Expert Documentation
ANL Digitizer Firmware for Experts
This document presupposes that the reader is already familiar with the overall design of the firmware and associated terminology.
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piserver instructions
. The piserver runs on the Ubuntu machine called piserver1. To start the server: log in on piserver1 as user dgs and check whether the server is already running (try ps ax | grep piserver | grep -v grep). If it is not and you want to start it, type
sudo piserver &
The piserver window will show up. In this window you can control the 'environment' of the network booted raspberry pi's (RPs).
. To add another raspberry pi to be under the control of the piserver, click on the clients on the piserver, then click add. Power off RP your want to add, take out the SD card and power it up again. It should show up with its mac address in the window - where you can now enable it. Next, cycle the power of the RP again and it should come up as a client of the piserver. Be aware that it takes a while for the RP to boot up.
. To modify the OS of the RPs, click on software in the piserver, then click on the OS. After that the 'shell' is available, click on it. E.g., to run raspi-config you would type
SUDO_USER=dgs raspi-config
where the first part signifies that we change something in the OS for user rpdgs, the default user we have on the network booted RPs. (For reasons we don't understand, we cannot use the user name 'pi' for a user on these RPs). You shuld not have to use raspi-config on the individual RPs. Note that you are root for the RPs in this shell.
. The network booted RPs cannot see world outside of onenet (not sure why they restrict network access like that). So to, e.g., install a new version of the DGS EPICS softIOC do
ssh rpdgs@piserver svn export .....
You will be in /home/rpdgs on piserver1 which is the shared home directory for all the RPs. Don't try to compile etc there. To compile, go to any of the network booted RPs and and do it from there. You only need to do it on one of the RPs because the home diretory is shared.
. Because the RPs share the home directory we have set them up to execute unique setup files based on the IP of the RPs. E.g., on sbxpp the file (in the shared home directory) softIOC.192.168.203.149 is executed. In this file we can start the softIOC with the EPICS databases appropriate for this RP.
. Note that the RPs get their IP from the onenet DHCP server, not from the piserver. Thus, you need to register the RPs using onereg.phy.anl.gov.
. We have not been able to make autologon work on the network booted RPs. Thus to start the softIOC on the RPs you should, from an xterm, ssh into the individual RPs. We will automatically start the softIOC when you ssh in. Before the automtic start of the softIOC, it will check to make sure that a softIOC is not already running. If someone else ssh into the RP, another softIOC will not be started. This system is not unlike when we have to start the softIOC on the DAQs of dgs, dfma, dub1 and xa.