APC AP9617 network management card password reset

Soldato
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Last week I was given an APC AP9617 network management card. It was believed to be working and when I plugged it in my APC UPS at home and it grabbed an IP address from my DHCP server. I was expecting it to have a static IP address already assigned so that was a nice surprise.

Onto the problem. How the hell do you reset the passwords on these things? I can login using device/apc but that's a limited view only account. I know when they're new out of the box the default credentials are apc/apc but they don't work when I try over HTTP or telnet.

I found some articles on the APC website saying that to do a factory reset you push the reset button, release then push it again when the status LED flashes. I did that, can can see that the card rebooted but still I can't login. I also found another article that said you must connect using a serial cable and that apc/apc only works for a minute or two. Slight snag is that this network management card doesn't have a serial port, just an ethernet.

The UPS itself does have a serial port (RJ45 I believe but I don't ever remember configuring anything network related on a network management card via the UPS itself, it was always done by the web/telnet interface on the card.

Any ideas? I've tried all sorts of combinations of pressing the reset button, waiting, hold it down for various lengths of time. I can see that the card reboots as it stops responding to pings but when it comes back up it still won't accept apc/apc.
 
Soldato
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My UPS really doesn't want me to use the serial port, as soon as I connected the cable the UPS powered off.

I was using my USB - RJ45 Cisco rollover cable. I'll dig out a proper serial cable and see if the UPS behaves any better.
 
Soldato
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My UPS really doesn't want me to use the serial port, as soon as I connected the cable the UPS powered off.

I was using my USB - RJ45 Cisco rollover cable. I'll dig out a proper serial cable and see if the UPS behaves any better.

I've had that before on a APC management card - something of an :eek: moment. They are very fussy about the serial cable.
 
Soldato
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It came as a surprise that the UPS powered off! The timing wasn't ideal as I was on a call at the time using my SIP phone which is powered from my PoE switch which is itself powered by the UPS.

I read that the pinouts are the same as a Cisco rollover cable so I figured it was worth a try. I've got a genuine Cisco rollover cable somewhere and I think the docking station for my laptop still has a serial port. I'll power a few things off and try again later.
 
Associate
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You need a certain serial cable, the pin out is different in for APC UPS's.

So using the wrong cable will cause it to instantly power off as the pinout is wrong :p

No idea about Cisco cables though.
 
Soldato
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My UPS really doesn't want me to use the serial port, as soon as I connected the cable the UPS powered off.

I was using my USB - RJ45 Cisco rollover cable. I'll dig out a proper serial cable and see if the UPS behaves any better.

As already mentioned this is a well known/documented issue, if you use the wrong pin-out, it resets. It’s an APC thing.
 
Soldato
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I don't have a serial cable that the UPS doesn't hate so I either need to buy one or find the pin outs and crack out the soldering iron,

Unsurprisingly you aren’t the first person to have this issue. The pin-out’s are already documented, though some variation exists based on specific models, this shouldn’t be an significant issue.
 
Soldato
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I think I'll have to admit defeat on this one. I grabbed a genuine APC serial cable from the office but no matter what I do I can't get any form of response from the serial port on the UPS before, during or after pushing the reset button, no matter what baud and port settings I try.
 
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