CARS Windows NT Configuration

This document describes the current CARS Windows NT configuration, and contains instructions and recommendations for configuring software on Windows NT workstations.

Overview
Servers
Shared disks
Printers
Server software
Workstation software

Overview

CARS runs a single Windows NT domain, called CARS_NT_DOMAIN. This domain includes contains two Windows NT servers, and more than 70 Windows NT workstations. The domain includes machines both at the University of Chicago (.uchicago.edu suffix) and at the APS (.cars.aps.anl.gov suffix).

Servers

The domain contains three Windows NT Servers, CARS4.UCHICAGO.EDU which is in room ACC-201 at the University of Chicago, and CARS5.CARS.APS.ANL.GOV, which is in Building 434A at the APS. CARS5 is the Primary Domain Controller, while CARS4 and CARS6 are Backup Domain Controllers.

The CARS5 hardware configuration is:

Dual 450 MHz Pentium II CPUs
512 MB of memory
RAID-5 disk array with 415 GB is disk space. Hot-swappable disks with redundancy
35/70 GB (uncompressed/compressed) Digital Linear Tape (DLT) tape drive.
100 Mbit switched Ethernet network connection

The CARS4 hardware configuration is:

Dual 300 MHz Pentium II CPUs
512 MB of memory?
32 GB of disk space
35/70 GB (uncompressed/compressed) Digital Linear Tape (DLT) tape drive.
100 Mbit Ethernet network connection

Shared disks

CARS4 and CARS5 both contain large disk arrays, and share these disks with all workstations in the domain. The following convention is recommended for all workstations:

Mount the share \\CARS4\Users as drive E:
Mount the share \\CARS4\Server as drive F:
Mount the share \\CARS5\Users as drive P:
Mount the share \\CARS5\Server as drive S:

At present most users have their home directories on the P: drive, i.e. on CARS5. Users who spend most of their time at the APS are strongly encouraged to move their files to the P: drive on CARS5, and to make this their home directory. Doing so will:

Reduce network traffic from APS to the University
Reduce vulnerability to network problems between APS and the University
Improve performance because CARS5 has 100 Mbit Ethernet, while CARS4 only has 10 Mbit Ethernet.

The disks on CARS4 and CARS5 can be accessed via the following protocols:

Standard Windows file access, i.e. through Network Neighborhood or via Tools/Mount Network Drive in NT Explorer.
Via FTP. When FTPing into CARS4 or CARS5 you will be placed by default in a "Guest" directory tree. You can get to your directory by typing
ftp> cd /Users/yourname
CARS5 also supports access via NFS (Network File System). This allows Unix and VMS machines to access the files on CARS5. Contact the CARS Computer Administrator in order to allow a new user or a new computer to access CARS5 via NFS. To access files on CARS5 from a Unix system type a command like the following:
ls /net/cars5/Users
or
ls /hosts/cars5/Users
To access files on CARS5 from CARS3, our VMS system, type a command like the following:
SET DEFAULT CARS5$USERS:[RIVERS] or
SET DEFAULT CARS5$WIN32APP:[RSI]

Printers

There are a large number of printers in the NT domain. Most of these printers have Ethernet interfaces and run the Internet LPD protocol. Our philosophy for communicating with these printers is:

Each printer should only have one NT print queue associated with it. While it is possible for any number of workstations to create print queues directly to an Ethernet printer, this is not a good idea because:
- It is impossible to see what jobs are queued to that printer
- It is impossible to tell what computer an errant print job is coming from and thus to kill it
Rather, all workstations should print via a single network print queue, typically on one of the Windows NT Servers, CARS4 or CARS6. This way it is easy to see all the jobs waiting to be sent to any printer, and to kill misbehaving print jobs.
The print queue for a given printer should be located on the server which is on the same network as the printer, i.e. printers at the University will have their print queues on CARS4 and printers at the APS will have their print queues on CARS6.
To install a printer on a Windows 2000 or Windows XP workstation please follow these instruction first by Clicking here.

