LBNE » LBNE DAQ

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!DAQ_communication_diagram4.png!

h1. Getting help

If, after reading this document (in particular, the "Troubleshooting and FAQ" section) you run into issues, or have questions, please contact:

* DAQInterface

** John Freeman - jcfree@fnal.gov

* RunControl

** Erik Blaufuss - blaufuss@icecube.umd.edu

* Configuration Manager

** Jon Paley - jpaley@anl.gov

* TDU XML-RPC server

** Tom Dealtry - thomas.dealtry@physics.ox.ac.uk

h1. Logbook

Please document all changes, software updates, and operational activities to the ELog:

http://dbweb3.fnal.gov:8080/ECL/lbne_35t

h1. Brief preliminaries

Everything in this wiki was up-to-date as of October 11, 2015.

This guide assumes you have access to the lbnedaq account on the LBNE 35 ton gateway node, lbne35t-gateway01.fnal.gov . It also assumes you have a rudimentary knowledge of how to navigate a bash environment in Linux (how to change directories, log onto different machines, perform time-ordered listings of files, edit a file using emacs or vi, etc.). 

The installed code is located at lbne35t-gateway01.fnal.gov:/data/lbnedaq/daqarea/lbnerc. If you need access to the lbnedaq lbne35t-gateway01.fnal.gov account, please contact one of the people listed above under "Getting Help". Once you have access, to get started, login (<code>ssh -l lbnedaq lbne35t-gateway01.fnal.gov</code>) and first setup the environment:

<pre>

cd /data/lbnedaq/daqarea

source fireup

</pre>

This will take you into the /data/lbnedaq/daqarea/lbnerc directory, out of which the DAQ is controlled. For the remainder of this wiki, the assumption is that you've already setup the environment using the above commands. 

Keep in mind that you shouldn't run the DAQ if someone else is using it. To figure out whether this is the case, see "Getting the status", further down this document. Also keep in mind that when you use the DAQ, you should make a note of it in the elog, along with how long you plan to use it and whether you're willing to let someone else step in if your work is non-urgent.  A reminder to this effect is printed whenever you log into lbne35t-gateway01.fnal.gov. 

To see the terminal output of RunControl and DAQInterface, you'll want to be in the same terminal from where they were launched. This means it's typically not a good idea to try to use a "stale" RunControl and/or DAQInterface that someone else may have started hours (or even days) ago. 

Concerning example output shown in this document:  when you see an ellipse ("…"), that is to be interpreted as a placeholder for output which is considered irrelevant to the point being explained.

h1. Killing, launching, and getting the status of the DAQ applications

The DAQ application suite consists of RunControl, the configuration manager, DAQInterface (the component which intermediates between RunControl, the configuration manager, and the artdaq processes) and the XML-RPC server for the TDU (the program which allows a sync pulse to be sent to the hardware at the start of DAQ running). The following points about these programs should be observed:

** These applications all need to be running in order for the DAQ to work

** DAQInterface needs to be launched _after_ RunControl

** The actual names of the processes are "lbnecontrol" (RunControl), "daqinterface" (DAQInterface), "CfgMgrApp" (the configuration manager) and "tdu" (the TDU XML-RPC server)

h2. Getting the status

In order to determine which DAQ applications are already active, two approaches can be taken, depending on whether or not RunControl is itself active. If it isn't, you'll need to enter the following:

<pre>

check_daq_applications.sh

</pre>

which will produce output which looks like this:

<pre>

lbnecontrol: **Not Found**

CfgMgr: Available

DAQInterface: Available

TDUControl: **Not Found**

Most recent DAQ logfile written (current US Central Time is Apr 10 09:56):

Apr 8 17:25 /data/lbnedaq/daqlogs/pmt/pmt-32342.1-20150408171225.log

</pre>

In other words, the above command will both tell you which, if any, of the four primary DAQ applications are running, and then tell you the time of the most recently modified logfile; this last piece of information is helpful in determining whether the DAQ is currently in active use by another individual. In particular, you see that the configuration manager and DAQInterface already exist, but RunControl and the TDU's XML-RPC server do not. In this case, you would not only want to launch RunControl and the server, but you would also want to kill and relaunch DAQInterface. Unless someone had just posted in the elog that they were planning to run on the DAQ (and did so before you had a chance to post!), you wouldn't need to worry about interfering with someone else's DAQ work, since you can see above that it's been almost two days since any DAQ output was logged. 

Another way of checking which applications are alive is through "@lbnecmd check@"; note this command will only work if RunControl (lbnecontrol) is itself alive:

<pre>

lbnecmd check

</pre>

You'll then see output similar to that of check_daq_applications.sh as far as which applications are alive; however, it contains additional information not shown which will be discussed later:

<pre>

lbnecontrol: Available

CfgMgr: **Not Found**

DAQInterface: Available

TDUControl: **Not Found**

...

</pre>

Be aware that if you attempt "lbnecmd check" when RunControl is not yet available, you'll simply see "<code>check failed: '[Errno 111] Connection refused'.  Is lbnecontrol running?</code>".

h2. Cleanup: killing DAQInterface, the configuration manager, and the TDU XMLRPC server

As of March 30, 2015, a new script called "kill_daq_applications.sh" can be run at the command line to kill the DAQ applications. It's capable of killing all the major applications except for RunControl, which is meant to always be running. In order to kill the other three applications, one would run:

<pre>

kill_daq_applications.sh -c -d -t

</pre>

where each option corresponds to the killing of a particular application: "-c" for the configuration manager, "-d" for DAQInterface, and "-t" for the TDU XML-RPC server. If only a subset of these three applications are running, then only use the relevant options (e.g., simply run "<code>kill_daq_applications.sh -t</code>" if the only application running is the TDU server). Running the script without any options at all will print out instructions similar to what you see here. Be aware that it's good etiquette to make sure someone's not currently using the DAQ before you start killing applications. 

