KedoKudo/virtualbeamline

Virtual Beamline based on docker

Virtual Beamline for BlueSky Control System Testing

Build Sequence

• Base image is Debian with Epics added in.
  • EPICS: https://github.com/epics-base/epics-base
  • The default epics is located at /opt/epics-base/
• Synthetic apps (synapps) is build on top of the base image.
  • epics-synapps: https://github.com/EPICS-synApps/support
• Each individual sim device is a container.

Step-by-step Build the Virtual Beamline

• Create a network for all virtual devices using

  docker network create --driver bridge virtualbeam

  • All devices need to be run with --net=virtualbeam

• Start the caRepeater on the network

  docker run -d --rm --entrypoint="bin/linux-x86_64/caRepeater" --name="caRepeater" --net=virtualbeam kedokudo/virtualbeamline:epics-base

• Start the remaing devices

  • Start the simulated scalers and motors
    docker run -dit --rm -e IOC_PREFIX='6iddSIM:' -e IOCNAME='6iddSIM' --net=virtualbeam --name="ioc6iddsimmtr" kedokudo/virtualbeamline:ioc6iddsimmtr /bin/bash

  • Start the simulated detector for 6-ID-D
    docker run -dit --rm -e IOC_PREFIX='6iddSIMDET1:' --net=virtualbeam --name='ioc6iddsimdet' kedokudo/virtualbeamline:ioc6iddsimdet /bin/bash

    • This will start the sim detector session in the background, to reconnect to it, issue
      docker attach simDet
      and use
      ctrl+p ctrl+q
      to safely detatch from the container without stopping it.

• Accessing PVs on the network by first starting a new container with
  docker run -it --rm --net=virtualbeam kedokudo/virtualbeamline:base /bin/bash

One-stop-shop

Go to the root of the repo where you can find the file docker-compose.yml, then issue the follwoing command

>> docker-compose up -d

which should start up all the virtual devices in a bridge network. To power down the entire virtual beamline, go to the same folder as above and issue

>> docker-compose down

which will stop all containers (virtual devices), then the entire virtual network.

• Technically, you can use -f $DOCKER_COMPOSE_FILE if you want to start the virtual beamline at other location.
• A console is provided to inspec all virtual devices using epics cmd. To attach to it, use docker attach $console_ID to start the shell.