epicsmng

A tool to easily download and install epics modules

Developers: Damiano Bortolato - Davide Marcato @ Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro - INFN

epicsmng will read a configuration file and install all the listed modules with the required version. This works by downloading the source, performing a git fetch and git checkout to the correct version. After that the modules are configured and built against each another.

For example, given the following configuration myconf.conf:

base = R7.0.4.1
asyn = R4-41
modbus = R3-2
calc = R3-7-4
streamdevice = 2.8.18
motor = R7-2-2
beckmotor = v2.2.1
autosave = R5-10-2

by running

epicsmng makemodules myconf.conf

all the specified modules will be downloaded, built and installed (in order). If a module requires another one to compile, they are automatically linked! Just remember to put the required module higher in the list.

The compiled binaries, libraries, dbd etc. are installed in the ./modules/myconf/ folder, with respect to the path where the script has been executed.

Installation

1. Install required packages:

   Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt install git build-essential libreadline-dev re2c

   CentOS/RHEL: sudo yum install git readline-devel make gcc gcc-c++

2. Clone repository:

   git clone https://github.com/darcato/epicsmng.git

3. Install:

   cd epicsmng

   ./install.sh

4. Enjoy!

To remove it: ./uninstall.sh

Commands

• epicsmng makemodules [-C <path>] [-j<n>] [-v] [-r] [-t] <conf_file>

  This command download modules sources, configures them and install in <path>/modules/<configname> where the path is the one specified by -C option (with default value the folder where the script is executed) and <configname> is the name of the configuration file. The -j option is used to enable multithread compilation, so -j5 will use 5 thread to speed up the compilation process. The -v option let the user print more verbose output, -r removes unused binaries and -t sets TIRPC=YES to build asyn on newer linux distributions.

• epicsmng cleanmodules [-C <path>] <conf_file>

  This command removes the compiled directories corresponding to a certain configuration file.

• epicsmng configureioc [-C <path>] <conf_file>

  This command configures an ioc to use the specified configuration. The ioc is specified by its TOP folder path, via the -C option or by executing the script in the TOP folder. Then the file configure/RELEASE is set with the paths to the compiled modules, relative to the $(TOP) macro. Furthermore, the file *App/src/Makefile (where * stands for each application installed in the ioc) is modified to add the corresponding dbd and libs.

• epicsmng listmodules

  This command lists the names of the available modules, that is the ones which will be accepted in the configuration file.

• epicsmng version

  Print epicsmng version.

How to use

1. Create a configuration file following the example.conf file and place it in the TOP directory of the corresponding ioc. The available modules and some tag examples can be listed via epicsmng listmodules. The available versions are the git tag available on the git repositories of the modules, or exactly the version of the file to download for modules not available on git.

2. Execute epicsmng makemodules [-C <path>] [-j<n>] [-v] <conf_file> in the ioc TOP folder.

3. Execute epicsmng configureioc [-C <path>] <conf_file> in the ioc TOP folder.

4. Run make to compile the ioc as usual.

More guides are available on the epicsmng wiki.

Docker images usage

One could use this docker image to run CI pipelines where an epics IOC has to be built:

image: darcato/epicsmng

build:
  script: 
    - epicsmng makemodules -v your_modules.conf
    - epicsmng configureioc your_modules.conf #optional
    - make

Available modules

• asyn
• autosave
• base
• beckmotor
• busy
• cagateway
• calc
• csm
• gensub
• ipac
• modbus
• motor
• pcas
• s7nodave
• sncseq
• sscan
• streamdevice -> NOTE: only versions 2.8+ are supported

And many more can be added by the user, see Settings!

Settings

It's possible to add a custom module to be compiled. This is achieved with the files located in ~/.config/epicsmng/settings/. Each file in this folder is imported during the execution of the script. If the module to be added can be found on a git repository the user simply has to define the following variables (example with asyn):

asyn_url='https://github.com/epics-modules/asyn.git'
asyn_requires="base"
asyn_optionals="sncseq ipac"
asyn_dbd="asyn.dbd drvAsynIPPort.dbd drvAsynSerialPort.dbd"
asyn_libs="asyn"

replacing asyn with the name of the module. The mymodule_url variable is the url of the git repository to be cloned. The mymodule_requires are the modules required to compile it, that is the ones to be added to its configure/RELEASE file. The mymodule_optionals are modules that can be added to the configure/RELEASE when available but are not strictly necessary. The mymodule_dbd variable is a list of dbd files which the installed module will generate and that can be included by an application. The mymodule_libs variable is a list of libraries which the installed module will generate and that can be included by an application. The last two are used by configureioc command to correctly set the *App/src/Makefile file.

If the custom module is not a git repository, adding it is still possible but requires the definition of a custom function called compile_mymodule. See the compile_sncseq inside epicsmng script for reference.

Patches

In some occasions a specific version of a module requires some manual modifications to be correctly compiled on your machine. For example motor R6-10 on my pc needed the fix provided by a newer commit. Trying to do this manually on the src folder fails because the manual modifications are discarded each time the script is executed, before building the module. So a patches mechanism has been implemented to solve this problem. This is valid only for git modules.

Applying patches

You can simply drop some git patch files inside ~/.config/epicsmng/patches/<modulename>/<version>/. These will be applied on top of that specific version after the git checkout but before the compilation.

Creating your own patches

To create a new patch you can follow standard git procedures. For example, you could go to the source folder (~/.local/share/epicsmng/src/<module>/), modify the files that you need and then run

git diff <modified_files> > mypatch.patch

replacing <modified_files> with the list of files you modified for this patch.