From the error I guess the user has no admin privileges, and a new user might need to be added (with a custom template) to upsd.users file.
EDIT: here is an untested example. Some steps could be missing (see nut manual, for example to set tcp-wrappers edit hosts.allow/deny, restarting service…), and the password could be randomly generated with a script:
mkdir -p /etc/e-smith/templates-custom/etc/ups/upsd.users/
cat << EOF > /etc/e-smith/templates-custom/etc/ups/upsd.users/21admin
[admin]
password = supersecretpassword
actions = SET
instcmds = ALL
EOF
signal-event nethserver-nut-update
More info:
https://networkupstools.org/docs/man/upsd.users.html
https://networkupstools.org/docs/user-manual.chunked/ar01s09.html
NUT administrative user definitions should be used in conjunction with TCP Wrappers.