Note that as of Dec-22-2015, killing DAQInterface will also kill the auto_file_close.sh script, but not kill the MessageViewer application.

For the previous instructions for killing the applications (still correct, though more work-intensive, but includes the expert-only instructions on how to kill RunControl), click on "Show", below:

{{collapse()

Killing RunControl has its own special syntax, and is simply:

<pre>

lbnecmd kill

</pre>

The other DAQ applications, however, need to be killed via the standard Linux command <code>kill <pid></code>, where "<pid>" is the process ID of the application. To find the process IDs of all possible DAQ applications, you can run:

<pre>

ps aux | grep -v grep | grep -v emacs | egrep -e lbnecontrol -e daqinterface -e CfgMgrApp -e tdu

</pre>

For each application which exists, a row will appear, the second field of which is that application's process ID. Keep in mind, of course, that if these processes are running, it might mean that someone else is using the DAQ. As the 9th and 10th fields of the row of variables "ps aux" returns concern how long the program has been running, you can use these values as well as your best judgement, then, before deciding these processes are not in active use and killing them.

}}

h2. Launching RunControl, DAQInterface, the configuration manager, and the TDU XMLRPC server

Also as of March 30, 2015, a new script called "launch_daq_applications.sh" can be run at the command line to launch the DAQ applications. In order to launch all four applications, one would run:

<pre>

launch_daq_applications.sh -c -t -r -d <daqinterface configuration file>

</pre>

where unless you have your own working copy of the DAQInterface configuration file (what this is will be described later in this wiki), "<code><daqinterface configuration file></code>" should be "<code>docs/config.txt</code>". The options refer to the same applications as in the case of kill_daq_applications.sh, and like kill_daq_applications.sh, executing the script without any options will print out instructions. Be aware, however, that DAQInterface will not be launched if RunControl isn't already running. In practice, though, you can launch RunControl in the same launch_daq_applications.sh command by preceding the DAQInterface option with the RunControl option -- so, if the configuration manager and the TDU server are already up and available, then one would only need to execute "<code>launch_daq_applications.sh -r -d <daqinterface configuration file></code>" in order to have the full suite of DAQ applications available for use. 

Note that if an application of a given type is already running, launch_daq_applications.sh will not launch a duplicate application, but will instead print a warning to the screen. 

Note also that when you launch DAQInterface, a window with the header "MessageFacility MsgViewer" will pop up; it's in this window that messages about the running DAQ (color coded by severity level) will appear. More on this in a bit. 

Another program that launches along with DAQInterface is called "auto_file_close.sh"; this is a script which will issue automatic stop-start transitions to the DAQ when diskwriting runs are performed, such that on stop the current output file is closed and the run is ended, and on start the run number increments and a new file is opened. The frequency with which this occurs can be set in the DAQInterface configuration file (see below for more on this file); as of Dec-22-2015 the current default is for the stop-start to be issued either after ten minutes since the start of the run or after a file has reached 5 gigabytes. 

For the previous instructions on how to launch the DAQ applications (still correct, but more detailed and labor-demanding), click on "Show" below:

*Note*:  Run Control is generally not stopped and started by _launch_daq_applications.sh_ any longer.  The main Run control server should be running all the time to support Slow Control reported information.  If you suspect  issues with Run Control, see the _TroubleShooting and FAQ_ section below for help.

{{collapse()

_Old instructions for launching RunControl_

<pre>

rm -f /tmp/lbnecontrol.pid  # (This should only be necessary if last RunControl session wasn't killed via "lbnecmd kill")

lbnecmd launch

</pre>

_Old instructions for launching DAQInterface_

<pre>

daqinterface -f <daqinterface file> &

</pre>

The "-f <daqinterface file>" is optional; if left out, the lbnerc/docs/config.txt file will be used to configure DAQInterface, otherwise <daqinterface file> will be used. The DAQInterface configuration is not to be confused with run configurations handled by the configuration manager; see the section "The DAQInterface configuration file" for more. 

Other "expert" arguments:

<pre>

daqinterface -n daqint -r 5570 -c localhost -H localhost -f <daqinterface file> &

</pre>

Here, the "daqint" argument is arbitrary, and is the name you'll give the DAQInterface process in RunControl; the "5570" argument is the port off of which DAQInterface will run.  "-c" refers to the host on which RunControl is running, and "-H" the host on which DAQInterface is running. 

If multiple users with different terminals wish to check the DAQ output, it is recommended to try:

<pre>

stdbuf -oL daqinterface -n daqint -r 5570 -c localhost -H localhost -f <daqinterface file> >>~/DI.log 2>&1 &

</pre>

This will launch daqinterface in the background, with all messages being appended to the bottom of the file ~/DI.log  (The stdbuf -oL prevents buffering of output to the file, so the file should update in real time)

_Old instructions for launching the configuration manager_

Please see the "Starting up the CfgMgrApp on lbne35t-gateway01" section of Jon Paley's documentation here: https://cdcvs.fnal.gov/redmine/projects/fhicl_cfgmgr/wiki

_Old instructions for launching the TDU XMLRPC server_

<pre>

tdu -T 192.168.100.201 -P 10001 -H localhost -r 50008 &

</pre>

?Note that if you are using emulators, you don't need to run using the TDU. Remember to set 'TDU XMLRPC port' to less than or equal 0.

See [[Starting and using TDUControl]] for more details.

