I got my hands on an Avocent PDU (Model: PM3012V). This thing is pretty cool, it has 20 outlets on it and each one can be remotely switched on or off via it’s control interface. Just plug it into a spare network port and you’d think you’ve got a 20 channel home automation relay bank, well not quite. There is not proper API for this thing meaning you can’t setup your voice assistant (google home etc) or automation software to easily control it. That’s where I come in!
I spent an evening with burp suite, firefox and the awful Avocent web interface. I went through every single network request to and from the PDU the whole way from logging in to commanding an outlet to switch on or off. I replicated these requests in python and culled all the unnecessary ones. End result is the avocentpdu module. (super original name right?)
You can check out more information and the documentation on my GitHub repository right here. I’ll post an update once I’ve finished writing my custom home assistant component.