For my new home lab, I have bought a couple of used APC AP7920 switched PDUs. These are ideal for me as they take a 13-Amp C14 input (often known as a “kettle lead”, colloquially) and provide a maximum of 10A across 8 C13 output sockets.

I also bought a serial cable for them, to connect to the console locally (mainly for recovery purposes).

The serial terminal settings required, from the manual are:

  • 9600bps
  • 8 data bits
  • no parity
  • 1 stop bit
  • no flow control

The default username and password are both apc.

If necessary, to reset the username and password:

  1. With a serial cable connected press the reset button for 10s
  2. Press the reset button again
  3. When the PDU restarts log in with the apc username/password combination within 30 seconds
  4. Once logged in, the administrator username and password can be changed and/or the settings reset (System -> Tools -> Reset to Defaults)

I will be configuring the attached, unmanaged, computers to return to a powered-on state in the event of power loss/recovery so they can be remotely powered up by toggling the power state of the APC PDU port. The ports powering the network switch will be configured to come on when power is restored to the PDU itself, all other ports will be kept off until manually powered on.