This evening I transitioned the slow controls to c1auxex2.

1. Disconnected satellite box
2. Turned off c1auxex
3. Disconnected DIN cables from backplace connectors
4. Attached purple adapter boards
5. Labeled DSub cables for use
6. Connected DSub cables to adapter boards and chassis
7. Initiated modbus IOC on c1auxex2

Gautam and I then proceeded to test basic functionality

1. Pitch bias sliders move pitch, yaw moves yaw.
2. Coil enable and monitoring channels work
3. Watchdog seems to work. We set the treshold for tripping low, excited the optic, watchdog didn't disappoint and triggered.
4. All channels Initialize with "0" upon machine/server script restart. This means the watchdog happens to be OFF, which is good . It would be great if we could also initialize PIT and YAW to retain their value from before to avoid kicking the optic. This is not straightforward with EPICS records but there must be a way.
5. We got the local damping going .
6. There is some problem with the routing of the fast BIO channels through the new chassis - so the ANALOG de-whitening filter seems to be always engaged, despite our toggling the software BIO bits . Something must be wrongly wired, as we confirmed by returning only the FAST BIO wiring to the pre-acromag state (but everything else is now controlled by acromag) and didn't have the problem anymore. Or some electrical connection is not made (I had to use gender changers on these connectors due to lack of proper cabling)
7. The switches for the QPD gain stages did not work. I suspect a wiring problem, since the switching of the coil enables did work.

Arms are locked, have been for ~1hour with no hickups. We will leave it like this overnight to observe, and debug further tomorrow.

Good going Johannes!

Some suggestions of checks to run, based on the rightmost colum in the wiring diagram here - I guess some of these have been done already, just noting them here so that results can be posted.

1. Oplev quadrant slow readouts should match their fast DAQ counterparts.
2. Confirm that EX Transmon QPD whitening/gain switching are working as expected, and that quadrant spectra have the correct shape.
3. Watchdog tripping under different conditions.
4. Coil driver slow readbacks make sense - we should also confirm which of the slow readbacks we are monitoring (there are multiple on the SOS coil driver board) and update the MEDM screen accordingly.
5. Confirm that shadow sensor PD whitening is working by looking at spectra.
6. Confirm de-whitening switching capability - both to engage and disengage - maybe the procedure here can be repeated.
7. Monitor DC alignment of ETMX - we've seen the optic wander around (as judged by the Oplev QPD spot position) while sitting in the control room, would be useful to rule out that this is because of the DC bias voltage stability (it probably isn't).
8. Confirm that burt snapshot recording is working as expected - this is not just for c1auxex, but for all channels, since, as Johannes pointed out, the 2018 directory was totally missing and hence no snapshots were being made.
9. Confirm that systemd restarts IOC processes when the machine currently called c1auxex2 gets restarted for whatever reason.

Both issues were fixed. In both cases it was two separate causes that prevented them from working.

The QPD gain stage switch software channels were assigned to wrong physical pins of the Acromag, and additionally their DSub cable was swapped with a different one.

The BIO switching had its signal and ground wires swapped on ALL connections, and part of it was also suffering from the cable-mixup.

Both issues were fixed. All backplane signals are now routed through the Acromag chassis.

Gautam and I did notice that occasionally ETMX alignment will start drifting as evident from the OpLev. I want to set up a diagnostic channel to see if the DAC voltages coming from the Acromag are responsible for this.

Steve and I removed c1auxex from 1X9 today to make space for the DAQ chassis. Steve installed rails for mounting. To install the box I had to remove all cabling, for which I used the usual precautions (disconnect satellite box etc.)

On reconnect c1auxex2 didn't initialize the physical EPICS channels (the 'actual' acromag channels), apparently it had trouble communicating. A reboot fixed this. It's possible that this is because of the direct cable connection without a network switch that exists
between the Acromags and c1auxex. The EPICS server was started automatically on reboot.

Currently the channel defaults need to be loaded manually after every EPICS server script restart with burt. I'm looking for a good way to automate this, but the only compiled burt binaries for x86 (that we can in principle run on c1auxex2 itself) on the martian network are from EPICS version 3.14.10 and throw a missing shared object error. Could be that simply some path variable is missing.

