Installing and configuring the hardware simulator

The hardware simulator is a TCL script which will connect to DCSS and announce itself as the 'simdhs' hardware server. All entries in the DCCS database.dat file that are controlled by the 'simdhs' hardware server will be simulated.

The script will simulate motors, shutters, and ion chambers.

1. Checkout the hardware simulator from CVS into your DCS root directory.

   blctlxx:~/release-3_2 > cvs checkout -r release-3_2 simdhs
   cvs checkout: Updating simdhs
   cvs checkout: Updating simdhs/examples
   U simdhs/examples/serverPorts.txt
   cvs checkout: Updating simdhs/scripts
   U simdhs/scripts/DcssConnection.tcl
   U simdhs/scripts/ionChambersClass.tcl
   U simdhs/scripts/message_handlers.tcl
   U simdhs/scripts/motorClass.tcl
   U simdhs/scripts/operations.tcl
   U simdhs/scripts/set.tcl
   U simdhs/scripts/simdhs.tcl
   U simdhs/scripts/util.tcl
   

2. Copy the simdhs/examples/serverPorts.txt file into the top directory of the simdhs directory from the examples directory.

   blctlxx:~/release-3_2/simdhs > cp examples/serverPorts.txt .

   This file simply contains a single number that tells the script which port it should try to connect to DCSS on. This number should match the 2nd number in the file by the same name in the /dcss directory.

3. Verify that the simulator will try to connect to the correct beam line computer.

   The statement 'set serverName localhost' in simdhs/scripts/simdhs.tcl should be changed to point at the machine that the DCSS is running on (if it is not running on the the same machine).

4. Start the hardware simulator script in simdhs/scripts directory.

   blctlxx:~/release-3_2/simdhs/scripts > ./simdhs.tcl