installation.rst

Installation

You start with checking out the source code, f.e. the master branch, as well as the git submodules we use:

git clone https://git.astron.nl/lofar2.0/tango.git
cd tango
git submodule init
git submodule update

Next, we bootstrap the system. This will build our docker images, start key ones, and load the base configuration. This may take a while:

cd docker-compose
make bootstrap

If you lack access to LOFAR station hardware, load additional configurations to use the simulators instead:

for sim in ../CDB/\*-sim-config.json; do
  ../sbin/update_ConfigDb.sh ../CDB${sim}-config.json
done

Now we are ready to start the other containers:

make start

and make sure they are all up and running:

make status

You should see the following state:

• Containers astor, hdbpp-viewer, jive, log-viewer and pogo will have State Exit 1. These are containers that are interactive X11 tools, and not needed for now,
• Other containers have either State Up or Exit 0.

If not, you can inspect why with docker logs <container>. Note that the containers will automatically be restarted on failure, and also if you reboot. Stop them explicitly to bring them down (make stop <container>).

Initialisation

The following procedure describes how to initialise the system, which is required after installation and after a system reboot.

The docker containers will automatically restart after a system reboot. But the Linux kernel will lose its required custom settings required by our ELK stack. To reconfigure the kernel parameters, run:

make start elk-configure-host
make restart elk

We can now initialise the station configuration, that is, start all the software devices to control the station hardware, and to initialise the hardware with the configured default settings. Go to http://localhost:8888, start a new Station Control notebook, and initiate the software boot sequence:

# reset our boot device
boot.off()
assert boot.state() == DevState.OFF
boot.initialise()
assert boot.state() == DevState.STANDBY
boot.on()
assert boot.state() == DevState.ON

# start and initialise the other devices
boot.initialise_station()

# wait for the devices to be initialised
import time

while boot.initialising_station_R:
  print(f"Still initialising station. {boot.initialisation_progress_R}% complete. State: {boot.initialisation_status_R}")
  time.sleep(1)

# print conclusion
if boot.initialisation_progress_R == 100:
  print("Done initialising station.")
else:
  print(f"Failed to initialise station: {boot.initialisation_status_R}")