VEGAS Pulsar Modes - Real-time displays

Current GUPPI displays

guppi_status

• Text-based (curses) display showing status shared memory values.
• Run from command line on beef.
• Directly accesses status shared memory.
• Works for all guppi modes.

guppi_gpu_status

• Text-based display showing certain shared mem params (DROPTOT, etc) and recent guppi_daq output for all gpu nodes.
• Run from command line on beef.
• Accesses gpu node status shared mem via guppi controller.
• Only relevant for coherent modes.

guppi_adc_hist

• Displays histogram of raw ADC counts, used by observers to verify Balance worked.
• Run from command line on beef.
• Uses guppi controller to get data from HW (BEE2).
• Works for all GUPPI modes (coherent/incoherent).

guppi_monitor

• Shows a real-time display of the bandpass.
• Run from command line on beef.
• Accesses data shared memory buffers directly.
• Only works for incoherent modes.

guppi_auto_plot

• Plots most recent fold-mode data from output files on gpu nodes.
• Output formatted into a web display: http://www.gb.nrao.edu/guppi/
• Runs automatically on gpu nodes.
• Only works for coherent fold modes.

Direct inspection of data files

• Observers can look at final output files as they are being written using PRESTO/PSRCHIVE/etc pulsar software.
• Run from command line on beef.
• Only practical for incoherent modes (coherent mode requires logging in to gpu nodes).

Things that could be improved from GUPPI displays

• Too many different programs / places to look.
• Almost no feedback to operators about whether GUPPI is working.
• No real-time data display (bandpass or similar) for coherent search mode.

VEGAS displays

Existing VEGAS software

• vegasdm already does guppi_adc_hist functions.
• vegas_status is identical to guppi_status.
• hpc code (guppi_daq or its descendant) will write output files to lustre, so observers will still be able to interact directly with these.

Ideas for potential development

• CLEO display that replaces some of the guppi_status/guppi_gpu_status functionality.
• Single real-time display program that shows an appropriate summary of current data (depending on mode)?