Exceed Upgrade & Configuration

Upgrade to Exceed 7.x from 6.x

1. Go to "\\CARS5\Server\Exceed 7.X" in Network Neighborhood
2. Start msetup.exe
3. Click "Install Exceed XDK"
4. Click "Personal Installation"
5. Click "OK" for English
6. Click "Next"
7. Click "Finish" to reboot
8. Repeat Steps 1-5
9. Select "No" for "Migrate Product" and click "Next"
10. At License, Click "Agree" and click "Next"
11. Select "Install For Anyone" and click "Next"
12. Default Install Directory is "C:\Program Files\Hummingbird\Connectivity\7.00" -- Click Next
13. Select "Typical" and click "Next"
14. Click "Install"
15. Select Keyboard "decemus.kbf" and click "Next"
16. Skip Password Screen
17. Skip X-Server Tune-up
18. Click "Finish"

Configuration

1. Start Exceed
2. Right-click program in taskbar, go to 'Tools - Configuration'
3. Select "Screen", uncheck "Close Warning on Exit"
4. Open "Fonts"
5. Select "Import Alias" and locate "S:\Win32App\Exceed 7.x\Fonts\medm\Fonts_sun.ali"
6. Click "Import" Button
7. Click "OK"
8. Close all windows and shutdown Exceed.

Next Install EPICS Win32 Extensions (MEDM)

MEDM

MEDM is the software to create and display GUIs for use with EPICS. Before you can run MEDM you must have installed Hummingbird's Exceed X Windows Software.

The shortcut to MEDM should start in the directory i:\epics\R3.13.0\CARS\CARSApp\op\adl. But you will have to perform step 13 below. The i: drive is typically mounted as corvette:/people as the current login user. This will mean that File/Open in medm will be in the directory with the CARS .adl files, but with read-only permission. To have read/write permission set the directory to j: which is normally mounted as user EPICS.

To install MEDM locally (for instance on a machine at home)

1. Run S:\Win32App\EPICS WIN32 Extensions\EPICSEx35-win32.EXE
2. Click Setup
3. Click Next
4. Click Yes
5. Click Next
6. Click Next
7. Select Full Install, Click Next
8. Click Next
9. Click Next
10. Click Finish
11. Right Click MEDM
12. Go to Properties
13. Adjust "Start In" to "i:\epics\current\cars\CARSApp\op\adl"

In order to run medm there are a few environment variables which need to be set. Go to Settings/Control Panel/System/Environment and set the following variables. This can either be done for the current user or the current machine. Since we would like medm to run the same on every machine, I recommend setting these environment variables as System Variables (which apply to the specific machine) rather than User Variables (which apply to the specific user).

EPICS_CA_ADDR_LIST

This tells EPICS to look for Process Variables on the GSECARS 100-Base-T network (where all of our IOCs are located) and in the APS Process Variable Gateway, which is where things like the ring current and machine status are found. Note that when running medm from off-site the APS PV Gateway is not accessible, so you cannot see the machine status information. Multiple entries for EPICS_CA_ADDR_LIST are separated by spaces.

EPICS_DISPLAY_PATH \\corvette.cars.aps.anl.gov\people\epics\R3.13.0\CARS\CARSApp\op\adl; \\corvette.cars.aps.anl.gov\people\epics\R3.13.0\share\mcaApp\op\adl; \\corvette.cars.aps.anl.gov\people\epics\R3.13.0\share\stdApp\op\adl; \\corvette.cars.aps.anl.gov\people\epics\R3.13.0\share\ipApp\op\adl

This tells medm where to look for the .adl display files. These need to be typed all on one line with semicolons (;) and no spaces between the values. If you are installing medm at home then you will need to copy all of the .adl files in these directories to a local disk, for example
C:\medm_adls\CARS C:\medm_adls\stdApp ...
and change the environment variables above to point to these locations.

MEDM uses a font alias file to makes its fonts system-independent. Exceed needs to be make aware of this font alias file. To do this, perform Step 5 of Exceed 7 Configuration.

IDL

IDL is the software we use to collect, display and analyze data. We recommend running IDL locally (instructions will be put here soon). IDL can be installed locally using the CD-ROM, or via the network at \\cars5\Server\Win32App\rsi\Idl54\ A dongle (license key) must be used when running IDL at home.

1. Start the install with \\cars5\server\win32app\rsi\idl54\idl54.exe
2. Open the license.dat with notepad and copy everything such as:

####################### license.dat #############################
############ license file comments, do not delete ###############
# Installation Number(s): 94742-1

SERVER corvette.cars.aps.anl.gov. 00c04f6bf1a2 1700
#DAEMON idl_lmgrd /usr/local/rsi/idl_5.4/bin
DAEMON idl_lmgrd /usr/local/rsi/idl_5.2/bin
INCREMENT idl_mpeg idl_lmgrd 1.000 1-jan-0000 35 ABA6208180973DD87FCF \
VENDOR_STRING="94742-1-1Dept License" ck=83
INCREMENT idl_drawx idl_lmgrd 1.000 1-jan-0000 35 DBD64001C0C49446292C \
VENDOR_STRING="94742-1Dept License" ck=219
INCREMENT insight idl_lmgrd 2.000 1-jan-0000 35 7BF6E02143FD7FE02FF1 \
VENDOR_STRING="94742-1Dept License" ck=51
INCREMENT idl idl_lmgrd 5.400 1-jan-0000 210 BBF6B0F1280DD84DED91 \
VENDOR_STRING="94742-1Dept License" ck=80
FEATURESET idl_lmgrd B9C92E63CCA09EAF
##################### end of license file #######################

