Implementation of diagrams and workflow logic

[NoIDXMV6]

Hi!
I think it would be very convenient for medium and large installations to have a visual connection diagram and operating logic.
For ease and convenience in creating diagrams for your project, you could use the draw.io project https://github.com/jgraph. It has very well-implemented functionality with blocks and their properties. It also supports diagram export in HTML and XML formats.
This diagram could display the online status of devices and the most important values ​​directly.
But the most important function is configuring the UPS system's operating logic.

For example, this could include the order and timing of powering down and powering up servers, virtual machines, and computers.
Configuring UPS redundancy and turning on generators. Reminders for battery replacement and equipment maintenance.
If your product could export settings, or even better, automatically deploy NUT clients, it would probably be the most comprehensive solution on the market, significantly simplifying the management of complex power systems from various NUT-supported vendors.

Thanks again for your project and implementation of support for multiple NUT servers!

[SuperioOne]

Hi, and thank you so much for taking the time to share your feedback.

Yes, visualizing topology with an interactive diagram is possible, but there may be some shortcomings:

The NUT protocol provides the following information:

• Attached client IPs
• UPS information

NUT does not exactly report primary/secondary clients over the TCP protocol, but I think we can assume that the client with the loopback address (NUT server itself) is always the primary one.

I also have to match reported client IPs to map out clients with redundant UPS devices and NUT servers; otherwise, it will always display a tree-like structure. Mapping private address spaces (e.g., 10.0.0.0/24) could be problematic if there are multiple separate private networks.

The most primitive example would look something like this:

---
config:
  layout: elk
---

flowchart TD
    subgraph first [<b>NUT - DC1-A09:</b> 10.0.0.5]
        UPS1[<i class="fa fa-check-circle"></i> apc_c1500<br/>Charge: 35%]:::ups_success
        UPS2[<i class="fa fa-exclamation-triangle"></i> CyberPower_br1000 <br/>Charge: 23%<br/>Reason: Battery low]:::ups_warning
        UPS3[<i class="fa fa-times-circle"></i> apc_smc22<br/><b>Error: Input failure</b>]:::ups_error
    end

    first:::nut_server

    subgraph second [<b>NUT - DC1-A01:</b> 10.0.0.6]
        UPS5[<i class="fa fa-check-circle"></i> Cyber_power_cp1000<br/>Charge: 100%]:::ups_success
        UPS6[<i class="fa fa-exclamation-triangle"></i> apc_cs650<br/>Charge:30%<br/>Reason: Battery low]:::ups_warning
    end

    second:::nut_server

    C1[Client A<br/>10.1.2.10]:::client
    C2[Client B<br/>10.1.2.11]:::client
    C3[Client D<br/>10.1.2.12]:::client
    C4[Client E<br/>10.1.2.13]:::client
    C5[Client F<br/>10.1.2.14]:::client_warning
    C6[Client G<br/>10.1.2.15]:::client_down

    UPS3 cl1@==x|ALARM| C1
    UPS1 cl2@-->|OL| C2
    UPS2 cl3@==>|OB DISCRHG| C3
    UPS1 cl4@-->|OL| C3
    UPS5 cl5@-->|OL| C4
    UPS5 cl6@-->|OL| C1
    UPS5 cl7@-->|OL| C2
    UPS6 cl8@==>|OB DISCRHG| C5
    UPS3 cl9@==x|ALARM| C6


cl2@{ animation: fast }
cl3@{ animation: slow }
cl4@{ animation: fast }
cl5@{ animation: fast }
cl6@{ animation: fast }
cl7@{ animation: fast }
cl8@{ animation: slow }

cl1:::link_down
cl2:::link_ok
cl3:::link_warning
cl4:::link_ok
cl5:::link_ok
cl6:::link_ok
cl7:::link_ok
cl8:::link_warning
cl9:::link_down

classDef client stroke:#1b5e20,stroke-width:2px;
classDef client_down stroke:#c62828,stroke-width:2px;
classDef client_warning stroke:#ffb300,stroke-width:2px;
classDef ups_success stroke:#1b5e20,stroke-width:2px;
classDef ups_warning stroke:#ffb300,stroke-width:2px;
classDef ups_error   stroke:#c62828,stroke-width:2px;
classDef nut_server  stroke:#262626,stroke-width:2px;
classDef link_warning stroke:#ffb300;
classDef link_ok stroke:#1bee20;
classDef link_down stroke:#c62828;

Loading

Normally, mermaid has way better auto-layout, but GitHub's mermaid renderer doesn't support it.

But the most important function is configuring the UPS system's operating logic.
For example, this could include the order and timing of powering down and powering up servers, virtual machines, and computers.
Configuring UPS redundancy and turning on generators. Reminders for battery replacement and equipment maintenance.
If your product could export settings, or even better, automatically deploy NUT clients, it would probably be the most comprehensive solution on the market, significantly simplifying > the management of complex power systems from various NUT-supported vendors.

Even though it makes things more convenient, I prefer avoiding anything outside of the UPS management protocol (RFC 9271) because some features depend on external factors such as the NUT package, firewall, UPS driver, and target OS.It would simply turn nut_webgui into another point of failure and might cause someone a catastrophic failure due to an unexpected edge case.

At least, I want to delegate this kind of features via some sort of plugin system (if I can allocate time for it and not being lazy 😅), so I won't have to constantly release updates with breaking changes caused by a third-party service or drop support for specific hardware architectures due to features that depend on a obscure SDK with limited compile targets.

[SuperioOne]

The basic topology graph was added in v0.7.1. It doesn't fully address the entire issue, but it does at least partially cover some aspects of it.