}}

h1. Performing a Run

With the applications launched, you can take the DAQ system through the standard transitions to perform a DAQ run. The "ground state" of the DAQ is called the "stopped" state. Each successful transition brings the DAQ into a different state.  Described in more detail later, the chain of states (in quotes) and transitions (in italics) in the DAQ system can be represented as follows:

---

"stopped" -> _init_ -> "ready" -> _start_ -> "running" -> _pause_ -> "paused" -> _resume_ -> "running" -> _stop_ -> "ready" -> _terminate_ -> "stopped"

---

h2. Checking the state of the DAQ

At all stages, you can use the "lbnecmd check" command to see what state DAQInterface is in; example output of this is as follows:

<pre>

lbnecontrol: Available

CfgMgr: Available

DAQInterface: Available

TDUControl: Available

Run number: 797

Run configuration: ganglia_test

Run type: Test

daqint@localhost:5570 (synchronous): running

</pre>

Here, you've already seen how lbnecmd check can tell you whether a given application type has been launched or not; on the bottom line, however, you'll also see a description of the _state_ of the DAQ -- in this case, "running", meaning that it's actively acquiring data. 

Note that you'll want to wait for a transition to complete before issuing another one, otherwise you'll receive a warning and the transition request will be ignored. DAQInterface will also report when transitions are complete -- e.g., at the end of the "initialize" transition, you'd see:

<pre>

Initialize transition complete; if running DAQInterface in the background, can press <enter> to return to shell prompt

</pre>

If a high "debug level" has been set for DAQInterface (see below for more on this), this message can get buried in a set of output messages; in this case "lbnecmd check" may be the easiest way to determine what state the system is in.

h2.  Selecting a run configuration and DAQ components

*Before initializing or starting a DAQ run*, a configuration and set of DAQ components must be selected.  This is done via RunControl.

h3. List and select a configuration:

To see the list of available configurations (queried from the configuration manager):

<pre>

lbnecmd listconfigs

</pre>

This lists all available configs, as well as the current selected config (Note, default config is "No Config"):

<pre>

Available configs (Name : description)

rces_and_ssps : Run up to 8 SSPs and 4 RCEs, with ganglia, online monitoring, and root file output enabled

demo_rc_reporter : A version of the demo which reports metrics to RunControl

demo : This is a demo.  Testing 1, 2, 3…

...

Current selected config: No Config

</pre>

You can then select a configuration -- for the purposes of this tutorial, let's go with "demo", which creates simulated data without using any hardware:

<pre> 

lbnecmd setconfig demo

</pre>

This will return "OK" if successful; "lbnecmd listconfigs" will then show this as the current config via its last line of output: <code>Current selected config: demo</code>.  If the specified configuration is not known, an error is returned. Instructions on how to add or edit a configuration (an expert-only action) are given later in this document.

Note: when taking data with the machine, you'll most likely be using the "rces_and_ssps" configuration; this allows you to connect to the SSPs, RCEs and Penn trigger board, runs the online monitoring module, and saves the output data in *.root files. 

h3. List and select DAQ components.

You can select which portions of the LBNE DAQ setup you want to use in the upcoming run.  These are mapped generally to the artdaq BoardReaderMain processes

that read them out. As an operator, you need to ensure that there are configuration files available in the configuration manager for the DAQ Components that you select here, or DAQInterface will return an error- so, for example, if you're using the "demo" configuration, you couldn't request ssp01 as one of the components, since the demo configuration only allows for components which create simulated (i.e., fake) data. 

To see the list of available DAQ components:

<pre>

lbnecmd listdaqcomps

</pre>

Will return a list of components available and selected (*Default* is ALL available components), e.g.:

<pre>

Available:

component01 (lbnedaq2:5205)

component02 (lbnedaq2:5206)

…

ssp08 (lbnedaq1:5214)

Selected:

component01 (lbnedaq2:5205)

component02 (lbnedaq2:5206)

…

ssp08 (lbnedaq1:5214)

</pre>

The components are shown by name, along with the requested host/port to run the component's corresponding BoardReaderMain process on. You can then select a list of DAQ components to use in the run:

<pre>

lbnecmd setdaqcomps component0{1,2}

</pre>

(n.b. the {1,2} in brackets is a Linux bash shell trick which expands <code>component0{1,2}</code> to <code>component01 component02</code>). This will return "OK" if successful ("lbnecmd listdaqcomps" will show this in the "selected" set of components).  If the specified components are not known, an error is returned.

How to make a new component available to RunControl is described later in this document. 

h2. Initializing, starting, stopping and terminating a Run

For each of these transitions, please recall that while "lbnecmd <cmd>" returns very quickly, the actual issued command can take several seconds or minutes to complete.  Before issuing another command, be sure that the transition is complete by using the check command:

<pre>

lbnecmd check

</pre>

For example, before issuing the "start" transition, you can use this command to ensure that the DAQ is in the "ready" state and not still in the "initializing" stage.

First, take DAQInterface from the "stopped" to the "ready" state; this will create the artdaq processes on the hosts they've been assigned, and initialize them with the FHiCL documents:

<pre>

lbnecmd init daq

</pre>

You'll see the MessageFacility MsgViewer window fill with a few messages; it'll look something like this:

!Msgviewer_init.png!

You'll be able to filter out messages by level of severity; so, for example, if you only cared about Error messages you could click on "Error" in the upper-right hand corner of the window. To reinstate the display of Error, Warning and Info messages, you could click on "Info". In general, allowing for these three types of message is probably a good default. Note that developer decisions about what messages constitute Error vs. Warning vs. Info are still evolving as of Oct 10, 2015, and will likely be influenced by the first couple of weeks of running. 

Now, in order to begin taking data, take DAQInterface from the "ready" to the "running" state:

<pre>

lbnecmd start daq

</pre>

Immediately, you'll see a request for a confirmation that the configuration and selected components are in fact the ones you want; it will look something like the following:

<pre>

DAQ config

**********

Run Type: Test

Selected config: demo

Selected DAQ components:

   component01 (lbnedaq1:5205)

   component02 (lbnedaq1:5206)

Start DAQ with these settings? [y]|n: 

</pre>

Assuming you're happy with the configuration and components, hit "y" to proceed, and as with the other transitions, wait for the "transition complete" message to appear. 

