navigation
ID27 - High Pressure Beamline
 

Unix, SPEC, Network

last modified 01-08-2007 14:42

The workstation is a HP-UX10 and the software control for the experiment is throught the SPEC package (for a complete documentation, you may try SPEC help ). Users who are unfamiliar with basic UNIX commands should consult UNIX help for Users (on site only). This may also act as an on-line help if you do not remember UNIX commands during your experiments.

Basic UNIX commands

cd dir_name change to directory dir_name
mkdir dir_name create directory dir_name
cp file1 file2 copy file1 to file2
rm file remove file
emacs file calls the emacs editor to modify file
neidt file calls the nedit editor to modify file
lp -d a4bid27 printfile.ps prints printfile.ps to a4bid327

Basic SPEC commands

The two applications are corresponding to two windows on the beamline workstation, entitled by the name of the application:

mv motor position absolute move of motor to position
mvr motor delta_position relative of motor by delta_position
umv motor position like mv, but the position is written while moving
timescan time counts without changing motor positions for time, (default 1 s)
ascan motor ini_pos fin_pos n time linear scan of motor from ini_pos to fin_pos with n points, time s/point. motor will stay at fin_pos
dscan motor d_min d_pos n time like ascan, but scanning from x+d_min to x+d_pos , where x is the start position, to which motor returns also after scan

The displayed spectrum can be plotted on the laser printer with
 pplot.

A more complete list of commands can be found here .

A list of motors and settings can be found here .

Important: You can stop each scan be typing ^C. This should be done for example if you started scanning a motor to a unwanted position. dscan will return to the old position after ^C. An error message may occur telling you that the motor didn't reached its final position. In addition, a mismatch between the values of the motor position in SPEC and from the controller may occur. In this case, always answer the question to change the value with no , unless you are sure about what you are doing. In general, all motors have limit switches (hard limit) and/or soft limits controlled by the software, so that it should not be possible to destroy anything.

Temporary NICE account

For each proposal, ESRF opens a temporary account on the NICE cluster. This account can be used for sending or receiving mails, data analysis and storage; we also encourage you to use this account if you want to connect to your home workstation or to use things like firefox [for example to read this manual]. By using the beamline workstation, problems due to memory overload may occur resulting in increased acquisition deadtime or worse !

The NICE account is erased 30 days after your leave from ESRF. You are responsible for the transfer of your data during this time to your home (off-side) account. All data on the NICE account will be lost after this period.

The login name is the proposal number. Please use the password that was sent with your proposal acceptance notification. For instance proposal HC359 corresponds to the account

login: hc359
password: your_password

For security reasons, you may change the password at your first login with the UNIX command

passwd

The NICE cluster consist of several workstations, for example silver1,..., silver9. To connect to one of this machines from any terminal window/xterm at ESRF, type for example

telnet coral or telnet nice

Access to NICE from outside ESRF

For the time that you have your temporary NICE account , You can access indigo1 from outside ESRF. This can be used for example to prepare your experiment (transfer reference data-files to your NICE account, prepare or copy macros, install a directory structure ect.) or to transfer data when you are back in your home institute via ftp. For this use:

ssh -p 5022 firewall.esrf.fr
indigo1

Use your login name and password ( temporary NICE account ). ftp firewall.esrf.fr works in the same way if you need to transfer data.

Saving your data on CD

For saving the data using the CD-burner on PC (gigabar) in the control room (CC1):

  1. Insert a blank CD/DVD in the DVD burner (top one)
  2. Use "Easy CD creator" (Icon on the desktop)
  3. Drag and drop the files you want to copy on the CD ( < 645 MB )/DVD ( < 4.7 GB)
  4. Go to menu >File>Create CD>Options
    Create CD
    Write speed : 6x900kB/sec
    "Advanced"
  5. Close session and leave disk open.
 
European Synchrotron Radiation Facility