FLP Suite announcements

Submitted by vmcb on

2021-03-12: FLP Suite v0.16.0 released

It is our pleasure to announce the release of FLP Suite v0.16.0. The highlights of this release are the following:

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Data flow
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ReadoutCard v0.30.0 (was v0.29.0) introduces a new firmware compatibility check tool (roc-fw-check) and a new --light flag in roc-cleanup to skip PDA reinsertion. 

Readout v1.6.1 (was v1.5.12) optimizes the STF buffer flush when stopping, extends the file replay functionality and improves the config generator tool (readoutAutoConfigure).
DataDistribution v0.9.7 (was 0.9.2) (provided by the EPN project, check release notes here).

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Quality Control
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QC v1.12.0 (was 1.10.0) improves the messages sent to InfoLogger and includes several minor bug fixes. Additionally, it provides updates for the following detectors: ITS, MCH, MFT, PHS, TPC, TOF.
QCDB was upgraded to v1.0.10 (provided by the PDP project).

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Control
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AliECS v0.21.2 (was v0.20.7) improves the integration with the EPN and DataDistribution subcontrols and improves the cleanup procedures to avoid leftover resources at EOR.
AliECS GUI v1.16.0 (was v1.14.2) adds a new ON/OFF button for the minimal DPL workflow, reintroduces the normal shutdown button and renames the Force Shutdown button to Kill. 
ALF v0.13.0 (was v0.12.1) adds a new service to simplify the configuration of the CRU User Logic. 

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Infrastructure
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In Monitoring, Grafana was upgraded to v7.4.3 and Telegraf was upgraded to v1.17.3.
InfoLogger GUI v1.4.0 (was v1.3.2) enables autoscroll automatically when switching to Live mode and adds automatic reconnection to the InfoLogger database.
Bookkeeping v1.6.6 (was v1.6.4) improves the API Go bindings and adds pagination to the tag overview page.
o2-flp-setup v0.7.7 (was v0.7.6) adds the copying of the deployment log file to the head node and adds a new --p2 flag to simplify the switching between P2 and GPN yum repos.

More detailed release notes can be found here and information on how to install, upgrade, request support or report bugs can be found here.

 

2021-02-18: FLP Suite v0.15.0 released

It is our pleasure to announce the release of FLP Suite v0.15.0. The highlights of this release are the following:

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Data flow
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Readout v1.5.12 (was v1.5.9) improves the readoutAutoConfigure utility and introduces readoutMonitor.exe, a new tool to display statistics from multiple readout processes.
ReadoutCard v0.29.0 (was v0.28.0) adds an option to `roc-status` to specify a range for links reported, and improves use of the logging facilities.
DataDistribution v0.9.2 (was 0.8.0) (provided by the EPN project, check release notes here).

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Quality Control
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QC v1.10.0 (was 1.8.0) fixes a crash during the STOP transition in the generic dataflow task and improves the infrastructure generation by adding a Merger even when there is only one local Task, Additionally, it provides updates for the following detectors: MFT, TPC, PHOS, HMP, TOF, ITS.

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Control
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AliECS v0.20.7 (was v0.19.1) introduces many new features, including new plugins for communicating with the Data Distribution scheduler and the DCS, a new hook to cleanup leftover resources at the end of the run and a new event system allowing real time state updates from tasks and environments.
AliECS GUI v1.14.2 (was v1.12.1) adds new buttons for cleaning up leftover resources and direct links for accessing the logs of the different tasks.
ALF v0.12.1 (was v0.10.0) introduces Python bindings for the Slow Control library as well as an MFT PSU specific SCA service. It also improves the use of the logging facilities.

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Infrastructure
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In Monitoring, several small improvements were done in many of the existing dashboards.
InfoLogger v1.3.22 (was v1.3.18) simplifies the flushing of old messages during abnormal conditions.
InfoLogger GUI v1.3.2 (was v1.3.1) brings a small fix when using ErrCode filters in Live mode.
Bookkeeping v1.6.4 (was v1.6.2) adds a new homepage displaying the latest Log Entries and Runs.

More detailed release notes can be found here and information on how to install, upgrade, request support or report bugs can be found here.

 

2021-01-15: FLP Suite v0.14.0 released

It is our pleasure to announce the release of FLP Suite v0.14.0. The highlights of this release are the following:

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Data flow
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Readout v1.5.9 (was v1.5.8) brings a minor update (readoutAutoConfigure)
ReadoutCard v0.28.0 (was v0.27.0) fixes a bug when reporting the optical power for the CRORC.