The burt binaries are not distributed by the lscsoft or cdssoft packages, so alternatively we would need to compile it ourselves for x86 or get it working with the older epics version.

1. I take back what I said about the OSEM PD mon at the meeting - there does seem to be to be some overall calibration factor (Attachment #1) that has scaled the OSEM PD readback channels, by a factor of (20000/2^15), which Johannes informs me is some strange feature of the ADC, which he will explain in a subsequent post.
2. The coil redback fields on the MEDM screen have a "30Hz HPF" text field below them - I believe this is misleading. Judging by the schematic, we are monitoring, on the backplane (which is what these channels are reading back from), the coil to the voltage with a gain of 0.5. We can reconfirm by checking the ETMX coil driver board, after which we should remove the misleading label on the MEDM screens.

This happened because there are multiple ways to scale the raw value of an EPICS channel to the desired output range. In the CryoLab I was using one way, but the EPICS records I copied from c1auxex were doing it differently. Basically this:

If the "LINR" field is set to "LINEAR", the fields EGUF and EGUL are used to convert the raw value to the channel value VAL. To use them, one needs to enter the voltages that return the maximum and minimum values expected for the given data type. It used to be +10V and -10V, respectively, and was copied that way but that doesn't work with the data type required for the Acromag units. For -some- reason, while the the ADC range is -10V to +10V, this corresponds to values -20000 to +20000, while for the DAC channels it's -30000 to +30000. I had observed this before when setting up the DAQ in the CryoLab, but there we were using "NO CONVERSION", which skips the EGUF and EGUL fields, and used the ASLO and AOFF for manual scaling to get it right. When I mixed the records from there with the old ones from c1auxex this got lost in translation. Gautam and I confirmed by eye that this indeed explains the different levels well. This means that the VMon channelsfor the coils are also showing the wrong voltages, which will be corrected, but the readback still definitely works and confirms that the enable switches do their job.

After some research: -the- reason for the reduced +/- 20,000 swing in raw values is a default setting for having support for legacy devices enabled when using the acromag proprietary i2o peer-to-peer protocol. So this is doubly unnecessary because a) we don't have any legacy devices at all and b) we're using pure modbus/TCP and no i2o. To change the setting I have to connect via the USB configuration utility. In addition, I want to understand the averaging feature of the acromag units better, which is also configured via USB, and lets one set a fixed amount of samples to be averaged before updating the read-register value. The documentation says that the 8 channels are multiplexed into a single ADC, and that new input data is available after 10 ms for each channel, suggesting a sampling rate of 100 Hz per channel and that the multiplexing happens faster, but is not super-clear about this, so I want to test it in the cryo lab first before unleashing it onto c1auxex2.

Furthermore, the standard timing options for updating epics records are 10s, 5s, 2s, 1s, 0.5s, 0,2s, and 0.1s. On the previous c1auxex, the monitoring channels were set to 0.1s, but that clashes with the 16 Hz global EPICS rate, resulting in partial double-sampling. One can manually provide the option 0.0625s for 16Hz update rate. I will test this and how it deals with the averaging in the cryolab too.

I replaced the two remaining D-Sub M/M cables that still had gender-changers with M/F cables today, completing the mechanical and wiring work on the ETMX rack. All backplane adapter boards were secured to a cross-strut of the crate using zip ties. This was necessary because the adapter boards don't fit the crate with their panels attached ( the ETMX eurocrate is the only one with slightly different dimensions from all the others), and the we can't mount them to the strut using the panels. This won't be an issue on any of the other crates.

In other news:

I disabled the legacy support in the three Acromag ADC units and set the input averaging to 10 samples via the USB configuration utility. The documentation is unfortunately a little sparse about what this actually means. The manual states that "fresh input data is available to the network every 10ms", so the sampling rate is for sure faster than 100Hz. Since the IOC updates its channels every .1 seconds I assume that an averaging value of 10 to reduce the input noise is safe. The maximum value the configuration tool permits is 200. I tried this using the CryoLab DAQ and set all input channels to 200 and used StripTool to look at the time series of a slow oscillation (.1Hz) with a large amplitude (16Vpp) and looked for missed data points, indicating too long wait times for channels updates. There was no such qualitative difference between 1 sample, 10 samples, and 200 samples, so even pushing the averaging value to max seemed okay. I went with the conservative value of 10 for the ETMX DAQ, but we can likely increase this if noise on the slow inputs becomes an issue.

