Configuration management

The scouting FM configuration in the repository is stored in multiple files to keep management tracktable.

Organisation

The folder duck contains template xml files that are filled by the continuous integration system using the scripts/assemble_fm_parameters_into_xml.py script. The CI also automatically fills the RCMS and scoutFM version based on the target FM (the mechanism how this is achieved is explained later).

The above mentioned script scans through each xml file in duck/ and replaces strings of the form $(filename)$ with the contents of filename. Optionaly, the suffix .noescape can be appended to the filename, i.e. $(filename.noescape)$ in which case special JSON characters won't be escaped. The script by default searches the folder config_fragments for files with the given name, but if it is run locally an arbitrary search path can be passed.

Example

The file duck/scout_l1scoutpro_template.xml contains

{
    "host": "scoutctrl-s1d12-18-01",
    "port": "8080",
    "name": "vcu128_ugmtbmtf",
    "index": "0",
    "pipelines": [
        {
            "name": "ugmt",
            "associatedFED": "1402",
            "daq_units": [
                {
                    "source_ip": "10.177.128.190",
                    "id": 0,
                    "tcp_streams": [
                        {"dest_port" : 10000, "source_port" : 10000, "tcp_stream_id" : 0, "source_id" : 1, processor_type: "GMT", primitive_type: "MUON"}
                    ]
                }
            ],
            "ru_config": {
                "port": 8000,
                "base_config": $(scdaq_base_config.json5.noescape)$
            }
        }
    ]
}

where the majority of data is already present, but the base_config of the RU (i.e. SCDAQ) has been moved out to the file config_fragments/scdaq_base_config.json5. The .noescape suffix indicates that the file contents will be pasted as-is into the xml file, so in this case the existing JSON will simply be expanded by the contents of config_fragments/scdaq_base_config.json5. In contrast, in

"jsd": [
    {
        "name": "EndOfLumiSectionFile",
        "filename": "EoLS.jsd",
        "contents": $(EoLS_template.jsd)$
    },
    {
        "name": "EndOfRunFile",
        "filename": "EoR.jsd",
        "contents": $(EoR_template.jsd)$
    },
    {
        "name": "RawDataFile",
        "filename": "rawData.jsd",
        "contents": $(rawData_template.jsd)$
    }
],

the content of e.g. EoLS_template.jsd will be processed using json.dumps() which escapes special JSON characters in such a way that the output can be stored in a JSON string.