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Quality Control
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QC v1.8.0 (was 1.7.0) update ITS code.

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Control
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AliECS v0.19.1 (was v0.19.0) fixes a bug that prevented task cleanup after a failed environment deployment.
AliECS GUI v1.12.1 (was v1.11.1) adds a "Task view” page that lists all running tasks in the cluster.

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Infrastructure
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In Monitoring link details in CRU dashboard are displayed as table.
InfoLogger v1.3.18 (was v1.3.16) brings minor updates (infoLoggerAdminDB, infoBrowser, infoLoggerServer).

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Deployment
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o2-flp-setup v0.7.6 (was v0.7.5) fixes the dependencies installation behind a proxy and introduces the deploy-detector command, which deploys specific configuration for detector commissioning.

More detailed release notes can be found here and information on how to install, upgrade, request support or report bugs can be found here.

 

2020-12-14: FLP Suite v0.13.0 released

It is our pleasure to announce the release of FLP Suite v0.13.0. The highlights of this release are the following:

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Data flow
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ReadoutCard v0.27.0 (was v0.26.0) adds support for CRU FW v3.10.0, improves I2C stability, and introduces a tool to monitor triggers.

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Quality Control
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QC v1.7.0 (was 1.5.1) adds initial support and documentation for running QC with Analysis and introduces quality aggregators.
QC GUI v1.10.0 (was v1.10.1) is downgraded to exclude a workaround...

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Control
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AliECS v0.19.0 (was v0.18.1) brings a performance improvement to task termination, as well as updated EPN control (ODC) integration.
AliECS GUI v1.11.1 (was v1.9.0) adds links to enhance navigation between FLP GUIs, adds information per CRU in the configuration page and fixes bugs and provides UX improvements.
ALF v0.10.0 (was v0.9.0) adjusts the service naming scheme for card-level services and improves LLA performance.

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Infrastructure
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In Monitoring all metrics are aggregated using local agent before being sent to the database, in addition several dashboard bugs were fixed.
Infologger GUI v1.3.0 (was v1.2.7) adds a status component with live information about InfoLogger GUI dependencies; fixes bugs and and adds UX improvements. 

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Deployment
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o2-flp-setup v0.7.5 (was v0.7.3) requires Ansible >= 2.10, adds support for CRU FW update and executing roc-config  

More detailed release notes can be found here and information on how to install, upgrade, request support or report bugs can be found here.

 

2020-11-25: FLP Suite v0.12.0 released

It is our pleasure to announce the release of FLP Suite v0.12.0. The highlights of this release are the following:

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Data flow
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ReadoutCard v0.26.0 (was v0.25.1) improves the link assertion as well as the cleanup of shared memory files for the CRORC.
Readout v1.5.2 (was v1.4.7) implements the new STFB input interface (v2, needed by DataDistribution v0.8.0, not backward-compatible) and common RDH configuration for all equipments (RORC, player, emulator). It also introduces the eventDump.exe utility, which dumps the RDH of data taken online.
Data Distribution v0.8.0 (was v0.7.10) (provided by the EPN project, check release notes here).

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Quality Control
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QC v1.5.1 (was v1.3.2) allows to store locally MonitorObjects in a ROOT file, integrates Post-processing Tasks with DPL and enables to apply Checks to their results. 
QC GUI v1.10.1 (was v1.9.4) adds a new status page with live info on the availability of the required services. 

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Control
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AliECS v0.18.2 (was v0.17.1) brings significant performance improvements in the core. It also delivers numerous bug fixes, as well as integration improvements with the EPN control system.
AliECS GUI v1.9.1(was v1.7.1) simplifies the configuration of an environment with the addition of new fields in the Basic Configuration panel and adds a new page for enabling/disabling links of the CRUs in the Configuration database.
ALF v0.9.0 (was v0.8.0) transitions to a new service naming scheme consistent with the Serial-Endpoint ID convention. It also introduces new SCA and SWT operations. 

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Infrastructure
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In Monitoring, a new, "FLP farm" dashboard was added, displaying a table with all FLPs and its basic parameters. In addition, the CRU dashboard was extended with ONU stats. 

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Deployment
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o2-flp-setup v0.7.3 (was v0.7.1) introduces new commands to add/remove FLPs to/from existing setups. 

