Running Beacon

The Beacon process can start up to 4 servers:

  • Configuration database server
  • Redis server
  • (optional) configuration application web server
  • (optional) TANGO database server

Running Beacon at ESRF

At ESRF, the BLISS installation procedure automatically adds Beacon to the daemons started by the system:

  • The port number for the Beacon server is set to 25000
  • The Redis server is started on port 25001
  • The configuration files directory is set to /users/blissadm/local/beamline_configuration
  • The configuration web application is available at http://localhost:9030
  • The Beacon TANGO database service is disabled

Note

At ESRF there is at least one Beacon server per beamline.

Custom startup

It is required to start Beacon server using --db-path to specify the path to the configuration files:

beacon-server --db-path=~/local/beamline_configuration

The Beacon port number can be set manually (otherwise, by default, Beacon will just choose the first free port it finds):

beacon-server --db-path=~/local/beamline_configuration --port=25000

Note

Beacon implements a discovery protocol (in the same spirit as SSDP). Within the same sub-network clients will find a Beacon automatically. But it is safer to specify where to connect manually, using the BEACON_HOST environment variable to point to <machine>:<port> (example: bibhelm:25000).

The web configuration UI can be enabled, by specifying the web application port number using --webapp-port:

beacon-server --db-path=~/local/beamline_configuration --port=25000 --webapp-port=9030

BLISS Beacon server is also able to provide a full TANGO database server service that integrates nicely with the BLISS configuration. To start this service it is just needed to provide the TANGO port that you want the TANGO database server to serve:

beacon-server --db-path=~/local/beamline_configuration --port=25000 --webapp-port=9030 --tango-port=20000

Command line options

* `--db-path` to specify the root path of the configuration files.
* `--port` to set a tcp port on beacon server default is dynamic.
* `--redis-port` to set a port for redis, default is 6379.
* `--redis_socket` uds redis connection, default is */tmp/redis.sock*
* `--tango-port` if defined start the tango database ds on a defined port.
* `--tango-debug-level` default is 0 WARNING == 1, INFO == 2, DEBUG == 2
* `--webapp-port` if defined start the web application on the specified port
* `--log-level` change the logging level of all Beacon services
  default INFO can be switch between DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR
* `--add-filter` add an address filter for the discovery protocol.
  i.e 172.24.8.0/24 only reply if client is on this network.