APC AP7900 Rack PDU/Switched/1U/15A/100/120V Surge Protector

Helps to not overload the UPS for all of my network gear. Been solid since day 1 of purchase in 2019.

I had to make a serial adapter with an RJ-11 and a female DB-9 connector. Pinouts are easy to find.Once you have that you can get in via serial connection but you have to hit the reset button twice to allow the default apc/apc login to work. This product did include a serial adapter but its an RJ-45 which won't fit the RJ-12. I also was hoping that the unit had been factory reset which it was not so someone else's configuration settings were still in there.I am really hoping this works well at my remote site as the TrippLite comparable option I currently have there has taken a dump.The web interface is good, and does not seem to require Java or Flash to run correctly. Some of the utilities that APC provides are Java-based but not from a web browser.I believe this unit I received has been sitting around for a long time, I think date of manufacture was in 2008, and refurbished in 2013. The latest model is the AP7900B.

When I think of adding a PDU, the first thing that comes to my mind is an APC product; I have been using APC for a long time and will continue to do so. But this product gave me some headaches!Pros:1. Excellent configuration options and control options once you get to the web interface2. Easy, intuitive, pwerful web interface3. Price for the features and power controlCons:1. I can't believe APC uses a RJ11/12 jack for the serial port that requires a special cable. When the rest of the IT equipment uses 9 bin (DB9) serial ports for access, APC is still using an antiquated serial port connectivity. I went to Fry's and tried to find a cable for this and I couldn't find anything, even if I am ready to pay a premium. Looks like I have to order either from APC directly or from some other online source to get this. This is clearly not good...(All rack servers have a DB9 serial port; they don't have a RJ11 jack for serial port, then why this product that goes into a rack should have a special cable/connector?)2. APC's DH Client seems to be so busted that it requires quite some good knowledge to make it work. I managed to give a temporary IP address to it, following the instructions in the manual (113 bytes of ping after setting a static route/arp entry to it). But then once I switched it to use DHCP, it never gets connected to DHCP server. I spent a couple of days figuring this out and this is what I found:- When you set the initial IP address to APC to access its web page for the first time, it remembers the IP address of your system that you used to give its IP address as its gateway.- Then when you switch APC to use DHCP, it still thinks its gateway is your system and tries to get its DHCP address from your system instead of going out to the DHCP server in the network.- The workaround I finally did is this: I connected my system as well as APC to the same hub and got my system's IP address and its gateway. Then I disconnected the hub from its outside network (removing the path to the DHCP server and real gateway). I reconfigured my system to a static IP address with the IP address as the normal gateway for my system when I am using DHCP server. After this, I used this system to give a temp. IP address to APC.- Finally I reconfigured my system and also APC to use DHCP, put the hub back into the DHCP network, and then restarted APC. As APC has been fooled into taking the DHCP gateway as its gateway this time, it worked correctly and got its IP address from the server.This is a serious bug in APC's management software.Just these 2 negatives forces me to give a 3 star to this product.(And of course, the APC customer support didn't help me solve this issue; I had to make up my own workaround)

I have a handful of these and they've been working reliably for years. Could not get 'ssh' access to work, but I don't need it on my environment so I didn't spend much time on it.

Works as advertised!One caveat that drove me absolutely crazy: I could *only* get the arp command to set the IP to work during the APC bootup period when the ethernet port "link" light is flashing amber for a few minutes. If the link light is green, it's too late, and the arp command will be consistently ignored! I hope this saves someone else the hour long call to APC tech support that I had to work through. They were helpful, but had not heard of this specific issue.

just what I was looking for

Great little device, very useful. If you are building a small lab enviorment, or SOHO. Nice wire managment tray incuded.

Good unit.Programming will make you cry though. Get on google and find the procedure to program it using the 'arp' command. Otherwise, you'll need a serial port and a lot of luck.Time to lookup arp programming method: 2 minutestime to perform method: 3 minsNow, you are in unit and ready to set a static address.