More detailed release notes can be found here and information on how to install, upgrade, request support or report bugs can be found here.

 

2020-10-15: FLP Suite v0.11.0 released

It is our pleasure to announce the release of FLP Suite v0.11.0. The highlights of this release are the following:

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Data flow
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ReadoutCard v0.25.1 (was v0.23.3) adds support for CRU FW v3.9.0/v3.9.1 and CRORC FW v2.7.0 and introduces the new GBT MUX UL option as well as the System and FEE ID fields for CRU.
Readout v1.4.7 (was v1.4.6) extends the DCS readout to publish data for each TF ID and improves the LZ4 compression to preserve the original data.

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Quality Control
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QC v1.3.2 (was v1.1.0) adds timestamps to post-processing, effectively allowing to rerun any task and store results with arbitrary timestamps and trigger tasks when new objects are observed. It also recognizes object path structure in QCDB.
QC GUI v1.9.4 (was v1.9.0) focuses on providing a better user experience by informing the user on the current state of the application.
CCDB v1.0.7 (was v1.0.6) introduces a new parameter allowing for more efficient requests.

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Control
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AliECS v0.17.1 (was v0.16.0) brings shorter environment and tasks IDs throughout AliECS, richer InfoLogger output and a miscellaneous assortment of bug fixes. It also extends the main workflow to include QC deployment.
AliECS GUI v1.7.1 (was v1.6.8) introduces a new basic configuration panel used for creating a new environment allowing the user to easily enable/disable components.
ALF v0.8.0 (was v0.7.0) adds a new implicit locking option for Slow Control sequence services.

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Infrastructure
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In Monitoring, the system and CRU/C-RORC dashboards were extended to include, respectively, the status of the IB interface and the packets per second per link. Telegraf, InfluxDB and Grafana were also upgraded to more recent versions.
In Logging, Infologger GUI v1.2.7 (was v1.2.6) brings level filter names for a better user experience.

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Deployment
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o2-flp-setup v0.7.1 (was v0.6.1) speeds up the deployment on large setups and introduces an option to exclude modules from the deployment.

More detailed release notes can be found here and information on how to install, upgrade, request support or report bugs can be found here.

 

2020-09-03: FLP Suite v0.10.0 released

It is our pleasure to announce the release of FLP Suite v0.10.0. The highlights of this release are the following:

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Data flow
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ReadoutCard v0.23.3 (was v0.22.2) improves the CRU/C-RORC monitoring by including the serial number/endpoint labels and introducing the packet rate metric. 
Readout v1.4.6 (was v1.4.5) introduces realistic TF sequences when replaying data from file.
DataDistribution v0.7.9 (was v.0.7.7) (provided by the EPN project, check release notes here). 

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Quality Control
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QC v1.1.0 (was v1.0.0) allows the publication of histograms from external non-QC tasks and improves the consistency of the QC path structure in QCDB.
QC GUI v1.9.0 (was v1.8.7) introduces support for object history navigation and adds an easy way of displaying the timestamp of all the histograms in a layout. 

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Control
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AliECS v0.16.0 (was v0.15.0) introduces support for hook tasks, the possibility of enabling/disabling specific roles at workflow deployment time and support for the O2 Configuration library in OCC.
AliECS GUI v1.6.8 (was v1.6.7) improves the search box in the workflow selection page.
ALF v0.7.1 (was v0.6.0) publishes the Low Level Arbitration services to DIM (to be used by the central DCS) and introduces a Slow Control interface as a library (to be used by detector tools). 

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Infrastructure
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In Monitoring, 2 new dashboards were added: C-RORC and FLP Overview. The CRU and the QC dashboards were also improved.
In Logging, Infologger v1.3.11 (was v1.3.9) adds automatic reconnection from clients to the local daemon. 
In Control, Apache Mesos was upgraded to v1.9.0.
In Configuration, Consul was upgraded to v1.8.3.

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Deployment
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The infiniband role (provided by the EPN project) added support for the 2 latest CC 7.8 kernels. 

More detailed release notes can be found here and information on how to install, upgrade, request support or report bugs can be found here.

 

2020-07-28: FLP Suite v0.9.0 released

It is our pleasure to announce the release of FLP Suite v0.9.0. The highlights of this release are the following:

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Data flow
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ReadoutCard v0.22.2 (was v0.21.2) introduces support for CRU FW 3.7.0/3.8.0, adds run statistics and TTCUP option, improves "roc-status" tool
Readout v1.4.5 (was v1.4.0) improves DCS readout, adds support for QC connection and fixes RDH struct
DataDistribution v0.7.7 (was v0.7.6) (provided by the EPN project, check release notes here).
 
