/public/software/unix/linux/pcns/221vmware
Comment by Jeff 04.11.08 @ 11:10 pm1. What’s the best way to test/verify PCNS after it’s installed??
2. WRT the firewall changes, I don’t see them in VIC, must I do something else?? (They are only for the web frontend etc.)
Thank you, Tom
Comment by Tom 06.02.08 @ 7:28 amThis is probably a stupid question but I am totally new to the IT field and my boss asked me to research how to shutdown VMware using our APC when power failure happens? I am not at all familiar with VMware and Little more with our APC.
Is this article describing what I wish to do?
Hi Phil, then suggest your boss to hire IT expert 
everybody need a job…
221 appears to work okay with 3.5. I’ve not fully tested it, but it does appear to work.
223, the current version on the APC site, will not install on ESX 3.5.
Comment by Jon 08.28.08 @ 5:04 pmcan this be used to trigger a guest VM shutdown, or does powerchute need to be installed in the guests as well?
Comment by dennis 10.31.08 @ 7:55 pm#dennis
Hey Dennis.
If you set up your EXS to shutdonw and startup the guest OS’ in your infrastructure client, it should not be nessesary to install the powerchute on the guests. (testing it while writing this ^^)
Comment by Simon 12.05.08 @ 11:47 amVersion 223 DOES work on ESX 3.5, but the instructions are wrong.
Additional ports need to be opened with versions 223.
Use these commands on the server to configure the firewall.
esxcfg-firewall -o 80,tcp,out,”APC PowerChute Port 80″
esxcfg-firewall -o 3052,tcp,out,”APC PowerChute Port 3052″
esxcfg-firewall -o 3052,tcp,in,”APC PowerChute Port 3052″
esxcfg-firewall -o 3052,udp,out,”APC PowerChute Port 3052″
esxcfg-firewall -o 3052,udp,in,”APC PowerChute Port 3052″
esxcfg-firewall -o 6547,tcp,out,”APC PowerChute Port 6547″
esxcfg-firewall -o 6547,tcp,in,”APC PowerChute Port 6547″
Copy the installation files to /tmp
Forget about decompressing the .gz or the tar. Just run the install routine from the tmp directory (./install.sh)
Accept the defaults
Change to the installation location of the APC software with
cd /opt/APC/PowerChute/group1
Configure the Powerchute server agent with
./PCNSConfig.sh
And it should work.
By the way, the default username and password is ‘apc’, and the default authentication phrase is ‘admin user phrase’ (without the quotes)
It does work very well, but the installation instructions are hopeless. They don’t even mention the firewall. Good luck!
Comment by Paul 12.16.08 @ 11:45 amHow do you run the install script command? ./install.sh is not there.
Comment by mike 12.17.08 @ 12:33 amI copied the CD to /tmp, here’s a list of the directory:
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 76283 Nov 29 2007 install.htm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 27885 Oct 17 2007 install.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 27338814 Oct 17 2007 jre150_13_linux.tar.gz
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1819811 Nov 15 2007 pcns223.tar.gz
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 16758 Nov 29 2007 relnotes.htm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 877 Dec 25 2006 silentInstall.sample
The ./install.sh is definitely on the CD - I’m looking at it now.
When you copy it to /tmp, make sure it’s executable with the command:
chmod +x install.sh
My CD is labelled “Powerchute Network Shutdown for VMware”, part number 991-0502. There’s no version number on the CD, but Help>About from the server-hosted html page shows “PowerChute Network Shutdown 2.2.3 Build 12″
Comment by Paul 12.17.08 @ 1:51 pmI just tried this on 3.5 update 3 and it tells me the product does not support Vmware….
Comment by Steven 02.13.09 @ 5:12 amI have ftp’d in and find 221vmware here,
/apc/public/software/unix/linux/pcns/221vmware
Comment by Steven 02.13.09 @ 5:20 amI installed PCNS 221 on VMware ESX 3.5,U3. I think its working; services are running & web page is up (http://esxserver:3052). But I cannot login via web page, I tried all the accounts I can think of. What am I missing?
Comment by Juice 03.25.09 @ 11:32 pmJuice, have you tried the default apc / apc ?
Comment by Toby Henderson 04.17.09 @ 11:14 amJust tried v223 on ESX 4.0 - didn’t work. I get “This product does not support VMware”.
Comment by Ulrik Andreassen 05.27.09 @ 12:31 amapc sells a version of pcns for esx; we paid $99 per copy
Comment by p gilman 06.24.09 @ 10:59 pmhttp://www.filekeeper.org/download/shared/pcns-2.2.1-100.i386.rpm
Comment by gregor 08.10.09 @ 12:02 pmI have installed pcns for VMWAre but i can’t login with user/password: apc/apc at
https://server_ipaddres:6547
Does anyone install this sw and make its works?
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