HiRA-S800 DAQ (adopted from SeGA group)

 

Contents:

 

1.   DAQ Startup Sequence

2.   Overview

3.   Particular Setup

4.   Review of Startup Sequence

5.   Troubleshooting

6.   Useful Linux Commands

 

 

1. DAQ Startup Sequence:

 

Command Description

Command

Recommended Location

1. Start the Scalar Display.

goscaler

u6pc2 Desktop 1

2. Start the elog server.

goelogserver

u6pc2 ELOGSERVERHOST

3. Start the Readout Control

godaq

u6pc2 Desktop 1 (*With Scalar Display)

4. Make entries in elog

elog

Multiple instances allowed.

 

 

2. Overview:

 

Three main computer systems are being used during an experiment:

 

 

The data acquisition system is in charge of taking data from the electronics.  The computer must be linked to at least one VME crate by a PCI-to-VME interface and fiber-optic cable. The specific computer is designated DAQHOST and DAQBOX in the ~/.bash_profile (usually spdaq##). On this computer run: readout, spectrodaq, and evtlogger (all commands begin with godaq command).

 

The control and monitoring system is in charge of readout control, scalar display, elog clients, and elog servers. The elog server must run always on its designated computer (ELOGSERVERHOST) in the ~/.bash_profile. These computers usually have names such as u#pc# i.e. u6pc2.

 

Data analysis is performed on a different computer, usually (odan)

 

3. Particular Setup:

 

DAQ computer: spdaq20

Location: S800 Vault

Required Processes:

·       readout (Started remotely from ReadoutControl).

·       spectrodaq

·       evtlogger (Started automatically on boot-up).

 

Online control and monitoring computers: u6pc2, u6pc3

Location: DataU6

Required Processes:

 

Please Note:

Any Computer from which you can connect to the elogserver and make any entries in the log must be added in the authorized clients list located in ~/elogSync/clients.tcl

 

4. Review of Startup Sequence:

 

Start the Scaler Display with: goscaler

Start the Elog Server with: goelogserver

Start the Readout Control with: godaq

To make entries in elog, type: elog

Start SpecTcl with: gospec_ge

 

5. Troubleshooting:

 

Nr.

Symptom(s)

Possible Cause(s)

Solution

1

The elog is no longer updated at the beginning or end of the run.

elogserver died

Quit and restart elogserver

2

DAQ is frozen even with Readout running.

One of the SpecTcl programs attached online is using up all the memory pages of spectrodaq.

On DAQHOST use bufdump to see if any buffers are coming from the readout. If you don’t see anything use freepages to check how many free memory pages are left. The number should be around 2000, anything below 100 is a problem.

 

Kill and restart all SpecTcl instances attached online

 

If trouble persists, reboot all computers where SpecTcl is attached and submit a trouble report.

3

The Scalar Display shows elapsed run time that doesn’t appear to increase in a natural way, for example, the first reading is 100 seconds and after 10 seconds it shows 150 sec or 50 sec.

Multiple instances of Readout are running on spdaq

  1. Stop the run
  2. Exit Readout Control
  3. Login to DAQHOST
  4. Kill all Readout processes
  5. Restart Readout Control

4

Your entries do not appear in the elog

 

 

 

6.Useful Linux Commands:

 

ps aux | grep name will list the processes containing the name ‘name

 

kill –KILL process_id will kill the process with the ID process_id

 

 

-END-

 

Updated 05/09/2005