Note that the current run number is displayed when DAQ is in the running state using the "lbnecmd check" command. If the start transition was successful, information about the run is saved in the run records directory, @/data/lbnedaq/run_records/<run_number>@, where @<run_number>@ is to be taken as a stand-in for the actual run number. More on how to understand the directory's contents is described below, under "Examining the output". 

Pause the running of the DAQ, putting DAQInterface into the "paused" state.  This will cause the current open output Root file to be closed and given a name reflecting the current run and subrun numbers (the format as of October 10, 2015 is @lbne_r<run number>_sr<subrun number>_<creation time>.root@; the file appears in /storage/data on lbnedaq6):

<pre>

lbnecmd pause daq

</pre>

Resume the running of the DAQ, returning it to the "running" state.  This will restart data taking to a new output file:

<pre>

lbnecmd resume daq

</pre>

Halt the running of the DAQ, returning DAQInterface to the "ready" state from the "running" state:

<pre>

lbnecmd stop daq

</pre>

From the ready state, you can start a new run with the same configuration and DAQ components you originally selected. 

*NOTE* To select a new configuration or DAQ component set, you must issue the "terminate" command, which will kill all ArtDAQ processes and return DAQInterface to its "stopped" state:

<pre>

lbnecmd terminate daq

</pre>

h2. Examining the output

Once you've completed your run, there are typically two primary outputs: the Root files which contain the data which passed through the DAQ (saved, as of October 10, 2015, in /storage/data on lbnedaq6), and a set of text files containing information about the run. To access these text files, you'll want to go to the run records directory, which defaults to /data/lbnedaq/run_records/<run_number>. This directory contains the FHiCL documents used to control the ArtDAQ processes in the run, the DAQInterface configuration file used (described later in this wiki), and a metadata file, which, among other things, describes where to find a record of the DAQ's output. An example of this file, for run 778, can be found if we look in /data/lbnedaq/run_records/778 at "metadata_r778.txt":

<pre>

Config name: demo

Component #0: component01

Component #1: component02

lbne-artdaq commit: 0f0f9be1c63a3b487170579c887ce79944eca6f8

lbnerc commit: 92935f2702c5e0aa732fd3cc9ff6758e1a0c288c

/data/lbnedaq/config/ commit: 97d8b222742a41d5d10ea942a063ddfacac3ce93

pmt logfile(s): lbnedaq3:/data/lbnedaq/daqlogs/pmt/pmt-25771*.log

boardreader logfiles: 

lbnedaq3:/data/lbnedaq/daqlogs/boardreader/boardreader-20150320163004-lbnedaq2-37365.log

lbnedaq3:/data/lbnedaq/daqlogs/boardreader/boardreader-20150320163004-lbnedaq2-37366.log

eventbuilder logfiles: 

lbnedaq3:/data/lbnedaq/daqlogs/eventbuilder/eventbuilder-20150320163004-lbnedaq2-37364.log

lbnedaq3:/data/lbnedaq/daqlogs/eventbuilder/eventbuilder-20150320163004-lbnedaq2-37363.log

lbnedaq3:/data/lbnedaq/daqlogs/eventbuilder/eventbuilder-20150320163004-lbnedaq2-37368.log

aggregator logfiles: 

lbnedaq3:/data/lbnedaq/daqlogs/aggregator/aggregator-20150320163004-lbnedaq2-37369.log

lbnedaq3:/data/lbnedaq/daqlogs/aggregator/aggregator-20150320163004-lbnedaq2-37367.log

</pre>

The most significant things saved in this file for the end user of the DAQ system are the configuration chosen and the components chosen for the run (at the top of the file), and the wildcard for the pmt (ArtDAQ Process Management Tool) logfiles, which contain the output of the DAQ system, under "pmt logfile(s)" -- so, in this case, executing <code>ls -ltr /data/lbnedaq/daqlogs/pmt/pmt-25771*.log</code> would list the files containing the output of the DAQ in run 778. Concerning this last point, just be aware of the possibility that earlier DAQ sessions may have produced logfiles which also satisfy the wildcard, as the "25771" in the wildcard example provided refer to the process ID of the pmt process, which isn't necessarily unique for a given run. 

{{collapse(Comprehensive details on the contents of the run records directory...)

** The full contents of the metadata file, beyond what's described above, include: 

-The git commit hashes of the lbne-artdaq and lbnerc packages used in the run, as well as the commit hash of the configuration directory used by the configuration manager

-The individual artdaq process logfiles

** A copy of the DAQInterface configuration file with a name of the format <code>config_r<run number>.txt</code> is saved. A description of what this file is comes later in the wiki. 

** Please note that the FHiCL documents saved in the run records directory will contain the actual FHiCL sent to the artdaq processes for the run, and that this will be slightly different than the contents of the FHiCL documents found in the configuration manager's directory. This is because DAQInterface performs some bookkeeping on FHiCL variables which account for things such as the number of processes of a given type (note that it makes no changes which would affect the physics). The saved FHiCL document name is standardized to <processtype>_<host>_<port>_r<run number>.fcl, so, e.g, "EventBuilder_lbnedaq2_5735_r778.fcl" refers to the FhiCL used to control the EventBuilderMain process on lbnedaq2 at port 5735 during run 778. 

** Please also note that the entire subdirectory for the configuration is also saved alongside the FHiCL documents; this is because some FHiCL documents are included via "#include" into the main FHiCL documents for a given process, and this was the way to save them as well as the main FHiCL documents. 

** If one or more RCEs were used in the run, defaults.xml, used to initialize RCEs, is saved as well. 

}}

{{collapse(How to examine your output Root files...)

Various art modules may create various types of output. In particular, it's standard for one of the two AggregatorMains running in an artdaq-based DAQ to use art's RootOutput module, which will save the assembled raw event in an art-readable *.root file. The location of this output can be found in the FHiCL code used to control RootOutput; as of October 10, 2015, the standard output location is /storage/data on lbnedaq6. The other AggregatorMain typically will run other modules designed to create plots, diagnostic printouts, etc.; the nature of the output here is too varied to neatly summarize, but checking the FHiCL code used to control these art modules should reveal their output location.

