Webmin and apcupsd

As I have reported earlier, I decided to run webmin on my new server. I have also reported about my UPS which keeps my server running whenever Vattenf*ll fails to supply my flat with electricity — at least for about half an hour before the server is controllably shut down.

Now with new batteries in the UPS I can relax, but I still would like to know the status of the UPS and even check it remotely. The webmin administration tool, however, does not directly support querying the apcupsd daemon controlling the UPS. This is amazing given the fact which variety of system components of a regular linux system are supported by webmin.

Searching the net I found another blog describing exactly this missing link. I don’t know the deeper reasons why this module is not included in the webmin repository. I gave it a try not only on my server but also on a linux server at work and it works flawlessly. In order to spread the knowledge about this module even further I decided to write these few lines about its usage and installation, and I also uploaded it onto my own server: you can download apcupsd0.812.wbm.gz here.

The installation of this module is quite simple — even though it took me some more time than necessary both times. This was because I didn’t succeed in uploading the module package through the webmin interface. This might be a misconfiguration of webmin on my server, but I found a simple way: transfer the un-zipped module file onto your server — make sure that the un-zipped file is named apcupsd0.812.wbm. Then install it into webmin as a local file. In my configuration I then had to adapt the configuration of the module, especially the location of the cgi files of the apcupsd daemon. Finished…