APC Battery Management System manual Watchdog Features, Network interface watchdog mechanism

Battery Management System

USER’S GUIDE

®

Watchdog Features

Network interface watchdog mechanism

The master unit’s built-in Management Card implements internal watchdog mechanisms to protect itself from becoming inaccessible over the network. For example, if the management card does not receive any network traffic for 9.5 minutes (either direct traffic, such as SNMP, or broadcast traffic, such as an Address Resolution Protocol [ARP] request), it assumes that there is a problem with its network interface and reboots itself.

Resetting the network timer

To ensure that the Management Card does not reboot if the network is quiet for 9.5 minutes, the Management Card attempts to contact the default gateway every 4.5 minutes. If the gateway is present, it responds to the Management Card, and that response restarts the 9.5-minute timer.

If your application does not require or have a gateway, specify the IP address of a computer that is running on the network most of the time and is on the same subnet. The network traffic of that computer will restart the seven-minute timer frequently enough to prevent the Management Card from rebooting.

16