The input scaling of the ADC channels has been corrected. I changed the conversion method in the EPICS records from manual using the ASLO and AOFF fields to using engineering units via EGUF and EGUL. This required a little attention. The Acromags scale the dynamic input range of +/- 10V to +/- 30,000 raw value, but the EPICS IOC interprets the data type as ranging from -32767 to +32768, so the EGUF and EGUL fields must be set to -10.923 and +10.923 to achieve proper scaling. I also changed the SCAN field on all ADC channels to 0.1 seconds. This has been done for all ADC and DAC channel records.

I compiled the burt binaries on c1auxex2 which took a little fiddling with dependencies and paths but nothing too major. The complete local epics folder (/opt/epics/) which contains the base epics binaries, modbus and burt for 32-bit linux has been copied to the shared drive at /opt/rtapps/epics-3.15.5. They belong to the most recent stable release. This was so we can now automatically call burt after the IOC initialization on c1auxex2 to restore the backed-up channel values.

I also copied the database definition and modbus instruction files to /cvs/cds/caltech/target/c1auxex2, from where they are now being read upon IOC initialization. This is an excerpt of the service file:

Note 1) I removed the logging to file for now because I noticed that if there are Acromag communication issues the logfile tends to grow in size VERY fast. In the cryo lab is had gotten to over 70GB just over the winter break. I don't think it's absolutely necessary to have it, and if diagnostics are needed we can easily uncomment it temporarily.

Note 2) I modified the static EPICS records of the four OSEM bias adjust channels so they won't start updating as soon as the IOC starts up (and before the channel defaults are restored by burt). This was done by setting the OMSL (output mode select) field from "closed_loop" to "supervisory". Sample record:

Now, on reboort/IOC re-initialization the physical DAC channels are performing a one-time readback of the last stored value in the Acromag's register, then idle until the last StartPost statement executes the script ETMXaux.sh, which changes their OMSL field back to "closed_loop". This causes them to start updating their output from the calc records defined in their DOL field (which have by then recovered their default values curtesy of burt). The result is a smooth transition from idling to the controlled state with no sudden or large offset changes.

[Gautam, Johannes]

While checking how smooth the transition is we still noticed significant motion of ETMX by looking at the locked green laser and OpLevs. We found that this motion was not caused by interruption of the slow offset adjust, but rather the Watchdog being re-initialized to its OFF state, which cuts the fast channels OFF. On other optics this is observed too, but not as severe. The cause is a rather large offset on the LR coil coming from the fast DAQ, which was reported as 50mV by the slow readback channel (while other readback values are <10mV). It is present even when turning the output of the CDS model OFF, but vanishes when the watchdog is triggered. This helped us trace it to an offset of the DAC output itself: it is present at the output of the AI board but vanishes when the DAC is disconnected. The actual offset is ~40mV, as opposed to other channels on the same board, which ahve offsets in the range 3-7mV.

While we can compensate for this offset in software - it made us  wonder if the DAC channel is somehow busted and if that's what causing the 'wandering' of ETMX that we have been observing recently. There are two free DAC channels on the AI chassis that has the side coil and the green temperature control signals. We could re-route the LR signal through a different DAC channel to fix this.

gautam: 40mV offset at the AI board output gets multiplied by 3 in the dewhitening board, so there is a 120mV DC offset going to the coil (measured at dewhite board output with DMM). The offset itself isn't hurting us, but the fact that it is several times larger than other channels led us to wonder if it could be drifting around as well. From my SOS pitch balancing forays, in my head I have the number 30mrad as being the full range of the OSEM actuation - so if the offset swings by 120mV, that's ~150urad of motion, which is quite large, and is of the order of magnitude I'm used to seeing ETMX move around by.

