Our MIDAS frontend for WIENER power supplies is now available as a standalone git repository.

https://bitbucket.org/ttriumfdaq/fewienerlvps/src/master/

This frontend use the snmpwalk and snmpset programs to talk to the power supply.

Also included is a simple custom web page to display power supply status and to turn things on and off.

This frontend was originally written for the T2K/ND280 experiment in Japan.

In addition to controlling Wiener low voltage power supplies, it was also used to control the ISEG MPOD high 
voltage power supplies.

In Japan, ISEG MPOD was (still is) connected to the MicroMegas TPC and is operated in a special "spark counting" 
mode. This spark counting code is still present in this MIDAS frontend and can be restored with a small amount of 
work.

K.o.

you may have heard the news of a major problem with the xz-utils project, authors of the popular "xz" file compression, 
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-3094

the debian bug tracker is interesting reading on this topic, "750 commits or contributions to xz by Jia Tan, who backdoored it", 
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1068024

and apparently there is problems with the deisng of the .xz file format, making it vulnerable to single-bit errors and unreliable checksums,
https://www.nongnu.org/lzip/xz_inadequate.html

this moved me to review status of file compression in MIDAS.

MIDAS does not use or recommend xz compression, MIDAS programs to not link to xz and lzma libraries provided by xz-utils.

mlogger has built-in support for:
- gzip-1, enabled by default, as the most safe and bog-standard compression method
- bzip2 and pbzip2, as providing the best compression
- lz4, for high data rate situations where gzip and bzip2 cannot keep up with the data

compression benchmarks on an AMD 7700 CPU (8-core, DDR5 RAM) confirm the usual speed-vs-compression tradeoff:

note: observe how both lz4 and pbzip2 compress time is the time it takes to read the file from ZFS cache, around 6 seconds.
note: decompression stacks up in the same order: lz4, gzip fastest, pbzip2 same speed using 10x CPU, bzip2 10x slower uses 1 CPU.
note: because of the fast decompression speed, gzip remains competitive.

no compression: 6 sec, 270 MiBytes/sec,
lz4, bpzip2:    6 sec, same, (pbzip2 uses 10 CPU vs lz4 uses 1 CPU)
gzip -1:       21 sec,  78 MiBytes/sec
bzip2:         70 sec,  23 MiBytes/sec (same speed as pbzip2, but using 1 CPU instead of 10 CPU)

file sizes:

(vslice) dsdaqdev@dsdaqgw:/zdata/vslice$ ls -lSr test.mid*
-rw-r--r-- 1 dsdaqdev users  483319523 Apr  1 14:06 test.mid.bz2
-rw-r--r-- 1 dsdaqdev users  631575929 Apr  1 14:06 test.mid.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 dsdaqdev users 1002432717 Apr  1 14:06 test.mid.lz4
-rw-r--r-- 1 dsdaqdev users 1729327169 Apr  1 14:06 test.mid
(vslice) dsdaqdev@dsdaqgw:/zdata/vslice$ 

actual benchmarks:

(vslice) dsdaqdev@dsdaqgw:/zdata/vslice$ /usr/bin/time cat test.mid > /dev/null
0.00user 6.00system 0:06.00elapsed 99%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 1408maxresident)k

(vslice) dsdaqdev@dsdaqgw:/zdata/vslice$ /usr/bin/time gzip -1 -k test.mid
14.70user 6.42system 0:21.14elapsed 99%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 1664maxresident)k

(vslice) dsdaqdev@dsdaqgw:/zdata/vslice$ /usr/bin/time lz4 -k -f test.mid
2.90user 6.44system 0:09.39elapsed 99%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 7680maxresident)k

(vslice) dsdaqdev@dsdaqgw:/zdata/vslice$ /usr/bin/time bzip2 -k -f test.mid
64.76user 8.81system 1:13.59elapsed 99%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 8448maxresident)k

(vslice) dsdaqdev@dsdaqgw:/zdata/vslice$ /usr/bin/time pbzip2 -k -f test.mid
86.76user 15.39system 0:09.07elapsed 1125%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 114596maxresident)k

decompression benchmarks:

(vslice) dsdaqdev@dsdaqgw:/zdata/vslice$ /usr/bin/time lz4cat  test.mid.lz4 > /dev/null
0.68user 0.23system 0:00.91elapsed 99%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 7680maxresident)k

(vslice) dsdaqdev@dsdaqgw:/zdata/vslice$ /usr/bin/time zcat  test.mid.gz > /dev/null
6.61user 0.23system 0:06.85elapsed 99%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 1408maxresident)k

(vslice) dsdaqdev@dsdaqgw:/zdata/vslice$ /usr/bin/time bzcat  test.mid.bz2 > /dev/null
27.99user 1.59system 0:29.58elapsed 99%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 4656maxresident)k

(vslice) dsdaqdev@dsdaqgw:/zdata/vslice$ /usr/bin/time pbzip2 -dc test.mid.bz2 > /dev/null
37.32user 0.56system 0:02.75elapsed 1377%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 157036maxresident)k

K.O.