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Quality Control
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QC v1.0.0 (was v0.26.2) enables adding Quality metadata, setting canvas drawing options and fixes various bugs
QC GUI v1.8.7 (was v1.8.4) makes sure that objects in offline mode are up-to-date
 
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Control
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AliECS v0.15.0 (was v0.14.3) brings initial integration of ODC (the process control component of the O²/EPN cluster), support for pushing component configuration to controlled tasks as boost::property_tree::ptree as well as major improvements to process end of life management. It also exposes the PIDs of all running tasks in the GetTasks RPC call.
AliECS GUI v1.6.7 (was v1.6.5) introduces various tweaks to UI (including removed "Shutdown" button from "Environment details" page)
 

NOTE: Due to a known issue, readout-qc and readout-stfb-qc workflows currently cannot perform the STOP transition. Users are advised to Force Shutdown from the RUNNING state to terminate these workflows.
 
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Infrastructure
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In Configuration, Consul was upgraded to v1.8.0.
In Monitoring, Grafana was upgraded to v7.1.0 and CRU dashboard improved to use built-in panels only.
In Logging, InfoLogger web-based GUI was updated to v1.2.6.

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Deployment
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o2-flp-setup v0.6.1 (was v0.6.0) speeds up deployment to more than 5 machines
The infiniband role (provided by the EPN project) added support for kernel 3.10.0-1127.13.1

More detailed release notes can be found here and information on how to install, upgrade, request support or report bugs can be found here.

 

2020-06-18: FLP Suite v0.8.0 released

It is our pleasure to announce the release of FLP Suite v0.8.0. The highlights of this release are the following:

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Data flow
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ReadoutCard v0.21.2 (was v0.19.3) introduces support for CRU FW 3.6.1 and C-RORC FW 2.6.1. It also brings several improvements to the support of C-RORC cards. 
Readout v1.4.0 (was v1.3.9) introduces support for RDHv6 and adds a new feature to buffer SubTimeFrames before sending them to StfBuilder. 
DataDistribution v0.7.6 (was v.0.7.4) (provided by the EPN project, check release notes here). 

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Quality Control
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QC v0.26.2 (was v0.24.1) adds support for multi node QC setups, instruments QC components to push metrics to the O2 monitoring system and changes the way objects are stored in CCDB. 
QC GUI v1.8.4 (was v1.7.0) greatly reduces loading times when querying a repository with many objects.  

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Control
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AliECS v0.14.3 (was v0.13.3) reintroduces support for QC with the addition of 2 new workflows: readout-qc and readout-stfb-qc. It also adds support for runtime selection of which user runs the deployed tasks (flp by default, used to be root) and improves reliability and error handling.   
AliECS GUI v1.6.5 (was v1.6.2) adds a new button to force the shutdown of a non-responsive environment.
ALF v0.6.0 (was v0.5.0) adds a new pattern player service, a new register R/W sequence service for the C-RORC and a wait operation for SCA sequences.  

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Infrastructure
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In Configuration, Consul was upgraded to v1.7.2. In addition, the FLP Suite will now deploy default CRU configurations to Consul and Vertical Slice tuned readout configurations to both Consul and FLPs.  
In Monitoring, the following upgrades were done: Grafana v6.6.2), Influxdb (v1.8.0) and Telegraf (v1.14.2). 

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Deployment
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o2-flp-setup v0.6.0 (was v0.4.1) adds a new --limit option to select a subset of nodes when deploying via an Ansible inventory. It also extends the diagnose command to support multi node setups.  
The infiniband role (provided by the EPN project) added support for the latest CC 7.8 kernels and will skip installation if no cards are detected. 


More detailed release notes can be found here and information on how to install, upgrade, request support or report bugs can be found here.

 

2020-05-06: FLP Suite v0.7.1 released

Please take notice of a patch release of FLP Suite v0.7.1 to address an issue with MariaDB following the release of CentOS 7.8.
All new installations should use this new release. 
As usual, information on how to install, upgrade, request support or report bugs can be found here.

