Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Ralph Lange <[email protected]> · Fri, 17 Oct 2008 09:51:30 +0200

Hi Emma,
I would need a bit more information about your setup to be able to fully
understand your report.
You are looking at the CA client side of an IOC. When you are losing
connections between IOCs, is the IOC you're looking at the server or the
client of that PV connection?

It seems there are no beacons coming from the CA Gateway
(172.23.106.35). Is that the client side or the server side of the CA
Gateway? Are two (or more) Gateway processes running on that machine
(i.e. one for each direction)? What is the CA configuration for the
Gateway(s) on that machine?
CA configuration of a Gateway is difficult and subtle. There are a lot
of environment variables for CA server and client (see the CA Manual)
which influence the behaviour of a CA application. Some variables are
using other variables' values as default, which simplifies configuration
of pure CA client or server apps, but may lead to unwanted behaviour for
a CA Gateway (whis is one of the few apps that is as well CA server and
client). E.g, it is quite easy to create a setup where the Gateway is
sending out beacons on the wrong (i.e. client) side.
Cheers,
Ralph

Shepherd, EL (Emma) wrote:

Hi all,
We still seem to suffer quite a bit from problems with database links
between IOCs, particularly when a gateway is involved.  For some reason
the links can become disconnected and a reboot is usually necessary to
get them working again.  I have just had an opportunity to do some
diagnosis on one such problem and found a clue in the CA beacon
hashtable part of the dbcar report.  The entry for the gateway
(172.23.106.35) is 'undefined', although the gateway itself seems to be
working just fine and I can use caget through the gateway as normal.
Any ideas what could cause this to happen, or how to fix it when it
does?  None of the tasks are suspended, CPU usage is low and everything
else looks fine.
CA beacon hash entry for 172.23.106.32:5064 with period estimate
15.000521
        beacon number 168436, on THU OCT 16 2008 14:27:46
CA beacon hash entry for 172.23.106.35:5064 <no period estimate>
        beacon number 0, on <undefined>
CA beacon hash entry for 172.23.106.97:5064 with period estimate
14.988265
        beacon number 76356, on THU OCT 16 2008 14:27:52
CA beacon hash entry for 172.23.106.96:5064 with period estimate
14.988637
        beacon number 39491, on THU OCT 16 2008 14:27:53
CA beacon hash entry for 172.23.106.98:5064 with period estimate
14.980477
        beacon number 58989, on THU OCT 16 2008 14:27:47
CA beacon hash entry for 172.23.106.102:5064 with period estimate
14.990867
        beacon number 39993, on THU OCT 16 2008 14:27:53
CA beacon hash entry for 172.23.106.32:5064 with period estimate
15.000521
        beacon number 168436, on THU OCT 16 2008 14:27:46
CA beacon hash entry for 172.23.106.35:5064 <no period estimate>
        beacon number 0, on <undefined>
CA beacon hash entry for 172.23.106.97:5064 with period estimate
14.988265
        beacon number 76356, on THU OCT 16 2008 14:27:52
CA beacon hash entry for 172.23.106.96:5064 with period estimate
14.988637
        beacon number 39491, on THU OCT 16 2008 14:27:53
CA beacon hash entry for 172.23.106.98:5064 with period estimate
14.980477
        beacon number 58989, on THU OCT 16 2008 14:27:47
CA beacon hash entry for 172.23.106.102:5064 with period estimate
14.990867
        beacon number 39993, on THU OCT 16 2008 14:27:53
entries per bucket: mean = 0.011719 std dev = 0.107617 max = 1

Thanks in advance....
Emma

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System