SiS-PM  (Silver Shield PM) Control for Linux


Sis-PM image

(Silver Shield PM Control for Linux, (C) Mondrian Nuessle, et.al.)



To the sourceforge.net pages.

Overview

SIS-PM Control for Linux aka sispmctl is an application enabling the use of the GEMBIRD (m)SiS-PM device family under Linux.
The SiS-PM is an itelligent advanced surge protector with unique features: four sockets are manageable from the PC via USB port (GEMBIRD LTD).
The SiS-PM is an itelligent advanced surge protector with unique features: one socket is manageable from the PC via USB port (GEMBIRD LTD).

The software works on many different platforms. I would be glad to here from you, on what platforms you are using this software. Also, send me any Howto's etc on how you got it to work on your router box etc.

This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details see the LICENCE file. This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; see the LICENCE file for details.

Thanks go out to Gembird  for the kind support, the libusb project, the USB snoopy team, Andreas Neuper and the other contributors.

News


Changelog

  • version 1.0b
 Initial Release
  • version 1.1, 24 Feb 2005 
 Fixed small error in configure script, relaxed dependency for libusb to include version >=0.1.5, added new command line arguments -q and -v,added Troubleshooting section,added sispm_http from Marius Konitzer
  • version 1.2, 16 Jan 2006
 Fixed type of variable c. Thanks to Michael Holzt.
  • version 2.0, 06 Feb 2006
new version with new functionality: multiple devices, built-in web interface, new options, man-page. Renamed to pmctl. Courtesy of Andreas Neuper
  • version 2.1, 09 Feb 2006
 fixed several install/configure/make problems, cleaned up code
  • version 2.2, 03 Mar 2006
 added better control for the webinterface including leaving it out of a compiled version, limiting it to a single network interface, small other fixes
  • version 2.3a, 23 Mar 2006
 added experimental support for the mSiS-PM device, which is  a one socket version of the SiS-PM. If anybody has such a device, please try the software, and contact me!
  • version 2.4a, 17 Aug 2006
 dde fixed several bugs (thanks to Marius Konitzer); patch to support Solaris 10 (thanks to Casper Dik); several other fixes; added Python GUI script (see directory extra and there the README)
  • version 2.4b, 30 Oct 2006
 small fix, return value of the application
  • version 2.5, 04 Dez 2007
 mSIS is supported, usb_close fd bug fix
  • version 2.6, 03 Mar 2008
 added support for devices with device of 0xfd13
  • version 2.7, 28 Mar 2008
 added power supply status, first serial implementation, sorting of devs, bugfixes
  • version 3.0, 30 Mar 2011
 added timer functionality, added gemplug script (see extras directory), added -D option to select device by serial number, several bugfixes and cleanups
  • version 3.1, 2011-11-28
  • daemonize webserver
  • version 4.0, 2016-02-18
  • add udev rules to allow non-root to access the Gembird devices
  • code refactoring
  • version 4.1, 2018-11-18
  • add support for Gembird EG-PMS2 with idVendor=04b4, idProduct=fd15
  • add systemd service file

Supported Devices & identifying devices

Gembird has produced a whole family of manageable surge protectors. The following table simmarizes the devices that are known to work with this software:
NameUSB iddescription
mSIS-PM04b4:fd10one socket, USB manageable
SIS-PM Silver Shield aka Revolt Intelliplug04b4:fd11four socket, USB manageable
mSIS-PM04b4:fd12one socket, USB manageable
SIS-PMS Silver Shield04b4:fd134 socket, USB manageable
Gembird EG-PMS204b4:fd154 socket, USB manageable


So you may find  this device sold under different names. You can identify it, though, without opening the case by issuing the followin commands:
~ $ lsusb
[...]
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 04b4:fd11 Cypress Semiconductor Corp.
[...]
Of course, the Bus and Device number will be different, depending on  your setup. Different devices have different IDs, see table above.

Obtaining a device

In Germany you used to be able to buy a device from Pearl (PE-3057-908, ~30 Euros) sold under the name  Revolt "Intelli-Plug".
Today you can grab one for example from www.reichelt.de or www.conrad.com under the name Gembird SIS-PM.
In Denmark you can grab one for example from Elektronik Lavpris.

Anyone out there knows about other countries?

Supported OS

Generally all operating systems with support of libusb and that are POSIX compatible should work.

There have been reports that siscpmctl was successfully compiled and worked under:

If you have gotten it to work on your box, and you use an OS/distro not mentioned here, feel free to send me a mail with your experience!

Supported architectures

siispmctl is mostly processor architecture agnostic. All 32-bit/64-bit related bugs etc should be fixed by now. sispmctl has been reported to run on
processors.
Several people mentioned they are using it on there broadband router boxes at home, especially since a package is available for OpenWRT.
The following routers and NAS boxes have been reported to me to definetely work:

I would really like to get an overview of boxes sispmctl is used on, so please send me an email, if your box is not mentioned here (yet).

Reported Use-Cases

Reportedly sispmctl is used to control a host of different devices including

Contributed Software

If you have software that uses sispm_ctl, mail me and I add it to the list below:

Download & Installation:

In short: Download latest sispm_ctl-XX.tar.gz (~156kB) from the sourceforge.net pages, unpack & follow the README file or see the release notes.