 

2020-04-24: FLP Suite v0.7.0 released

It is our pleasure to announce the release of FLP Suite v0.7.0. The highlights of this release are the following: 

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Data flow
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ReadoutCard v0.19.3 (was v0.18.7) introduces C-RORC support in roc-config and roc-status and optimises the management of enabled/disabled links. 
Readout v1.3.9 (was v1.3.5) adds firmware compatibility check, additional debug information on memory usage and improvements to the readRaw.exe utility.
DataDistribution v0.7.4 (NEW, provided by the EPN project) is a new component that includes the stfBuilder and stfSender processes.

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Quality Control
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QC v0.24.1 (was v0.20.1) adds improvements to the Quality Objects, support for EndOfStream events in QC tasks and convenience classes for Correlation and Trending. 
QC GUI v1.7.0 (was v1.6.9) introduces a new view to display the objects generated by QC Checkers. 

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Control
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AliECS v0.13.3 (was v0.12.2) introduces a template system for runtime injection of parameters, improved task cleanup and a reorganisation of the workflows to provide the following deployments: readout and readout+stfb (with readout+stfb+stfs in the pipeline). 
AliECS GUI v1.6.2 (was v1.4.4) allows runtime FLP selection and setting of key/value pairs to be used by the new AliECS template system. It also adds a new button for 1-click transition from RUNNING to environment shutdown.
ALF v0.5.0 (was v0.4.0) adds firmware compatibility check and a fix for SWT timeouts. 

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Logging
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InfoLogger v1.3.9 (was v1.3.7) adds improved log rotation. 
InfoLogger GUI v1.2.3 (was 1.2.0) introduces several stability and error handling improvements, providing a better user experience.  

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Deployment
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o2-flp-setup v0.4.1 (was v0.1.0) introduces many improvements and new features, including sysadmin operations (reboot, ping, exec, etc) and new optional modules (dev, post-installation). It is now the default installation method for both standalone and multinode setups (deprecating o2-install-flp-standalone). 
A new role (provided by the EPN project) to automatically configure the Infiniband cards on FLPs has been added as part of the post-installation module. 

More detailed release notes can be found here and information on how to install, upgrade, request support or report bugs can be found here.

 

 

2020-02-11: FLP Suite v0.6.0 released

It is our pleasure to announce the release of FLP Suite v0.6.0. The highlights of this release are the following:

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Data flow
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ReadoutCard v0.18.7 (was v0.15.5) improves usage of PDA driver for better performance, introduces a new link addressing scheme and adds modularity in roc-config for improved speed and reliability.
Readout v1.3.5 (was v1.2.5) improves support for start/stop/start command cycles and extends data replay to support multiple CRUs in a single file.

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Control
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AliECS v0.12.2 (was v0.11.1) adds support for execution of basic tasks (like the ReadoutCard utilities), support for MacOS and improvements in task cleanup.

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Deployment
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We have tuned the hugepages default settings to cover both systems with and without readout cards.


More detailed release notes can be found here and information on how to install, upgrade, request support or report bugs can be found here.


 

2020-01-20: FLP Suite v0.5.0 released

It is our pleasure to announce the release of FLP Suite v0.5.0. The highlights of this release are the following:

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Data flow
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ReadoutCard v0.15.5 (was v0.15.0) improves the cleanup between consecutive runs and adds some preparatory work for CRU configuration from AliECS.
Readout v1.2.5 (was v1.2.4) adds several enhancements for the integration with the O2 Data Distribution chain.

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Quality Control
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QC v0.20.1 (was v0.19.5) includes the new Checkers 2.0 which, among other improvements, allows for a check to access multiple objects.
QC GUI v1.6.9 (was v1.6.6) adds supports for larger layouts, a new server info page and a object info box.

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Control
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AliECS GUI v1.4.4 (was v1.4.3) adds a new server info page and some usability improvements.

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Infrastructure
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In Monitoring, Grafana was upgraded to v6.5.1.
In Logging, InfoLogger GUI v1.2.0 (was v1.1.9) introduces resizable columns and the possibility to set the visible columns via the URL.

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Deployment
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We have improved the deployment behind HTTP proxies (proper configuration of YUM repositories).


More detailed release notes can be found here and information on how to install, upgrade, request support or report bugs can be found here.