To take a quick look at the art-readable *.root file, with a version of lbne-artdaq newer than November 25, 2014, you can do the following:

<pre>

cd <lbne-artdaq basedir>

source setupLBNEARTDAQ

rawEventDump -s <rootfile> -n <max events>

</pre>

where here, <lbne-artdaq basedir> is the parent directory of the lbne-artdaq package (make sure the package is of a version equal to or higher than the one used to produce the *.root file - you can check the saved metadata*.txt and DAQInterface configuration files in the run_records/ directory for info on this), <rootfile> is the art-readable *.root file produced in a given run, and <max events> is the max events whose info you wish to look at. For a specific example of the output, say we look at the first event of run 731:

<pre>

rawEventDump -s /data/lbnedaq/data/lbne_r000731_sr01_20150317T162037.root -n 1

</pre>

Then the output will look something like the following:

<pre>

%MSG-i MF_INIT_OK:  art 08-Apr-2015 13:29:00 CDT JobSetup 

Messagelogger initialization complete.

%MSG

%MSG-i PathConfiguration:  art 08-Apr-2015 13:29:00 CDT JobSetup 

Multiple end paths have been combined into one end path,

"end_path" since order is irrelevant.

%MSG

08-Apr-2015 13:29:00 CDT  Initiating request to open file /data/lbnedaq/data/lbne_r000731_sr01_20150317T162037.root

08-Apr-2015 13:29:00 CDT  Successfully opened file /data/lbnedaq/data/lbne_r000731_sr01_20150317T162037.root

--------------------------------------------------------------

Package             |Version             |Timestamp           

artdaq-core         |v1_04_10            |11-Mar-2015 14:35:37 UTC

artdaq              |v1_12_08            |11-Mar-2015 14:37:50 UTC

lbne-raw-data       |v1_02_00            |11-Mar-2015 14:36:11 UTC

lbne-artdaq         |v1_01_02            |13-Mar-2015 20:31:07 UTC

--------------------------------------------------------------

Begin processing the 1st record. run: 731 subRun: 1 event: 1 at 08-Apr-2015 13:29:00 CDT

PROCESS NAME | MODULE LABEL.. | PRODUCT INSTANCE NAME | DATA PRODUCT TYPE............ | PRODUCT FRIENDLY TYPE | SIZE

DAQ......... | daq........... | PHOTON............... | std::vector<artdaq::Fragment> | artdaq::Fragments.... | ...7

DAQ......... | daq........... | TPC.................. | std::vector<artdaq::Fragment> | artdaq::Fragments.... | ...8

DAQAG....... | TriggerResults | ..................... | art::TriggerResults.......... | art::TriggerResults.. | ...-

Total products (present, not present): 8 (3, 5).

PROCESS NAME | MODULE LABEL | PRODUCT INSTANCE NAME | DATA PRODUCT TYPE.................... | PRODUCT FRIENDLY TYPE.... | SIZE

DAQAG....... | BuildInfo... | LbneArtdaq........... | std::vector<artdaq::PackageBuildInfo> | artdaq::PackageBuildInfos | ...4

Total products (present, not present): 1 (1, 0).

08-Apr-2015 13:29:00 CDT  Closed file /data/lbnedaq/data/lbne_r000731_sr01_20150317T162037.root

TrigReport ---------- Event  Summary ------------

TrigReport Events total = 1 passed = 1 failed = 0

TrigReport ------ Modules in End-Path: end_path ------------

TrigReport  Trig Bit#    Visited     Passed     Failed      Error Name

TrigReport     0    0          1          1          0          0 printBuildInfo

TrigReport     0    0          1          1          0          0 out1

TimeReport ---------- Time  Summary ---[sec]----

TimeReport CPU = 0.017439 Real = 0.007998

Art has completed and will exit with status 0.

</pre>

The first thing you see here is the version and build time of the lbne-artdaq package and some of the main packages on which it depends. Then you see a listing of products in the Root file, here including seven fragments of type PHOTON (from the SSPs) and eight fragments of type TPC (from the RCEs).  Finally, a listing of passed/failed events; the output here is the result of running with "-n 1" as an option, so as we'd expect there's only one event.

}}

h1. The DAQInterface configuration file

DAQInterface uses some key information stored in a local configuration file, NOT to be confused with the run configuration described elsewhere on this wiki. It's expected that for normal operations, most parameters should not need to changed too often, and alterations will be primarily of developer or expert interest. If you ARE a developer/expert or are simply curious, {{collapse(read on…)

 Examples of this information are the hosts and ports (i.e., communication sockets) for artdaq processes, location of lbne-artdaq software, debug (log) level, etc). These can be changed while the DAQ is in its "stopped" state; please note you can leave RunControl running but will want to kill DAQInterface and restart it with the edited DAQInterface configuration file. The default DAQInterface configuration file is docs/config.txt (relative to /data/lbnedaq/daqarea/lbnerc); if you wish to change parameters, it's considered best practice not to edit this default file but rather to copy it to a file of the form "<code>docs/config_<your username>.txt</code>", and edit that file, passing it to the DAQInterface executable as described in the section on launching applications. Take a look at the default DAQInterface configuration file; it should look something like the following:

<pre>

lbne-artdaq: /data/lbnedaq/lbne-artdaq-standard/build_lbne-artdaq

PMT host: lbnedaq3

PMT port: 5400

pause before initialization: 5

# debug level can range from 0 to 3 (increasing order of verbosity)

debug level: 1

log directory:   /data/lbnedaq/daqlogs

record directory: /data/lbnedaq/run_records

# If this file is "config.txt" -- i.e., the standard, non-expert,

# non-testing version of the DAQInterface configuration file -- do not

# set "disable configuration check" to "true"

disable configuration check: false

# If TDU XMLRPC port is set to 0 or less, no sync pulse will be sent

# by the TDU at the start transition

TDU XMLRPC port: 50008

EventBuilder host: lbnedaq6

EventBuilder port: 5235

EventBuilder host: lbnedaq6

EventBuilder port: 5236

Aggregator host: lbnedaq6

Aggregator port: 5265

Aggregator host: lbnedaq6

Aggregator port: 5266

max file size (MB): 5000

max file time (min): 10

</pre>

Presented roughly in order of likelihood of how often you'd change them, the parameters are the following:

* *lbne-artdaq* : the directory in which the desired build of lbne-artdaq to use is located; you would change this if you'd modified and built a personal copy of lbne-artdaq for hardware troubleshooting purposes, for example.