I moved the epics IOC server process for the single Acromag ADC that monitors the PSL signals from megatron to c1auxex2.

First, I disabled the legacy support on all channels as explained in elog 13565. Then I copied the files npro_config.cmd and NPRO.db from /opt/rtcds/caltech/c1/scripts/Acromag to /cvs/cds/caltech/target/c1psl2/ following the pattern of the old Motorola machines and the new c1auxex2. I had to make some edits for correct paths and expanded the epics records to the standard we're using for ETMX.

I then added a service to systemd on c1auxex2 that runs the epics IOC for the Acromag PSL channels: /etc/systemd/system/modbusPSL.service. No more tmux on megatron.

Running two IOCs on a signle machine at the same time did not produce any errors and seems fine so far.

I made a list of all the physical c1psl channels to get a better idea for how many acromags we need to replace it eventually. There  3123 unit is the one whose failure had prevented c1psl from booting, which is why it was unplugged (elog post 12852), and its channels have been inactive since. Are the 126MOPA channels used for the current mephisto? 126 tells me it's for an old lightwave laser, but I was checking a few and found that they have non-zero, changing values, so they may have been rewired.

It also hosts some virtual channels for the ISS with root C1:PSL-ISS_ defined in iss.db and dc.db, the PSL particle counter with root C1:PEM- defined in PCount.db  and a whole lot of PSL status channels defined in pslstatus.db. Transfering these virtual channels to a different machine is almost trivial, but the serial readout of the particle counter would have to find a new home.

Long story short - we need:

3113 - ADC

C1:PSL-126MOPA_126PWR
C1:PSL-126MOPA_DTMP
C1:PSL-126MOPA_LTMP
C1:PSL-126MOPA_DMON
C1:PSL-126MOPA_LMON
C1:PSL-126MOPA_CURMON
C1:PSL-126MOPA_DTEC
C1:PSL-126MOPA_LTEC
C1:PSL-126MOPA_CURMON2
C1:PSL-126MOPA_HTEMP
C1:PSL-126MOPA_HTEMPSET
C1:PSL-FSS_RFPDDC
C1:PSL-FSS_LODET
C1:PSL-FSS_FAST
C1:PSL-FSS_PCDRIVE
C1:PSL-FSS_MODET
C1:PSL-FSS_VCODETPWR
C1:PSL-FSS_TIDALOUT
C1:PSL-PMC_RFPDDC
C1:PSL-PMC_LODET
C1:PSL-PMC_PZT
C1:PSL-PMC_MODET

3123 - ADC (failed)

C1:PSL-126MOPA_AMPMON
C1:PSL-126MOPA_126MON
C1:PSL-FSS_RCTRANSPD
C1:PSL-FSS_MINCOMEAS
C1:PSL-FSS_RMTEMP
C1:PSL-FSS_RCTEMP
C1:PSL-FSS_MIXERM
C1:PSL-FSS_SLOWM
C1:PSL-FSS_TIDALINPUT
C1:PSL-PMC_PMCTRANSPD
C1:PSL-PMC_PMCERR
C1:PSL-PPKTP_TEMP

4116 - DAC

C1:PSL-126MOPA_126CURADJ
C1:PSL-126MOPA_DCAMP
C1:PSL-126MOPA_DCAMP-
C1:PSL-FSS_INOFFSET
C1:PSL-FSS_MGAIN
C1:PSL-FSS_FASTGAIN
C1:PSL-FSS_PHCON
C1:PSL-FSS_RFADJ
C1:PSL-FSS_SLOWDC
C1:PSL-FSS_VCOMODLEVEL
C1:PSL-FSS_TIDAL
C1:PSL-FSS_TIDALSET
C1:PSL-PMC_GAIN
C1:PSL-PMC_INOFFSET
C1:PSL-PMC_PHCON
C1:PSL-PMC_RFADJ
C1:PSL-PMC_RAMP

