Middle Atlantic RackLink/Luxul PDU IP Power Control Units

XP Version

This driver controls the Middle Atlantic RackLink Products over RS-232 or ethernet. The serial port requires a crossover, or null modem, adapter. It will also control Luxul PDU Units over ethernet.

It was built and tested using a RLNK-SW620R. Version 1.1 was built using Luxul PDU-16 and PDU-8 devices

Revision History
1.0 The Initial release of the driver

1.01 Added request for temperature at start up.

1.1 Expands the number of outlets addressed to 16. Dynamic naming of outlets added. Adds support for Luxul log entries

NOTICE: The Luxul products do not provide the global power, current, and voltage variables that the driver supports. These are available from the RackLink products only.

Initializing

On startup and when first connecting to the system the driver must log into the unit using the chosen protocol. Serial (MA only) and Ethernet protocol can have different passwords so make sure you have them set correctly in the driver tab (and/or the power strip's web GUI). The passwords are set in the web interface and the one to enter is the 'Third Party' password. The driver can get the names of the outlets and contacts from the RackLink, or you can enter them in the driver and it will send them to the RackLink. This WILL change the names in the web GUI as well.

The driver will get the IP address of the unit and can display it as a variable. I had some trouble with the discovery process on occasion and couldn't get to the web GUI. If you set the driver to serial you can find out the IP address which lets you point your browser at it and set the network settings to something more compatible with your network.

Commands

The driver can control the outlets/contacts in 3 different ways. The sample file shows examples of all three.

1) There is a list of available outlets or contacts which can be selected and displayed or modified individually (if they're controllable).

2) similar to 1), except you can select the outlet/contact directly rather than choosing it by name from a list.

3) direct commands and variables exist for each outlet.

Current Readings/Logs

The RackLink devices track several global statistics and these are available under the Device Totals category of variables. The Luxul units do not support these features/variables. A few of these (voltage, temperature and load) have boundary variables that can trigger events. The driver can't alter these thresholds but Driver Events are triggered when the limits are exceeded. Changing these limits requires administrator access in the web GUI.

The driver does keep track of these events, and all the log events the RackLink sends in a local Log Lost. This is a local copy that is restarted every time the driver restarts. For the full log you will have to access the web GUI. You can select a log entry from the list and view the data on the RackLink when the log event was triggered.

Trouble shooting

The driver contains a variable called Connection State that will tell you whether (the driver believes) it's connected to the RackLink device.

APEX Users

The driver is tagged for use in ID 10.0 or later. Each outlet or contact is added separately so that they can be placed in rooms. The driver looks for templates named 'Power' and 'Contact' although these templates are not currently included in the Obsidian tempate,