* *disable configuration check* : a boolean which can be set to "true" or "false"; normally this should be set to "false", which means that on the start transition, DAQInterface will intentionally fail and put itself into the "stopped" state if it discovers that edits have been made to the configuration directory since the last commit in that directory. If very frequent edits to the configuration directory are made during hardware debugging, however, switching this feature on to "true" can make life considerably easier. 

* *max file size (MB) / max file time (min)* : when a diskwriting run is performed, these values set the maximum file size in megabytes and the maximum time of data collection in minutes before an automatic stop-start is issued by the auto_file_close.sh script, effectively stopping the run, closing the current file, starting a new run, and opening a new file. Note that it's whichever of these variables that gets hit first that triggers the stop-start, and that if either of these variables is set to 0, that disables use of the variable (so if they're both set to 0, no automatic stop-starts ever get issued). 

* *The hosts and ports of the EventBuilderMain and AggregatorMain artdaq processes* : Specifically, a process is defined in two lines, where each line should contain "EventBuilder" or "Aggregator", and then define the host and port on which the EventBuilderMain or AggregatorMain will run (to run an artdaq process on the same host as you're on, use "localhost"). Please note that the order of processes matters, and that they should be listed front-end to back-end, i.e., EventBuilders should appear before Aggregators. Note also you can define any number of EventBuilderMains, but that you must have two and only two AggregatorMains, and they must be on the same host. 

* *pause before initialization* : the time in seconds between when the artdaq processes have been created and when they're initialized via FHiCL documents; empirically a pause of 5 seconds seems to be sufficient (less than this and errors can occur; see below in the "Troubleshooting" section for more)

* *debug level* : allows the user to set the verbosity level of the output to the screen; setting it to higher values creates greater verbosity, and as a practical matter, the range of settings is currently 0-3. Loosely speaking, "0" means minimal output (not much beyond simply announcing a transition is complete), "1" includes announcements of progress during transitions, "2" includes these announcements plus the values of certain variables as well as lbne-artdaq output, and "3" is primarily of developer interest. 

* *TDU XMLRPC port* : the value of the port through which DAQInterface will communicate with an XML-RPC server linked to the TDU. Needed for DAQInterface to send a sync pulse to the TDU at the beginning of the "start" and "resume" transitions. If this is set to 0 or a negative value, no sync pulse is attempted. For more on the TDU and its code, see Tom Dealtry's Wiki "here":https://cdcvs.fnal.gov/redmine/projects/lbne-daq/wiki/Starting_and_using_TDUControl

* *PMT host* : the host on which artdaq's process management tool script (pmt.rb, used by DAQInterface to launch and kill the artdaq processes) will run

* *PMT port* : pmt.rb's port

* *log directory* : (NEVER CHANGE THIS UNLESS YOU'RE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING) the directory relative to which lbne-artdaq's pmt/*.log output (a record of what it sent to stdout) will be placed, as well as the individual artdaq process logs, found in boardreader/, eventbuilder/, and aggregator/

* *record directory* : (NEVER CHANGE THIS UNLESS YOU'RE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING) the directory to which metadata about the run (FHiCL documents used, DAQInterface configuration file used, etc.) gets sent

}}

h1. Editing or adding RunControl configurations

{{collapse(Expand for info here…)

Adding a new configuration selectable from RunControl involves two steps: creating a directory with the desired name of the configuration which contains the desired FHiCL documents, and then committing that directory to the git repository. 

As of 11/20/14, the FHiCL documents associated with a given configuration are edited within the directory

<pre>

/data/lbnedaq/config/<named_configuration>

</pre>

where "named_configuration" would be the name of the configuration, in this example. Within this directory, the following files are expected:

* Aggregator1.fcl and Aggregator2.fcl, used to initialize the two AggregatorMain processes in the DAQ system

* <named_component>_hw_cfg.fcl, used to initialize the BoardReaderMain process running the fragment generator associated with detector component "named_component". Note that there can be any number of such files associated with a configuration, as long as a given component is registered to RunControl (see below, "Adding new DAQ Components to RunControl")

There are existing examples of configurations currently within /data/lbnedaq/config which can be studied (and even copied) for further guidance; a good starting point is the "demo" configuration due to its relative simplicity. Note that the FHiCL documents in these directories contain some variables which are set to "PLACEHOLDER", e.g.

<pre>

 event_builder_count: PLACEHOLDER

</pre>

Note that this is not legal FHiCL, but that DAQInterface will substitute in the appropriate value before using the FHiCL document to initialize an artdaq process; here, for example, it would replace "PLACEHOLDER" with the actual number of EventBuilderMain processes being run.