XVME-210 - Binary Input

C1:PSL-126MOPA_FAULT
C1:PSL-126MOPA_INTERLOCK
C1:PSL-126MOPA_SHUTTER
C1:PSL-126MOPA_126LASE
C1:PSL-126MOPA_AMPON

XVME-220 - Binary Output

C1:PSL-126MOPA_126NE
C1:PSL-126MOPA_126STANDBY
C1:PSL-126MOPA_SHUTOPENEX
C1:PSL-126MOPA_STANDBY
C1:PSL-FSS_SW1
C1:PSL-FSS_SW2
C1:PSL-FSS_FASTSWEEP
C1:PSL-FSS_PHFLIP
C1:PSL-FSS_VCOTESTSW
C1:PSL-FSS_VCOWIDESW
C1:PSL-PMC_SW1
C1:PSL-PMC_SW2
C1:PSL-PMC_PHFLIP
C1:PSL-PMC_BLANK

Gautam and I tested out the DAC that he installed in the latter half of last week. We confirmed that at least one of the channels is can successfully drive a sine wave (ch10, 1-indexed). We had to measure the output directly on the SCSI connector (breakout in the FE hard drive cabinet along the Y arm), since the SCSI breakout box (D080303) seems not to be working (wiring diagram in Gautam's elog from his SURF years).

I expanded the previous panels to 6U height for the new DAQ chassis we're buying for the upgrade. I figure it's best if we stick to the modular design, so I'm showing a panel for 8 BNC connectors as an example. The front panel has 12 slots, the back has 10 plus power connectors, switches, and the ethernet plug.

I moved the power switch to the rear because it's a waste of space to put it in the front, and it's not like we're power cycling this thing all the time. Note that the unit only requires +24V (for general operation, +20V also does the trick, as is the situation for ETMX) and +15V (excitation field for the binary I/O modules). While these could fit into a single CONEC power connector, it's probably for the better if we don't make a version that supplies a large positive voltage where negative is expected, so I put in two CONEC plugs for +/- 15 and +/- 24.

I want to order 5-6 of these as soon as possible, so if anyone wants anything changed or sees a problem, please do tell!

I began moving the AA and AI chassis over to 1X1/1X2 as outlined in the elog.

The chassis were mostly filled with empty cables. There was one cable attached to the output of a QPD interface board, but there was nothing attached to the input so it was clearly not in use and I disconnected it.

I also attach a picture of some of the SMA connectors I had to rotate to accommodate the chassis in their new locations.

Update:

The chassis are installed, and the anti-imaging chassis can be seen second from the top; the anti-aliasing chassis can be seen 7th from the top.

I need to breakout the SCSI on the back of the AA chassis, because ADC breakout board only has a DB36 adapter available; the other cables are occupied by the signals from the WFS dewhitening outputs.

Recently, accordian to Gautam, the NDS2 server has been dying on Megatron ~daily or weekly. The prescription is to restart the server.

1. I could find no instructions (that work) in the elog or wiki. We must remove the misleading entries from the wiki and update it with whatever works as of today.
2. There is a line (which has been commented out) in the Megatron crontab which is close to the right command, but it has the wrong path.
3. Running the command from the CRON (/home/nds2mgr/nds2-megatron/test_restart), gives several errrors.
4. when I run the init.d command which is in the script, it seems to run fine
5. the server then takes several minutes to get itself together; i.e. just because it is running doesn't mean that you can get data. I recommend waiting 5-10 minutes.

Also, megatron is running Ubuntu 12 !! Let's decide on a day to upgrade it to a Debian 18ish....word from Rolf is that Scientific Linux is fading out everywhere, so Debian is the new operating system for all conformists.

I just now modified the /etc/rsyncd.conf file as per Dan Kozak's instructions. The old conf file is still there with the file name appended with today's date.

I then enabled the rsync daemon to run on boot using 'enable'. I'll ask Dan to start the file transfers again and see if this works.

controls@nodus|etc> sudo systemctl start rsyncd.service
controls@nodus|etc> sudo systemctl enable rsyncd.service
Created symlink from /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/rsyncd.service to /usr/lib/systemd/system/rsyncd.service.
controls@nodus|etc> sudo systemctl status rsyncd.service
● rsyncd.service - fast remote file copy program daemon
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/rsyncd.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (running) since Mon 2020-04-13 16:49:12 PDT; 1min 28s ago
 Main PID: 4950 (rsync)
   CGroup: /system.slice/rsyncd.service
           └─4950 /usr/bin/rsync --daemon --no-detach

Apr 13 16:49:12 nodus.martian.113.168.192.in-addr.arpa systemd[1]: Started fast remote file copy program daemon.
Apr 13 16:49:12 nodus.martian.113.168.192.in-addr.arpa systemd[1]: Starting fast remote file copy program daemon...