> Stefan and I have been working on improving the sequencer editor ...

Looks grand! Congratulations with getting it completed. The previous version was 
my rewrite of the old generated-C pages into html+javascript, nothing to write 
home about, I even kept the 1990-ies-style html formatting and styling as much as 
possible.

K.O.

I am not sure I have seen this documented before. MIDAS RPC data format.

1) RPC request (from client to mserver), in rpc_call_encode()

1.1) header:

4 bytes NET_COMMAND.header.routine_id is the RPC routine ID
4 bytes NET_COMMAND.header.param_size is the size of following data, aligned to 8 bytes

1.2) followed by values of RPC_IN parameters:

arg_size is the actual data size
param_size = ALIGN8(arg_size)

for TID_STRING||TID_LINK, arg_size = 1+strlen()
for TID_STRUCT||RPC_FIXARRAY, arg_size is taken from RPC_LIST.param[i].n
for RPC_VARARRAY|RPC_OUT, arg_size is pointed to by the next argument
for RPC_VARARRAY, arg_size is the value of the next argument
otherwise arg_size = rpc_tid_size()

data encoding:

RPC_VARARRAY:
4 bytes of ALIGN8(arg_size)
4 bytes of padding
param_size bytes of data

TID_STRING||TID_LINK:
param_size of string data, zero terminated

otherwise:
param_size of data

2) RPC dispatch in rpc_execute

for each parameter, a pointer is placed into prpc_param[i]:

RPC_IN: points to the data inside the receive buffer
RPC_OUT: points to the data buffer allocated inside the send buffer
RPC_IN|RPC_OUT: data is copied from the receive buffer to the send buffer, prpc_param[i] is a pointer to the copy in the send buffer

prpc_param[] is passed to the user handler function.

user function reads RPC_IN parameters by using the CSTRING(i), etc macros to dereference prpc_param[i]

user function modifies RPC_IN|RPC_OUT parameters pointed to by prpc_param[i] (directly in the send buffer)

user function places RPC_OUT data directly to the send buffer pointed to by prpc_param[i]

size of RPC_VARARRAY|RPC_OUT data should be written into the next/following parameter.

3) RPC reply

3.1) header:

4 bytes NET_COMMAND.header.routine_id contains the value returned by the user function (RPC_SUCCESS)
4 bytes NET_COMMAND.header.param_size is the size of following data aligned to 8 bytes

3.2) followed by data for RPC_OUT parameters:

data sizes and encodings are the same as for RPC_IN parameters.

for variable-size RPC_OUT parameters, space is allocated in the send buffer according to the maximum data size
that the user code expects to receive:

RPC_VARARRAY||TID_STRING: max_size is taken from the first 4 bytes of the *next* parameter
otherwise: max_size is same as arg_size and param_size.

when encoding and sending RPC_VARARRAY data, actual data size is taken from the next parameter, which is expected to be 
TID_INT32|RPC_IN|RPC_OUT.

4) Notes:

4.1) RPC_VARARRAY should always be sent using two parameters:

a) RPC_VARARRAY|RPC_IN is pointer to the data we are sending, next parameter must be TID_INT32|RPC_IN is data size
b) RPC_VARARRAY|RPC_OUT is pointer to the data buffer for received data, next parameter must be TID_INT32|RPC_IN|RPC_OUT before the call should 
contain maximum data size we expect to receive (size of malloc() buffer), after the call it may contain the actual data size returned
c) RPC_VARARRAY|RPC_IN|RPC_OUT is pointer to the data we are sending, next parameter must be TID_INT32|RPC_IN|RPC_OUT containing the maximum 
data size we are expected to receive.

