Latest Release	Linux / EPICS Build / MacOS	Cygwin@Windows

procServ

A wrapper to start arbitrary interactive commands in the background, with telnet access to stdin/stdout.

On systems that use systemd, the procServUtils set of helper/convenience scripts can be used to manage procServ instances using per-instance systemd unit files.

Dependencies

• Posix compliant OS with a C++ compiler
  Known to work on Linux, Solaris, MacOS, Cygwin.

• asciidoc (package: asciidoc), to create documentation in different formats (man, pdf, html)
  Note: The distribution tar contains the doc in all available formats, so you don't need asciidoc to make and install procServ.

• libtelnet (package: libtelnet)
  Note: The procServ distribution tar contains the libtelnet sources. It will be compiled into procServ automatically, if the library is not found on the system.

• Suggested: telnet and/or socat as clients to attach to procServ instances. The former is used to connect using TCP ports, the latter when using domain sockets.

• For the procServUtils scripts on systems with systemd:

  • Python (2.7 and up) with distutils
  • telnet and/or socat for the attach command (see above)

Building procServ

Using autotools

1. Unpack the procServ distribution tar.

2. Perform a regular autotools build:

   $ ./configure
   $ make
   

   Configure --with-systemd-utils to include the procServUtils scripts in the build.

Using the EPICS Build System

1. Unpack the procServ distribution tar into an appropriate place within your EPICS application structure.

2. Inside that directory, run ./configure --with-epics-top=TOP where TOP is the relative path to the EPICS TOP directory.
   (For a structure created with epicsMakeBaseExt.pl, the appropriate place for the procServ subdir would be under TOP/src, with ../.. being the relative path to specify to configure - which is the default.)

3. Build your EPICS structure.

From the procServ Source Repository

Requires autoconf >=2.61, automake >= 1.10
Optional asciidoc >= 8.4, FOP >= 0.95, xsltproc >= 1.1.24

   $ git clone https://github.com/ralphlange/procServ.git
   $ cd procserv
   $ make
   $ ./configure --enable-doc
   $ make

Configure --with-systemd-utils to include the procServUtils scripts in the build.

Note: When building from the repository, you must explicitly use --enable-doc or --disable-doc. Omitting this option assumes the distribution behaviour: the documentation should be installed, but doesn't need to be generated.

Building on Cygwin/Windows

In general,

   sh configure
   make

should be enough. If you have autoconf and automake packages, then for a really clean build type

   sh autoreconf -fi
   sh configure
   make clean
   make

If you plan to connect to procServ from a non-localhost address, you will need to use

   sh configure --enable-access-from-anywhere

as the configure step.

The executable is also available for download on GitHub/SourceForge.

Repository, CI, Distribution and Packaging Ecosystem

Sources

The procServ upstream repository is on GitHub.

Continuous Integration

Automated builds are provided by Travis (for Linux and MacOS) and AppVeyor (Cygwin).

Source Distribution Tars

These specifically created tars are different from a check-out of the upstream sources. They are available through GitHub releases or on SourceForge.

Linux System Packages

procServ is part of official Linux distributions:

• Debian/Ubuntu: apt-get install procserv
• Fedora/RHEL: yum install procServ

The source repository also contains the packaging extras. These are usually from the last release and not part of the distribution tar.

Using procServ

Running Applications (e.g. EPICS IOCs) as Services on Unix/Linux

Michael Davidsaver has contributed procServUtils, a set of utility scripts for managing procServ-run system service instances under systemd. These scripts generate the systemd unit files as well as configuration snippets for the conserver tool.

manage-procs is the script to add and remove procServ instances to the systemd configuration, create conserver configuration snippets, start and stop configured procServ instances, generate lists of the instances known on the current host and report their status.

For more details, check the manpage and use the script's -h option.

For older systems using SysV-style rc scripts, you can look at the Debian packaging or at the upstream repository of the predecessor package of these utilities.

Using procServ on Cygwin/Windows

In the .bat file to launch procServ you should add

   set CYGWIN=nodosfilewarning

to suppress warnings about using windows style paths.

If you plan to control procServ from a non-localhost address, you will need to run it with --allow to allow remote access to the child console.

The default build on Cygwin uses static linking. I.e. to run on a non-Cygwin Windows system, procServ only needs Cygwin1.dll, e.g. in the same directory as the executable.

Using Windows style paths ('\' delimiter) in arguments to procServ is usually OK and suggested under command.com. If you have problems try replacing them with Cygwin syntax, i.e. "/cygdrive/c/my/path" rather than "C:\my\path".

Under command.com, the caret sign '^' has to be escaped using '^^'.

If you wish to run a .bat file rather than an executable as child under procServ, you should use something along the lines of

   %ComSpec% /c runIOC.bat st.cmd

as arguments to procServ to launch your .bat file.

License

All copyrights reserved. Free use of this software is granted under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPLv3 or later).

Enjoy!