The PDU connection architecture has changed and the following is now the operating procedure for all the Eaton PDUs at Happy Jack. It is important to understand the role that joe plays in operating the PDUs so that it will be easier to trouble shoot if there are issues.
When joe starts, one of its jobs is setting up a timer to check the status of the socket connections every 60 seconds. Strictly speaking this only applies to the OMS Cards but there is a good side effect for the PDUs which is getting the status of the PDU every 60 seconds. The timer is Under the new architecture, the PDU Control view on JOE Client and the PDU widget on DeVeny LOUI do not require a login. JOE Client and DeVeny can both operate on the PDU nearly simultaneously. Each command will command does the following set of operations:
- opens a connection
- send the command to the PDU
- start a readout loop and get the result back
- close the connection.
Each command is automatically surrounded with login and logout commands so in effect, a series of commands are issued to the PDU. When JOE Client starts, it looks at the config file and creates a PDU widget for each PDU defined in the config file. We currently have 3 PDUs defined in the config file for the production environment:
When the view is initially instantiated, the labels for the buttons will be OUTLET-1 through OUTLET-8. As soon as the first status message comes back from the PDU, the buttons will be updated with the correct value an the timestamp on the widget will also be updated. Blue background on a button indicates that the outlet is ON. By default all the buttons are disabled for safety. The Enable button will activate the widget and one can then control the buttons. Be very careful with "Seq. OFF" and "All OFF" buttons.
The DeVeny PDU widget is very similar to the version on JOE Client except that it only shows the relevant outlets:
One needs to be a bit patient when operating the lamps. Each action is a separate process and takes some time to make the connection, do the readout and close the connection. The PDUs by design only allow one connection at a time so activating buttons too quickly will result in trying to make a connection while the previous connection has not been terminated yet. We have not implemented a queue for the commands yet so such an occurrence will cause an exception which means that the second command will be ignored.
Generally speaking this works well but we still have to be aware of two issues:
- Interacting with the PDU very quickly can cause dropped commands as mentioned previously
- The PDU widgets do not interact well with the PDU's web interface
PDU Web Interface
The PDUs have a built in web interface which is a java applet connecting to the PDU. There are bookmarks for the PDUs on the safari browser on hj-obs2. Logging into the web interface for a PDU brings up one window that contains buttons for controlling the outlets and a series of buttons for administration such as naming the outlets. Please note that the buttons on the web interface do not show the ON/OFF state. In order the see the socket state, you need to bring up the "Text Interface" first and then click the "Get Status" button. In the case below, you see that the 4 arc lamps are off and all the other outlets are on.
