Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

For years, a couple of beam lines at the APS
used terminal servers (first local, then later ethernet)
to attach the console ports.  Tcl/expect scripts
were used to manage console sessions, providing
either (not both) interactive sessions or
time-stamped logging of console output.
The time-stamped logs proved *invaluable* in diagnosing
and synchronizing console output with user reports.

Now, the APS facility-managed beam lines are moving
towards use of the iocConsole script also used by
the accelerator controls group.  Using screens sessions,
logging and operator interaction are both possible.

Here at SNS we have lately had problems with IOCs crashing without leaving any trail for analyzing what the problem was. We have our own home grown procServe and we are looking into the iocConsole/screen software that SLAC is using. We are different from SLAC in that we use Digi port servers with a driver on one of the linux servers that maps port server ports into local /dev/ttyXXNNN devices. We just use 'cu' to open a serial port. IocConsole does not support that but making it do so would not be hard I don't think.
Looks like a modified iocConsole is our best option but before we commit to it we thought we out to see what others are doing to capture the last few lines of terminal activity from running and crashed hard IOCs.
Any ideas?

--
----------------------------------------------------------
  Pete R. Jemian, Ph.D.                <[email protected]>
  Beam line Controls and Data Acquisition, Group Leader
  Advanced Photon Source,   Argonne National Laboratory
  Argonne, IL  60439                   630 - 252 - 3189
-----------------------------------------------------------
     Education is the one thing for which people
        are willing to pay yet not receive.
-----------------------------------------------------------

References:

Serial port access and loging services for IOCs? Thompson, David H.

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