EPICS Group Meeting, Thursday 25 September 2008, 10:15 AM, B34 Conf. Room -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi All, We will have an EPICS meeting today at 10:15 AM. Location: Bldg. 34 Conference Room. Meeting Minutes: Sonya Hoobler please take the minutes. Agenda: (1) LCLS EPICS Controls for the November turn on: -- All IOCs should now be online and pingable -- Debug integrated in iocConsole -- VME crate remote reset online and working -- IOC heads up EDM display -- rtemsStats (will rename to iocAdmin) integration -- Subsystem databases and screens? (2) I have all R2A2s except for one. Will schedule one-on-one meetings early next week . (3) List of Operational Issues still need to be prioritize and assigned. (4) Does everyone understand BSA? (5) EPICS Class for operators. (4) Any other issues? Thanks, Ernest -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Attendees: Ernest, Kristi, Stephanie, Matt, Sonya, Zen, Sheng, Dayle Meeting minutes: (1) Ernest: -We have ~1 month to complete as much checkout of new systems as possible. -The network group is done with network installation. So please check to see if you have any problems and report them to Terri ASAP. -PPS verification starts in the 2nd, 3rd week of October. At that time, tunnel access will be limited. It may be possible to work in the evenings, but must coordinate with Operations first. -In November, we will come up running the same version of software we were running at shutdown. The exception, of course, is for new installation. On software days, we can release new software. -The PPS allows access to LTU/UND tunnel with beam in the BSY, so we may have some access to LTU/UND after startup. -Kristi et al. made a spreadsheet template for checkout, located on Sharepoint. Can use this to begin checkout of IOCs, hardware. Please make sure that your nodes have ip addresses, iocConsole works, screenlog.0 files, channel watcher etc. etc. -On subject of iocConsole/screenlog, when terminal server or iocConsole server goes down, we need to restart iocConsole to continue writing to screenlog files. Stephanie: Can we add scripts to restart these sessions like we do for soft iocs, channel watcher, etc.? -Kristi: How do we get faster response for getting node ip addresses? Ernest: Can help push these requests through. -Discucussion: Hamid has asked for a display/CUD that shows individual status of all iocs. What is the benefit of having individual status instead of summaries? We should see what Operations group wants. -Ernest: Work has begun on integrating rtemsStats into iocAdmin. Not complete or in CVS yet. Maybe Stephanie can help with merge. Hamid would like this operational in November. Stephanie: Would like to implement iocAdmin at SSRL but without some of the rtems features. (2) Ernest: -Will set up one-on-one r2a2 meetings next week. (3) Ernest: -Kristi put a list on sharepoint. Should follow up, get more information on individual requests. (4) BSA discussion: -System engineers should understand BSA and be able to troubleshoot BSA problems within their systems. -When acquisition performed, if number of data points doesn't match requested number, data is still available to user. User must check that the number of points match to ensure data is synchronous and complete. Presumably, high-level applications do check this. -If users want to monitor single value BSA pvs, like 1 Hz pvs, they should check timestamps. If there is a network glitch, they may lose miss some data points. -Should we try to catch these instances where the number of data points doesn't match the request or just rely on training? -Users can look at EVR pattern diagnostic display. If counters are increasing, then there could be a problem. -Would be nice to have a way to measure the time on an ioc between fiducial (or trigger) and bsa data available. (5) Discussion: -Steve Lewis suggested Oct 23 and 24 for Operations EPICS class. These dates have been confirmed with Operations group. -Matt is holding Operations edm class next Friday. -Should also have a cvs class for Operations. In edm class, Matt will recommend that, for now, when operators want to modify a display, they get a copy of the file, modify it, and then contact system engineer to double-check it and release. -Operations would also like an area to create their own displays and be able to launch them from lclshome. -Ernest wants system engineers to retain ultimate responsiblity for displays, etc. -Kristi says she was being asked every day to change displays during last run, so it would be nice to have a system where users can make their own changes. -Need to be careful with display changes: do not want to change system functionality. -Also difficult when a display is changed per a request, then someone not familiar with that request backs out the initial change. Other: -Sheng and Zen are going to help with wirescanners and PMTs, help reduce Arturo's load. -Ernest also looking for more resources to help Dayle with RF system workload. -Arturo is using EPICS 3.14.10 and RTEMS 4.9 for undulator. 3.14.10 not released yet, but will be soon. We do want to slowly start migrating systems to these new releases.