Once you've added a new configuration to /data/lbnedaq/config, you'll need to perform a git commit. Essentially,  /data/lbnedaq/config is not merely a collection of directories naming configurations, but also a git repository. In fact, if you run

<pre>

git log

</pre>

you'll see a history of the commits made to the repository. In order to commit the directory, a couple of steps need to be taken:

* From /data/lbnedaq/config/, run <pre>git add <named_configuration></pre>. This will "stage" the directory to be committed. Running <pre>git status</pre> should show you something like the following:

<pre>

# On branch master

# Changes to be committed:

#   (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)

#

#	new file:   helloworld/Aggregator1.fcl

#	new file:   helloworld/Aggregator2.fcl

#	new file:   helloworld/component01_hw_cfg.fcl

#	new file:   helloworld/component02_hw_cfg.fcl

#

</pre>

* Next, run <pre>git commit -m "<commit message>"</pre>. The commit message should be your three initials followed by a colon, the name of the configuration followed by a colon, and then a brief description of the new configuration, including its name, e.g.:

<pre>

git commit -m "JCF: helloworld: This configuration does not exist in the actual repo, it's simply used for documentation purposes"

</pre>

Be aware of rules governing strings delimited by double quotes in bash -- i.e., don't try double quoting a word or phrase inside of your commit description. 

</pre>

Now, make sure that the commit took place correctly by running

<pre>

git diff HEAD

</pre>

If your commit is at the head of the master branch, you should see no output; additionally, if you run

<pre>

git log

</pre>

you should be able to see your commit at the top.

* Finally, make sure to push your change to the central repository; to do this, simply execute

<pre>

git push origin

</pre>

and now, if you run 

<pre>

git diff origin/master

</pre>

you should again see no output. Pushing to the central repository is important as this is essentially the backup area for configurations; if a user accidentally overwrites something in /data/lbnedaq/config, as long as commits have been pushed to the central repository there will still be a saved record of configurations before the overwrites took place. In fact, as of this writing (12/3/14), if either (A) edits have been made to the /data/lbnedaq/config directory since its most recent commit, or (B) that commit hasn't been pushed to the central repository, DAQInterface will refuse to execute the initialize transition.

}}

h1. Adding new DAQ Components to RunControl

{{collapse(Expand for info here…)

The list of available DAQComponents (maps to BoardReader processes) is maintained by RunControl in the file:

<pre>

/home/lbnedaq/.lbnerc-components

</pre>

Each entry (name: host port) defines:

* name - name of the component, maps to a <name>_hw_cfg.fcl in CfgMgr's configuration directory

* host - hostname where BoardReader process will be started

* port - XMLRPC port to be used, must be unique and used by other processes.

For example:

<pre>

component01: lbnedaq2 5205

component02: lbnedaq2 5206

</pre>

Has two components (component01 and component02) both running on lbnedaq2 on ports 5205 and 5206.

*Note* that you will need to kill and re-launch RunControl if you add a component

}}

h1.  Troubleshooting and FAQ

h2.  Common RunControl issues

h3. How can I get a list of all RunControl commands?

<pre>

lbnecmd help

</pre>

will list all available commands for RunControl with some details for help.

h3. It seems that "lbnecmd" is not responding properly

If the primary run control server process (called _lbnecontrol_) is not running, or has gotten into an unresponsive state (often characterized by RPC timeouts), you might have to start/restart the main run control process.

To check the health of Run Control, try:

<pre>

lbnecmd check

</pre>

Normal output will look like:

<pre>

(env)[lbnedaq@lbne35t-gateway01 daqarea]$ lbnecmd check

lbnecontrol: Available

CfgMgr: Available

DAQInterface: Available

TDUControl: Available

daqint@localhost:5570 (synchronous): stopped

</pre>

If you see errors such as:

<pre>

(env)[lbnedaq@lbne35t-gateway01 lbnerc]$ lbnecmd check 

check failed: 'timed out'. Is lbnecontrol running? 

</pre>

or 

<pre>

(env)[lbnedaq@lbne35t-gateway01 lbnerc]$ lbnecmd check 

check failed: '[Errno 111] Connection refused'.  Is lbnecontrol running?

</pre>

You'll need to restart/start the lbnecontrol server. First make sure it's stopped:

<pre>

> lbnecmd kill

</pre>

Then start it:

<pre>

> lbnecmd launch

</pre>

If you run into errors like:

<pre>

> lbnecmd launch

Control program is running or stale process file (/tmp/lbnecontrol.pid) exists!

</pre>

Make sure the lbnecontrol process is dead.

<pre>

> ps -ef |grep lbnecontrol |grep -v grep

</pre>

 If it's still there, you can kill it (kill <PID>), then remove the lock file and restart lbnecontrol:

<pre>

> rm /tmp//tmp/lbnecontrol.pid

> lbnecmd launch

</pre>

h3.  No real configurations are listed by RunControl

If you run "lbnecmd listconfigs" and see something like:

<pre>

Available configs (Name : description)

dummy : Dummy description

</pre>

Instead of your expected configurations, RunControl is not able to connect to CfgMgr.  Please make sure it's running; how to do this, described earlier in the wiki, is simply to execute "lbnecmd check", and launching the configuration manager, also described earlier, can be done via "launch_daq_applications.sh -c"

h3. "lbnecmd check" returns "@Unknown exception '<ProtocolError for localhost:50008/RPC2: -1 >'@"

This sometimes happens when the TDU XML-RPC server has died. You can confirm this has happened by running "check_daq_applications.sh";  to relaunch it, run "launch_daq_applications.sh -t".

h2.  Common DAQInterface issues

As a preliminary: if something goes wrong when running the DAQ, there are two valuable sources of information:

# The pmt logfile(s), containing the output of the artdaq processes (including the output of the art modules run within them -- so, for example, an exception throw from within a module would appear here). Where to find these logfiles is described in the section "Examining your output", earlier in this wiki. 