4.2) during dispatching, RPC_VARARRAY|RPC_OUT and TID_STRING|RPC_OUT both have 8 bytes of special header preceeding the actual data, 4 bytes of 
maximum data size and 4 bytes of padding. prpc_param[] points to the actual data and user does not see this special header.

4.3) when encoding outgoing data, this special 8 byte header is removed from TID_STRING|RPC_OUT parameters using memmove().

4.4) TID_STRING parameters:

TID_STRING|RPC_IN can be sent using oe parameter
TID_STRING|RPC_OUT must be sent using two parameters, second parameter should be TID_INT32|RPC_IN to specify maximum returned string length
TID_STRING|RPC_IN|RPC_OUT ditto, but not used anywhere inside MIDAS

4.5) TID_IN32|RPC_VARARRAY does not work, corrupts following parameters. MIDAS only uses TID_ARRAY|RPC_VARARRAY

4.6) TID_STRING|RPC_IN|RPC_OUT does not seem to work.

4.7) RPC_VARARRAY does not work is there is preceding TID_STRING|RPC_OUT that returned a short string. memmove() moves stuff in the send buffer, 
this makes prpc_param[] pointers into the send buffer invalid. subsequent RPC_VARARRAY parameter refers to now-invalid prpc_param[i] pointer to 
get param_size and gets the wrong value. MIDAS does not use this sequence of RPC parameters.

4.8) same bug is in the processing of TID_STRING|RPC_OUT parameters, where it refers to invalid prpc_param[i] to get the string length.

K.O.

> 4.5) TID_IN32|RPC_VARARRAY does not work, corrupts following parameters. MIDAS only uses TID_ARRAY|RPC_VARARRAY

fixed in commit 0f5436d901a1dfaf6da2b94e2d87f870e3611cf1, TID_ARRAY|RPC_VARARRAY was okey (i.e. db_get_value()), bug happened only if rpc_tid_size() 
is not zero.

> 
> 4.6) TID_STRING|RPC_IN|RPC_OUT does not seem to work.
> 
> 4.7) RPC_VARARRAY does not work is there is preceding TID_STRING|RPC_OUT that returned a short string. memmove() moves stuff in the send buffer, 
> this makes prpc_param[] pointers into the send buffer invalid. subsequent RPC_VARARRAY parameter refers to now-invalid prpc_param[i] pointer to 
> get param_size and gets the wrong value. MIDAS does not use this sequence of RPC parameters.
> 
> 4.8) same bug is in the processing of TID_STRING|RPC_OUT parameters, where it refers to invalid prpc_param[i] to get the string length.

fixed in commits e45de5a8fa81c75e826a6a940f053c0794c962f5 and dc08fe8425c7d7bfea32540592b2c3aec5bead9f

K.O.

I now fully understand the MIDAS RPC code, had to add some debugging printfs, 
write some test code (odbedit test_rpc), catch and fix a few bugs.

Fixes for the bugs are now committed.

Small refactor of rpc_execute() should be committed soon, this removes the 
"goto" in the memory allocation of output buffer. Stefan's original code used a 
fixed size buffer, I later added allocation "as-neeed" but did not fully 
understand everything and implemented it as "if buffer too small, make it 
bigger, goto start over again".

After that, I can implement support for std::string and std::vector<char>.

The way it looks right now, the on-the-wire data format is flexible enough to 
make this change backward-compatible and allow MIDAS programs built with old 
MIDAS to continue connecting to the new MIDAS and vice-versa.

MIDAS RPC support for std::string should let us improve security by removing 
even more uses of fixed-size string buffers.

Support for std::vector<char> will allow removal of last places where 
MAX_EVENT_SIZE is used and simplify memory allocation in other "give me data" 
RPC calls, like RPC_JRPC and RPC_BRPC.

K.O.

root_v6.30.06.Linux-ubuntu22.04-x86_64-gcc11.4 the libtbb-dev package.

This is a new requirement and it is not listed in the ROOT dependancies page (I left a note on the ROOT forum, hopefully it will be 
fixed quickly). https://root.cern/install/dependencies/

Symptom is when starting ROOT, you get an error:
cling::DynamicLibraryManager::loadLibrary(): libtbb.so.12: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
and things do not work.

Fix is to:
apt install libtbb-dev

K.O.