3. Click Next on the Install Shield window.
4. Click Next again.
5. Click Agree on the License Agreement window.
6. Click Next on the Release Notes window.
7. Enter in your name and Organization also select "Anyone who uses the computer (all users)" on
Customer Information window.
8. Accept the default install location. (If you have room at that location.) Call X2-0427 if not.
9. Accept the default Custom Setup options by clicking next.
10. Click Install.
11. When prompted click Yes to run license application.
12. Click Permanent button.
13. Click License button.
14. In the space provided cut and paste the entire contents of license.dat then click next.
15. Click finish.
16. Click finish again.

We keep all IDL procedures which do not come with IDL in the tree
corvette:/usr/local/idl_user/....
In order to use these procedures the IDL_PATH must be set to include this tree. This can be done with the File/Preferences/Path menu in IDL. Add the path h:\idl_user, and check the box so that all subdirectories of this tree are also searched. To install IDL at home, copy the files from corvette:/usr/local/idl_user/.... to your local machine, for example C:\IDL_ROUTINES\..., and add this to your IDL_PATH as described above.

IDL must execute a few statements each time it starts in order to set things up correctly. This is done with the File/Preferences/Startup menu in IDL. This should normally be defined to be H:\idl_user\idl_startup.pro, where H: is mounted as corvette:/usr/local. To run IDL at home copy this file to your local disk and set the Startup file in this menu to point to your local file. In this menu you can also set the Working Directory to be the default directory you want to be in when IDL starts. It is convenient to set this to the current data directory, for example.

In order to run IDL with EPICS, there are a few environment variables which need to be set. Go to Settings/Control Panel/System/Environment and set the following variables. This can either be done for the current user or the current machine. Since we would like IDL to run the same on every machine, I recommend setting these environment variables as System Variables (which apply to the specific machine) rather than User Variables (which apply to the specific user).

EPICS_CA_ADDR_LIST

This tells EPICS to look for Process Variables on the GSECARS 100-Base-T network (where all of our IOCs are located) and in the APS Process Variable Gateway, which is where things like the ring current and machine status are found. Note that when running IDL from off-site the APS PV Gateway is not accessible, so you cannot see the machine status information.

PATH S:\Win32App\misc_dlls

You must add this location to your current PATH environment variable, unless you are running from home. If you are running from home then copy all of the DLLs in this directory to C:\WINNT\System32 and then it is not necessary to set the PATH environment variable.

EZCA_IDL_SHARE S:\Win32App\ezcaidl.dll

This tells IDL where to find the DLL to call EPICS Channel Access. If you are running from home set this to C:\WINNT\System32\ezcaidl.dll.

JCPDS_PATH H:\idl_user\epics\mca\jcpds\

This tells the IDL MCA procedure where to find the JCPDS (powder diffraction) files. If running from home set this to the location of these files on your machine.

MCA_HELP_COMMAND start http://cars9.uchicago.edu/software/mca.html

This tells the IDL MCA program to start your default browser pointing to the location of the IDL help file on the Web.

XRF_PEAK_LIBRARY H:\idl_user\epics\mca\xrf_peak_library.txt

This tells the IDL MCA program the location of the file containing x-ray energies of the K, L and M lines. If running from home set this to the location of this file on your machine.

MCA_PREFERENCES \\cars5\users\yourname\application data\mca.preferences

This tells the IDL MCA program the location of your default preferences file.

How to Connect a Dell laptop to Conference room projector.

1. With the laptop in a power off state connect the DB15 cable from the projector's video input to the laptop's video output.
2. Power up both the laptop and projector.
3. Once you have logged into the laptop right click your desktop and select properties.
4. Select display. and make sure both the "monitor" and LCD or laptop display is powered on in the display window.
5. Below each is a option to choose if one is primary or secondary display. Click both to be primary.
6. Now from the display properties window select "settings" tab. Make sure the desktop area settings matches what resolution you are using.
7. Make sure to click apply before closing any properties windows to save your changes. You should now be able to use the conference room projector.

Suggestions and Comments to:
Mark Rivers : (rivers@cars.uchicago.edu)
Last modified: March 9, 1999