# The RunControl logfile, /home/lbnedaq/.lbnerc.log . This contains both the information sent from DAQInterface to RunControl, as well as diagnostic logging (such as the traceback of exception throws within DAQInterface)

In general, when something goes wrong during the running of the DAQ -- e.g., an artdaq process dies, or a sync pulse is attempted when the TDU XML-RPC server isn't alive -- DAQInterface will impose upon itself the "recovery" transition, where it returns itself to the "stopped" state regardless of whatever state it may have currently been in. When this occurs, you'll see something like the following:

<pre>

DAQInterface: "Recover" transition underway

JCF, 6/12/14 -- for now at least, "Recover" simply kills the artdaq processes

Recover transition complete; if running DAQInterface in the background, can press <enter> to return to shell prompt

</pre>

If a recovery transition occurs, often you can begin using the DAQ again (starting with "lbnecmd init daq") without any issues. However, some issues may be persistent, or require manual intervention. A subset of those issues are described below. If any new ones come up, please contact John Freeman at jcfree@fnal.gov. 

h3. *Whenever you try to initialize, right after initialization DAQInterface immediately enters recovery mode*

Specifically, you'll see something like the following:

<pre>

Fri Nov 20 18:16:32 CST 2015: Initialize transition complete; if running DAQInterface in the background, can press <enter> to return to shell prompt

Fri Nov 20 18:16:33 CST 2015: DAQInterface: "Recover" transition underway

JCF, 6/12/14 -- for now at least, "Recover" simply kills the artdaq processes

JCF, 10/21/15 -- have now added an attempted stop transition

Fri Nov 20 18:16:50 CST 2015: Recover transition complete; if running DAQInterface in the background, can press <enter> to return to shell prompt

</pre>

This happens because on a previous run, DAQInterface threw an exception. As of Nov-20-2015, the most common cause of this is that it was unable to send a requested transition to an artdaq process because the process wasn't responding- a very common cause of this is a buildup of incomplete events in the eventbuilders. The only thing to do here is to kill and relaunch DAQInterface. 

h3. *On the initialize transition ("lbnecmd init daq") you see "Unclean working configuration directory /data/lbnedaq/config/ found"*

This means that the subdirectory of /data/lbnedaq/config corresponding to the active configuration has been edited without commits being made. If you're not using the generic DAQInterface configuration file "config.txt", but rather, have your own copy, you can set "disable configuration check: true" to sidestep this error. This is NOT recommended during standard physics running, but is OK if you're in commissioning. Or, you can either commit the changes (if they were yours) or contact John Freeman, jcfree@fnal.gov, describing the situation. 

h3. *On the initialize transition ("lbnecmd init daq"), you see "error: [Errno 111] Connection refused"*

If a "Recover" is triggered and you can see via "lbnecmd check" that DAQInterface is in the "stopped" state, try initializing again. If that doesn't work, you can try increasing the value of the "pause before initialization" variable in the DAQInterface configuration file. Empirically, it appears there needs to be a pause of at least 5 seconds before the FHiCL documents can be successfully sent via XML-RPC to the processes; increasing this value may make it less likely that the "Connection refused" error occurs.

h3. *On the start transition ("lbnecmd start daq"), you see "@TDU RESULT: socket.error caught: [Errno 111] Connection refused    Is the XMLRPC server up?@"*

This error will trigger the Recover transition and return you to the stopped state. What it means is that there was an issue connecting to the TDU XML-RPC server (most likely, it wasn't running). Run "lbnecmd check" to see whether it's available; if not, launch it in the usual fashion (i.e., "launch_daq_applications.sh -t"), and then proceed with the standard DAQ transition sequence ("lbnecmd init daq", etc.)

h3. *Regardless of how high the debug level is set to, you don't see any output to screen when you issue transitions to DAQInterface*

Chances are that DAQInterface was started in another terminal, and consequently, it's in that terminal where output will appear. If DAQInterface was started via the "launch_daq_applications.sh" script, then as of May-5-2015, all output is directed to /data/lbnedaq/daqlogs/daqinterface/DI.log, so running "tail -f  /data/lbnedaq/daqlogs/daqinterface/DI.log" from another terminal will guarantee you can see DAQInterface output in real time. Please note this file is appended to, not overwritten, so only the end of the file will be of interest. 

{{collapse(Of developer interest)

h3.  *Error handling*

As of this writing (11/14/14) certain potential problems have been anticipated and are handled within DAQInterface. These problems include:

# An artdaq process returns an error state after a transition request, or an exception is thrown by the XML-RPC library during the request

# During periodic checks, one or more artdaq processes expected to exist are not found

In either case, an error is reported via 0MQ to RunControl, and the "Recover" transition is automatically triggered. This transition is a fairly blunt instrument: it will kill any remaining artdaq processes and return DAQInterface to its original state of "stopped" (i.e., one in which it requires the "init" transition before anything else is done). 

h3. *Your change to the DAQInterface configuration file or the daqinterface.py code doesn't seem to do anything*

Make sure you kill the existing daqinterface process and restart it

}}

h2. Common lbne-artdaq issues

h3. The message "Failed to connect to shared memory segment" appears in the logfile

The full message is "<code>Failed to connect to shared memory segment, errno = 22.  Please check if a stale shared memory segment needs to be cleaned up. (ipcs, ipcrm -m <segId>)</code>". Go to the system on which the process that issued the message is running (e.g., if it was an AggregatorMain process on lbnedaq2, go there) and run <code>ipcs</code>. You should see something like the following:

<pre>

------ Shared Memory Segments --------

key        shmid      owner      perms      bytes      nattch     status      

0x40471518 4161536    lbnedaq    666        16777216   0          

</pre>

This is the offending memory segment. To remove it, run the following (where here, we'll assume it's the one with shared memory ID 4161536, above-- of course you'll most likely see a different ID): <code>ipcrm -m  4161536</code>. Now, if you run <code>ipcs</code> again, the segment should not be listed; furthermore, the error should not appear again if you run again with the DAQ. 

h3. The message "An exception occurred when trying to send a message to 131.225.177.29:30000" appears in the logfile

Port 30000 is the port on which MessageFacility MessageViewer communicates; this above message appears if the MessageViewer window has been closed, and the DAQ is trying to send a message to MessageViewer. It's not a concern from a practical standpoint- it simply means that DAQInterface should be killed and restarted in order to pop up a new MessageViewer window.