 

2019-12-04: FLP Suite v0.4.0 released

It is our pleasure to announce the release of FLP Suite v0.4.0. The highlights of this release are the following:

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Data flow
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ReadoutCard v0.15.0 (was v0.14.5) adds support for CRU FW 3.5.0 and 3.5.1, improves the data handling at DMA stop and adds the following new tools: roc-ctp-emulator (to control the CRU CTP emulator) and roc-pat-player (to control the CRU pattern player).
Readout v1.2.4 (was v1.1.1) adds a feature to replay a data file once and a GUI to view and edit readout configuration files (readoutConfigEditor).

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Quality Control
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QC GUI v1.6.6 (was v1.6.4) fixes a bug that made the stats box disappear in online mode after an object update.

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Control
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ALF v0.4.0 (was v0.3.1) includes changes to the SWT interface for CRU FW 3.5.0+.

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Deployment
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We have improved the test and diagnosis utility to include checks for AliECS and to work behind an HTTP proxy. 


More detailed release notes can be found here and information on how to install, upgrade, request support or report bugs can be found here.

 

2019-11-20: FLP Suite v0.3.0 released

It is our pleasure to announce the release of FLP Suite v0.3.0. The highlights of this release are the following:

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Data flow
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ReadoutCard v0.14.5 (was v0.13.0) adds support for CRU FW 3.4.0, several improvements to roc-config (including FW compatibility check, options for dynamic offset and trigger window size) and a new roc-ctp-emulator tool.
Readout v1.1.1 (was v1.0.9) adds support for C-RORC readout cards and a new algorithm for discarding empty HB frames when recording to file.

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Quality Control
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QC v0.19.5 (was v0.19.2) properly unregisters all objects from service discovery at end of run, fixes several bug fixes and improves user documentation.
QC GUI v1.6.4 (was v1.6.3) adds logz as a drawing option and improves the transition between online and offline modes.

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Control
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AliECS v0.11.1 (was v0.11.0) adds some minor bug fixes.
AliECS GUI v1.4.3 (was v14.1) improves the display of launched tasks and adds the possibility to refresh the local copy of the workflow git repository.

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Infrastructure
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In Monitoring, the Readout dashboard has been improved to support multi-node setups.
In Logging, InfoLogger v1.3.7 (was v1.3.5) improves the deployment of the server-side components and InfoLogger GUI v1.1.9 (was v1.1.7) allows copying the selected row to clipboard and tunes the default filter values to better match operational requirements.   

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Deployment
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The installation of the FLP Suite has been improved, with fixes made to the Apache Mesos deployment, a new Ansible output format and better feedback on which tasks perform changes in the target system.
The local account ‘flp’ now comes with a default password and has sudo access via the ‘wheel’ group.
We also include as a preview a new advanced installer (o2-flp-setup) providing support for multinode deployments.

More detailed release notes can be found here and information on how to install, upgrade, request support or report bugs can be found here.

 

2019-11-15: FLP Suite v0.3.0 Release Candidate #1 tagged

In view of the FLP Suite v0.3.0 release, we have tagged Release Candidate #1 (available here).

The upcoming release includes updates on several components, including ReadoutCard, Readout, InfoLogger, Quality Control and the corresponding GUIs.
It also includes as preview a new installer supporting multi-node deployments.
As soon as we finish or test procedure, we will release FLP Suite v0.3.0 and announce on this channel.

 

2019-10-23: FLP Suite v0.2.1 released

Please take note of the release of FLP Suite v0.2.1. This is a patch release to fix an incompatibility issue between the upstream and EPEL RPMs for nginx.
The symptoms include an installation error at the very end of the installation process when trying to restart nginx ("Start nginx on boot" Ansible task) and the subsequent unavailability of the O2 Web UI directory webpage.
Regardless if you have experienced these symptoms when installing FLP Suite v0.2.0 or not, we recommend that you upgrade to this release in order to avoid similar problems.

Release notes can be found here and information on how to install, upgrade, request support or report bugs can be found here.

 

2019-10-19: FLP Suite v0.2.0 released

It is our pleasure to announce the release of FLP Suite v0.2.0. The highlights of this release are the following:

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Data flow
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ReadoutCard v0.13.0 includes a new roc-cleanup utility (for cleaning any stale resources after a failed run) and support for CRU FW 3.2.0 and 3.3.0.
Readout v1.0.9 includes several new features such as configurable TimeFrame length, packet contiguity checks, an utility to auto-generate configuration for readout.exe and the option to discard empty packets when recording to file.