You need libusb-0.15 or newer installed on your system (if you have an older version of libusb it MIGHT work, you'll have to tweak configure.in though and call scripts/bootstrap. Nevermind if this is just glibberish for you :-)).
 
sis_pmctl is only available as sourcecode distribution. To install on your system run:

tar xzvf sispm_ctl-2.1.tar.gz
cd sispm_ctl-2.1
./configure
make
make install

Note: The compiled application is named sispmctl since 2.0 without the underscore!

 This installs the applicationsis pmctl in /usr/local/bin. If you want to install the application to a different directory,
call ./configure --prefix=/your/preferred/dir.
The web-interface skins are installed under $prefix/httpd/sispm_ctl/skin?; the default skin is pre-selected with the doc symbolic link in the $prefix/httpd/sispm_ctl directory.

Documentation:

The sispmctl utility is called from the command line. The following documentation is from the man-page of sispmctl (included in distribution):
Somewhat outdated at the moment...

SYNOPSIS

sispmctl [ -u <path> ] [ -p <#port> ] -l

sispmctl -s

sispmctl [ -q ] [ -n ] [ -d 1... ] -b <on|off>

sispmctl [ -q ] [ -n ] [ -d 1... ] < -o | -f | -g > <1..4|all>


DESCRIPTION

sispmctl is a tool to switch the USB controlled outlets of Gembird Silver Shield PM.  It is known by many names, e.g. Revolt Power Switch.
It is coded in C and does use the usb specific library (LibUSB).  This allows you a portable and fast solution.


OPTIONS

-h    Print usage information
-s     Scan all universal serial buses for devices with the ID 04B4:FD11.

-l     stay listening on network port for http protocol.

-p     IP network port (default: 2638) for listener. There is no authentication implemented yet.

-u     give the directory path where pages lay, that are served (default: /usr/local/httpd/pmctl ).  The Web path component is completely ignored for security reasons.

-b     switch the buzzer on and off (I was not able to test it, mine does not hat it)

-o     switch the named outlet to "ON"

-f     switch the named outlet to "OFF"

-g     show the status of the named outlet

-d     Choose not the first but the named one in the sequence of detected devices (see scan option)

-n     do not print "ON" and "OFF", but "1" and "0" instead

-q     do neither print explanations nor disclaimers except it is requested

-v     print version & copyright


WEB INTERFACE

The sispmctl program provides a web interface when started with the -l option. No additional http server is needed.  Each selected usb device is blocked by pmctl while running.

After  installation,  the  first  of  three  web-interfaces  is  selected.  The  default  location  of  the  HTML  files  is  /usr/local/httpd/sispm_ctl/doc which is a symbolic link to /usr/local/httpd/sispm_ctl/skin1.

The http capabilities of pmctl are limited.  Technically speaking, only the first line of each http request is parsed.  The terminating path component, i.e. file name, is looked up  in the repository directory.  If present the file is parsed and in absence of control sequences sent as is.  The files must include the http header portion.

Control  sequences  start and end with double dollar `$$'.  They consist of a command portion separated by a question mark `?' from alternative outputs which are separated by the first colon `:'.  The command portion is a token followed by an embraced number that references the outlet, e.g.  $$command(1)?positive:negative$$ while command is one of status ,  toggle, off , on .  I strongly recommend to avoid the on/off/toggle commands in pages that may be reloaded.  Best is to redirect to other pages that only include status requests.


EXAMPLES

Switch off the first outlet of the first SiS-PM and the third outlet of the second SiS-PM:

$ sispmctl -f 1 -d 1 -f 3

Print the status of the forth outlet as zero or one:

$ sispmctl -nqg 4

Run pmctl on the second device as a web-server:

$ sispmctl -d 1 -l

You can connect to it from the same machine by pointing to http://localhost:2638 with your webbrowser


Troubleshooting:

Question

it does not appear in the output of lsusb,
sispmctl does not work,
the following output is added to the system log (output dmesg):
usb 1-2: new low speed USB device using address 2
usb 1-2: Product: Gembird Silver Shield PM
usb 1-2: Manufacturer: Gembird Electronics
drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c: couldn't find an input interrupt endpoint
hid: probe of 1-2:1.0 failed with error -5

(possible) Solution:

This may happen if you have not mounted usbfs.
Try "mount usbfs" as root. This could possibly fix your problem.
(Thanks to Martin Koniczek for pointing this out to me).

Permissions

Per default, only root is allowed to use devices directly, therefore the SiS-PM also only works as root.

To allow group sispmctl access create file /lib/udev/rules.d/60-sispmctl.rules with the following content

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="04b4", ATTR{idProduct}=="fd10", GROUP="sispmctl", MODE="660"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="04b4", ATTR{idProduct}=="fd11", GROUP="sispmctl", MODE="660"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="04b4", ATTR{idProduct}=="fd12", GROUP="sispmctl", MODE="660"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="04b4", ATTR{idProduct}=="fd13", GROUP="sispmctl", MODE="660"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="04b4", ATTR{idProduct}=="fd15", GROUP="sispmctl", MODE="660"

Then reload the udev rules with

udevadm control --reload-rules

Contact

For questions, bug reports, remarks use the forum of sourceforge.net.


Last modified: 2018-11-18

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