Ubuntu 22 has almost everything necessary to cross-build arm64 MIDAS frontends:

# apt install g++-12-aarch64-linux-gnu gcc-12-aarch64-linux-gnu-base libstdc++-12-dev-arm64-cross
$ aarch64-linux-gnu-gcc-12 -o ttcp.aarch64 ttcp.c -static

to cross-build MIDAS:

make arm64_remoteonly -j

run programs from $MIDASSYS/linux-arm64-remoteonly/bin
link frontends to libraries in $MIDASSYS/linux-arm64-remoteonly/lib

Ubuntu 22 do not provide an arm64 libz.a, as a workaround, I build a fake one. (we do not have HAVE_ZLIB anymore...). or you 
can link to libz.a from your arm64 linux image, assuming include/zlib.h are compatible.

K.O.

This is moving slowly. I now have RPC caller side support for std::string and 
std::vector<char>. RPC server side is next. K.O.

> MIDAS RPC data format.
> 3) RPC reply
> 3.1) header:
> 3.2) followed by data for RPC_OUT parameters:
> 
> data sizes and encodings are the same as for RPC_IN parameters.

Correction:

RPC_VARARRAY data encoding for data returned by RPC is different from data sent to RPC:

4 bytes of arg_size (before 8-byte alignement), (for data sent to RPC, it's 4 bytes of param_size, after 8-byte alignment)
4 bytes of padding
param_size of data

K.O.

P.S. bug/discrepancy caught by GCC/LLVM address sanitizer.

We are considering to remove the analyzer framework mana.cxx from MIDAS. It 
currently has some compiler warnings and we wonder if we should fix them which 
would take some time or just remove the file. We have now to much more modern 
analyzer frameworks "manalyzer" and "ROOTANA" which should be used instead.

Is anybody still using the mana.cxx framework?

/Stefan

Ok, no relevant complains so far, so I removed mana and rmana from the CMake build 
process, but left the file mana.cxx still in the repository for educational 
purposes ;-)

Stefan

I had two free afternoon and took the opportunity to write a new API for the MSCB 
system. I'm not sure if anybody else actually uses MSCB (MIDAS slow control bus), 
but anyhow. 

The new API is contained in a single header file mscbxx.h, and it's extremely 
simple to use. Here is some example code:

#include "mscbxx.h"

...
   // connect to node 10 at submaster mscb123
   midas::mscb m("mscb123", 10);

   // print node info and all variables
   std::cout << m << std::endl;

   // refresh all variables (read from MSCB device)
   m.read_range();
   
   // access individual variables
   float f = m[5];   // index access
   f = m["In0"];     // name access

   // write value to MSCB device
   m["In0"] = 1.234;
...


Any feedback is welcome.

Stefan

> Here is some example code:
> 
> #include "mscbxx.h"
>    f = m["In0"];     // name access
>    m["In0"] = 1.234;
> Any feedback is welcome.

Where is the example of error handling?

K.O.

Look at the C++ implementation of the MIDAS data file reader, the code is very 
simple to follow.

Depending on how old are your data files, you may run into a problem with 
misaligned 32-bit data banks. Latest MIDAS creates BANK32A events where all 
banks are aligned to 64 bits. old BANK32 format had banks alternating between 
aligned and misaligned. old 16-bit BANK format data hopefully you do not have.

If you successfully make a data format description file for MIDAS, please post 
it here for the next user.

K.O.



[quote="Adrian Fisher"]Hi! I'm working on creating a ksy file to help with 
parsing some data, but I'm having trouble finding some information. Right now, I 
have it set up very rudimentary - it grabs the event header and then uses the 
data bank size to grab the size of the data, but then I'm needing additional 
padding after the data bank to reach the next event.
However, there's some irregularity in the "padding" between data banks that I 
haven't been able to find any documentation for. For some reason, after the data 
banks, there's sections of data of either 168 or 192 bytes, and it's seemingly 
arbitrary which size is used. 
I'm just wondering if anyone has any information about this so that I'd be able 
to make some more progress in parsing the data.
The data I'm working with can be found at https://github.com/det-
lab/dataReaderWriter/blob/master/data/07180808_1735_F0001.mid.gz
And the ksy file that I've created so far is at https://github.com/det-
lab/dataReaderWriter/blob/master/kaitai/ksy/scdms_v1.ksy

There's also a block of data after the odb that runs for 384 bytes that I'm 
unsure the purpose of, if anyone could point me to some information about that.

Thank you![/quote]

> Ok, no relevant complains so far, so I removed mana and rmana from the CMake build 
> process, but left the file mana.cxx still in the repository for educational 
> purposes ;-)

+1

K.O.