<html> <head> <meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"> </head> <body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/27/2012 5:06 PM, John Hupp wrote: </div> <blockquote cite="mid:508C4CE2.3030101@prpcompany.com" type="cite"> <meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"> <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/27/2012 3:50 PM, John Hupp wrote: </div> <blockquote cite="mid:508C3B07.6060308@prpcompany.com" type="cite"> <meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"> <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/27/2012 1:36 AM, Jonathan Marsden wrote: </div> <blockquote cite="mid:508B72D0.7000303@fastmail.fm" type="cite"> <pre wrap="">John, On 10/26/2012 04:52 PM, John Hupp wrote: </pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">The only problem is that it only posts warning messages to the wall command, which outputs only to console sessions. ... </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap="">In my experience, apcupsd is a *lot* more configurable than that -- did you read its documentation or its scripts before posting? You can create scripts for each class of event (onbattery, offbattery, etc.) handled by /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol that do *whatever* you want them to do -- turn the message into audio and speak it using a speech synth, if you really want :) You don't even need to edit /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol to do this, it will notice that your custom scripts exist, and use them instead of its internal default actions. Jonathan </pre> </blockquote> [Newbie sent scurrying to dig into the "Customizing Event Handling" section of the apcupsd manual, and for some general research on desktop notification methods.] OK, I found out that notify-send is a common desktop notification tool, and that one installs the libnotify-bin package to get it. I did so. I have now also created the shell script /etc/apcupsd/annoyme. It is owned by root. I used the Properties: Permissions sheet to give everyone Read & Write permission, and marked it executable. The contents of annoyme: #!/bin/sh notify-send -u critical -t 5000 "The computer is running on battery." "It will shut down shortly. Please save your work and log off." exit 0 Running this script manually pops up a nice warning on the desktop for 5 seconds. But when I pull the plug for a UPS test, I do not get any desktop warnings, though apcupsd powers down the PC when expected. But if I log into a console during that time, I see the default onbattery and annoyme wall messages. As I understand it, apccontrol should run my custom annoyme script before running its own default annoyme command. I have not modified apccontrol. Anyone recognize what the problem is? -------------------------- I could add parameters from my current configured-for-testing apcupsd.conf: UPSCABLE usb UPSTYPE usb DEVICE LOCKFILE /var/lock SCRIPTDIR /etc/apcupsd PWRFAILDIR /etc/apcupsd NOLOGINDIR /etc ONBATTERYDELAY 6 BATTERYLEVEL 5 MINUTES 3 TIMEOUT 60 ANNOY 10 ANNOYDELAY 20 NOLOGON always KILLDELAY 0 NETSERVER on NISIP 0.0.0.0 NISPORT 3551 EVENTSFILE /var/log/apcupsd.events EVENTSFILEMAX 10 UPSCLASS standalone UPSMODE disable STATTIME 0 STATFILE /var/log/apcupsd.status LOGSTATS off DATATIME 0 </blockquote> A further test: From a terminal command line I ran: /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol "annoyme" "" 1 0 And my notify-send desktop notification displayed as envisioned. </blockquote> I found out that the issue is related to the fact that the apccontrol script called by the apcupsd daemon runs as root, and DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS is not available to root, which means that the script does not know where the notify-send output should be displayed. There are work-arounds, but I did not understand how to use them in Lubuntu. The more elaborate solutions use functions that sift for the current user information and then effectively run the command of interest (notify-send) as that user. The simplest looking solution, if it works, relies on the procedure for running GUI apps via cronjobs. The reference is to <a href="https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CronHowto#GUI%20Applications">https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CronHowto#GUI%20Applications</a>. But even though the information is there in black-and-white, I didn't understand how to do it. </body> </html>