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Quality Control
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QC v0.19.2 makes use of the DPL workflow merging feature for simpler workflow execution, introduces a simpler data query format in data sampling policies and changes to TFiles as storage format in CCDB. It also allows access to CCDB data from QC Tasks and ships an experimental first release of the post-processing QC framework. Finally, it allows users to develop their QC modules on a machine with FLP Suite installed.
QC GUI v1.6.3 comes with an improved layout organization, full screen object view, shareable links to objects and several minor enhancements and bug fixes.

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Control
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AliECS v0.11.0 introduces a new git-based configuration mechanism for workflows and tasks, together with improved stability/reliability and better user documentation.
AliECS GUI v1.4.1 adds support for the new git-based workflow configuration mechanism, improves the environment creation page and allows users to access task details such as configuration file or command line arguments.
ALF 0.3.1 (NEW) is a new component added in this release as a slow control interface for detector Front End Electronics. It provides simple register read/write operations as well as SWT, SCA and IC sequences. It also allows specifying a timeout when performing SWT read operations.

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Infrastructure
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In Monitoring, the Readout dashboard has been improved to support multi-node setups.

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Deployment
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The installation of the FLP Suite has been greatly improved, including better support for multi-node deployments, systems with dynamic IP and running behind an HTTP proxy.
We have also added a diagnosis role for simpler and faster identification of faulty components.
Finally, our recommended Ansible version has also been bumped to 2.8.4+.

More detailed release notes can be found here and information on how to install, upgrade, request support or report bugs can be found here.

 

2019-10-14: FLP Suite v0.2.0 Release Candidate #1 tagged

In view of the FLP Suite v0.2.0 release, we have tagged Release Candidate #1 (available here). 

The upcoming release includes updates on almost all major components, including Readout Card, Readout, AliECS, Quality Control and the corresponding GUIs.
It will also include a new ALF component, a new diagnosis scan to better identify components not working properly and improved software deployment.

As soon as we finish or test procedure, we will release FLP Suite v0.2 and announce on this channel.

 

2019-10-08: FLP Suite support requests - required info

In the last few months, as releases of the different components of the FLP Suite became available, we have received many bug reports and support requests.
In order to address them in the most efficient way, it is essential for us to get as much detail as possible about the software stack being used.
As such, we'd like to ask you to include the following information in any support request or bug report (regardless if it's via JIRA, email or presentation in a meeting):

  • component name (e.g. ReadoutCard, readout.exe, Quality Control, AliECS, ALF, ...)
  • component version
  • setup details (hostname and location)
  • extra info (e.g. if problem related with data taking with a CRU, which FW version is being used)

 

2019-07-25: FLP Suite v0.1.0 released

It is our pleasure to announce the release of FLP Suite v0.1.0, the first comprehensive release that includes the main components of the FLP software stack. The highlights of this initial release are the following:

Data flow

  • ReadoutCard v0.11.7 provides support for the latest CRU firmwares 3.0 and 3.1, enhances the roc-config and roc-status utilities and greatly speeds up BAR accesses.
  • Readout v1.0.1 introduces options to automatically stopping data taking on error conditions, warning messages on CRU packets dropped and the possibility to use the TimeFrame ID as set in the RDH.

Quality Control

  • QC v0.16.0 brings the latest features of the QC framework, including the capability to store objects in CCDB and visualize them in the QC GUI.
  • QC GUI v1.5.0 allows the visualization of histograms generated by the QC tasks, both online (during data taking) and offline (once the run finishes).
  • CCDB v1.0.4 (PostgreSQL-based) is used as QC repository.

Control

  • AliECS v0.9.3 allows the automatic deployment and orchestration of Readout+QC workflows on single and multi-node setups and comes with several improvements to better deal with failed task deployment.
  • AliECS GUI v1.2.0 provides users with a high level interface to create, start and stop workflows and comes with several embedded monitoring stats panels.

Infrastructure

  • The Monitoring stack includes recent versions of Telegraf, Influxdb and Grafana providing out-of-the-box monitoring dashboards for System, CRU, Readout and CCDB related metrics.
  • The Logging stack includes the different components of InfoLogger (v1.3.2) and two GUIs: the classic desktop-based infoBrowser and a new web-based InfoLogger GUI.
  • We also ship Consul v1.5.1, currently used for QC task service discovery.


More detailed release notes can be found here and information on how to install, request support or report bugs can be found here.
Looking into the future, we plan to release v0.2.0 in late August. The main targets of this next release are the introduction of 2 new software components (ALF and LTU), improvements in reliability and usability of AliECS and better user documentation.