Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Jeong Han Lee <[email protected]> · Mon, 24 Mar 2014 10:29:50 +0900

Hi Matt,

 Only to focus the 'power-cycling or rebooting' option, here I want to

share my options as follows:

* Serial server : if you can still access the CPU though 'serial server'

at least (Digi Portserver, Moxa serial server and so on). If you have

small number of VME crates, it is a reasonable solution. However, it

does not work if VxWorks freezes completely.

* VME Crate has an Ethernet access to activate 'Reset' crate. For

example, Wiener supports SNMPv1/v2c so far. So, simply snmp command can

reset the Wiener Crate.

* Remote Accessible Power Distribution Unit, e.g., APC AP7921, is

another option. It is independent upon the VME crate, and it supports

SNMPv1/2c/3. So simply snmp command can reset a power outlet which is

used for the VME crate.

When I worked at JLab, I used all three and possible methods, because

some VME crates, installed in a experimental hall, are limited to access

due to operation procedures/time and radiation. By simple GUI interface,

a operator or s shift crew could execute any 'reboot' or 'reset'

commands easily and it worked well. However, there was one concern for

SNMPv1/2c security issue. At that time, I only the SNMP2c within one

subnet and hided SNMP bare commands under GUI in order to reduce any

security issue.

Anyway, to resolve this issue, I asked the Wiener to support SNMPv3 in

their VME crate controller firmware last year. And the Wiener is

developing "SNMPv3 support" now and may (I hope) deliver a firmware that

supports SNMPv3, to our site this summer. We are currently testing

response time of v1/2c/3 by using simple network configurations. As you

know, v3 is extremely slow. Technically, ELMA has the very early SNMPv3

(Read) support, but their support isn't good (Only Read, bad MIB file

and so on). CAEN has no plan to support SNMPv3 yet.

  Thanks,
  Han

On 03/22/2014 06:31 AM, Matt Rippa wrote:

Thanks Steve.

The better coding part is always good =). But my last hang-ups
were testing a new vxworks kernel and using the cross-wind
debugger. Yikes! I haven't done that in years.

Sounds like better negotiating with my team is in order.

-Matt

On 03/21/2014 10:53 AM, Hartman, Steven M. wrote:

On Mar 21, 2014, at 3:21 PM, Matt Rippa <[email protected]>
wrote:

Can a modified reboot handler help with any of these
occurrences?

With VxWorks, you can definitely get yourself into enough
trouble that ^X or reboot() won't be enough. A SYSRESET or
perhaps even a power cycle is needed. If you just have a
terminal shell, you are out of luck. SNS built an option for
sending a reset through the timing system to the timing
receiver board which issues a SYSRESET on the backplane
(although this is almost never used). Some VME crates have
their own network interface which can be used to send a reset
or power cycle. A network power cycler is another option. If
you don't have something like that, and the crate is far
away, you best option is careful coding.

--
Jeong Han Lee, Dr.rer.nat.
----------------------------
Accelerator Systems Division
Rare Isotope Science Project
Institute for Basic Science
Daejeon, South Korea
----------------------------
tel  : +82-42-878-8733
fax  : +82-42-878-8799

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System