Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Mark Rivers <[email protected]> · Mon, 12 Nov 2012 16:14:03 +0000

Hi Ralph,

I installed procServ 2.6.0 because I really want to use the timestamp feature on the log files.  One important application for us is using procServ to run the "telnet" command to our terminal servers connected to the VME console port on vxWorks IOCs.  This allows multiple users to connect to the VME crate, and produces nice log files.  That vxWorks output previously had no timestamps, so it was hard to know when errors occurred.

However, procServ 2.6.0 seems to have a number of problems.

- The command to exit procServ no longer appears to be configurable.  Previously it could be configured with -Q.  Now it appears to be hardcoded to be ^Q.  However, ^Q is needed when logged into a vxWorks system for XON/XOFF control (type ^S to suspend output, ^Q to resume).  We were previously setting -Q to ^E.

- The timestamp output is totally mixed in with the output, making it very difficult to read (see below).

- The log file has ^M characters in it at the end of each line.  This is not a new problem, 2.4.0 also had this problem.

Part of the log file output from procServ 2.6.0:
############################################
dbLoadT[Mon Nov 12 10:00:21 2012] emplate "motors.template"^M^M
[Mon Nov 12 10:00:22 2012] value = 0 = 0x0^M
^M^M
### Allstop, alldone^M^M
dbLoadRecords("$(MOTOR)[Mon Nov 12 10:00:22 2012] /motorApp/Db/motorUtil.db","P=13BMD:")^M^M
value = 0 = 0x0^M
^M^M
### Scan-support [Mon Nov 12 10:00:22 2012] software^M^M
# crate-resident scan.  This executes 1D, 2D, 3D, and 4D scans, [Mon Nov 12 10:00:22 2012] and caches^M^M
# 1D data, but it doesn't store anything to disk.  (You need the [Mon Nov 12 10:00:22 2012] data catcher^M^M
# or the equivalent for that.)  This database is configured to [Mon Nov 12 10:00:22 2012] use the^M^M
# "alldone" database (above) to figure out when motors have stopp[Mon Nov 12 10:00:22 2012] ed moving^M^M
# and it's time to trigger detectors.^M^M
dbLoadRecords("$(SSCAN)/ss[Mon Nov 12 10:00:23 2012] canApp/Db/scan.db","P=13BMD:,MAXPTS1=2000,MAXPTS2=200,MAXPTS3=4,MAXPTS4=3,M[Mon Nov 12 10:00:23 2012] AXPTSH=10")^M^M
value = 0 = 0x0^M
^M^M
dbLoadRecords("$(CARS)/CARSApp/Db/scanner.db[Mon Nov 12 10:00:23 2012] ", "P=13BMD:,Q=edb")^M^M
value = 0 = 0x0^M
^M^M
# A set of scan parameters for each[Mon Nov 12 10:00:23 2012]  positioner.  This is a convenience^M^M
# for the user.  It can contain an en[Mon Nov 12 10:00:23 2012] try for each scannable thing in the^M^M
# crate.^M^M
dbLoadTemplate "scanParms.tem[Mon Nov 12 10:00:23 2012] plate"^M^M
[Mon Nov 12 10:00:23 2012] value = 0 = 0x0^M
^M^M
############################################

Thanks,
Mark

________________________________________
From: [email protected] [[email protected]] on behalf of Ralph Lange [[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2012 8:50 AM
To: EPICS Tech Talk
Subject: procServ softIOC server - V2.6.0 released

Hi all,

procServ V2.6.0 has been released. [1]

The probably most attractive new feature:
* procServ now runs on Windows systems, allowing to remotely access
softIOCs on Windows in the same manner as softIOCs on other systems.
The Windows binary (available for download on SourceForge) has been
built under Cygwin and should run on any recent Windows system. It does
not require a full Cygwin installation - putting the Cygwin1.dll runtime
library into an appropriate place (e.g. the same directory) is sufficient.

Other improvements include:
* Log file lines can be time stamped
* Accepts a signal to reopen log file (to work with the logrotate facility)
* Additional control command to close the telnet connection
* Foreground mode that keeps child process in the starting terminal
* Improvements for cross-builds (autotools and EPICS builds)
* ...
Full change log at
http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/procserv/query?milestone=R+2.6

Thanks to Michael Abbott and Dirk Zimoch, who were helping a lot with
beta testing.

procServ is part of the official distributions of Debian/Ubuntu (as
"procserv") and Fedora/RHEL (as "procServ"). New versions usually take a
few days to get into their respective repositories, but will eventually
be available using the standard package managers.

Enjoy!
~Ralph

[1] procServ is a wrapper application that runs any process (e.g. a
softIOC, a CA Gateway, ...) in the background, allowing telnet access to
its stdin/stdout. It supports logging, child restart (manual or
automatic on crash/exit), blocking characters that are considered
dangerous to the child, and much more.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/procserv/

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System