tcbsd-ioc-boot-tool

Proof-of-concept tool for automatically building and running EPICS IOCs on TwinCAT/BSD PLCs.

Requirements

• TwinCAT/BSD
• Python (python3)
• pytmc (python3 -m pip install pytmc)
• gmake (note: BSD make is not the same)
• ads-deploy (** see notes)
• ads-ioc (** see notes)
• BSD must have LinuxEmu subsystem enabled (sudo service linux start)

ads-ioc big important notes

ads-ioc BSD-compatibility Makefile changes are pending:

• pcdshub/ioc-common-ads-ioc#98

Statically-linked Linux binary is required

ads-ioc must be built ahead of time on Linux (statically linked). It's unclear if/when these required changes for localhost communication will be merged. For now, you'll need to rebuild ads-ioc with these:

• pcdshub/ADS#1
• pcdshub/twincat-ads#12

You might consider using Docker to handle the build process:

• https://github.com/pcdshub/ads-ioc-docker/

Docker?

And then copy the built version out:

• docker cp $(docker create --name temp pcdshub/ads-ioc:R0.Y.Z):/cds/group/pcds/epics/ioc/common/ads-ioc/ .; docker rm temp
• Re-iterating the warning: R0.6.1 is on Docker Hub but this doesn't include the localhost fixes required for BSD

ads-deploy

Failure to install due to numpy

• ads-deploy typhos dependency won't install due to numpy
  • No one (including myself) has used typhos in ads-deploy since 2019 so it could be removed
  • Hotfixing it for now locally (remove typhos from requirements.txt)

File location notes

Project is available here: /usr/local/etc/TwinCAT/3.1/Boot/ The remainder of the project files are in CurrentConfig/*.tpzip (where * is the project name), excluding the .tsproj. For some reason, the .tsproj (which we need for ads-deploy) is in CurrentConfig.tszip

TwinCAT/BSD

Provision by way of Ansible and our playbooks for ease of getting started: https://github.com/pcdshub/twincat-bsd-ansible