Now that the old APC Smart-UPS 2200 is no longer in use by the vacuum system, I looked into whether it can be repurposed for the framebuilder machine. Yes, it can. The max power consumption of the framebuilder (a SunFire X4600) is 1.137kW. With fresh batteries, I estimate this UPS can power the framebuilder for >10 min. and possibly as long as 30 min., depending on the exact load.

@Chub/Jordan, this UPS is ready to be moved to rack 1X6/1X7. It just has to be disconnected from the wall outlet. All of the equipment it was previously powering has been moved to the new UPS. I have ordered a replacement battery (APC #RBC43) which is scheduled to arrive 9/09-11.

I heard a rumor about a DAQ problem at the 40m.

To investigate, I tried retrieving data from some channels under C1:SUS-AS1 on the c1sus2 front end. DQ channels worked fine, testpoint channels did not. This pointed to an issue involving the communication with awgtpman. However, AWG excitations did work. So the issue seemed to be specific to the communication between daqd and awgtpman.

daqd logs were complaining of an error in the tpRequest function: error code -3/couldn't create test point handle. (Confusingly, part of the error message was buffered somewhere, and would only print after a subsequent connection to daqd was made.) This message signifies some kind of failure in setting up the RPC connection to awgtpman. A further error string is available from the system to explain the cause of the failure, but daqd does not provide it. So we have to guess...

One of the reasons an RPC connection can fail is if the server name cannot be resolved. Indeed, address lookup for c1sus2 from fb1 was broken:

$ host c1sus2
Host c1sus2 not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)

In /etc/resolv.conf on fb1 there was the following line:

search martian.113.168.192.in-addr.arpa

Changing this to search martian got address lookup on fb1 working:

$ host c1sus2
c1sus2.martian has address 192.168.113.87

But testpoints still could not be retrieved from c1sus2, even after a daqd restart.

In /etc/hosts on fb1 I found the following:

192.168.113.92  c1sus2

Changing the hardcoded address to the value returned by the nameserver (192.168.113.87) fixed the problem.

It might be even better to remove the hardcoded addresses of front ends from the hosts file, letting DNS function as the sole source of truth. But a full system restart should be performed after such a change, to ensure nothing else is broken by it. I leave that for another time.

[Anchal, Paco, JC]

Thanks Chris for the fix. We are able to access the testpoints now but we started facing another issue this morning, not sure how it is related to what you did.

• The C1:LSC-TRX_OUT and C1:LSC-TRY_OUT channels are stuck to zero value.
• These were the channels we used until last friday to align the interferometer.
• These channels are routed through the c1rfm FE model (Reflected Memory model is the name, I think). These channels carry the IR transmission photodiode monitors at the two ends of the interferometer, where they are first logged into the local FEs as C1:SUS-ETMX_TRX and C1:SUS-ETMY_TRY .
• These channels are then fed to C1:SCX-RFM_TRX -> C1:RFM_TRX -> C1:RFM-LSC_TRX -> C1:LSC-TRX and similar for Y side.
• We are able to see channels in the end FE filtermodule testpoints (C1:SUS-ETMX_TRX_OUT & C1:SUS-ETMY_TRY_OUT)
• However, we are unable to see the same signal in c1rfm filter module testpoints like C1:RFM_TRX_IN1, C1:RFM_TRY_IN1 etc
• There is an IPC error shown in CDS FE status screen for c1rfm in c1sus. But we remember seeing this red for a long time and have been ignoring it so far as everything was working regardless.

The steps we have tried to fix this are:

• Restart all the FE models in c1lsc, c1sus, and c1ioo (without restarting the computers themselves) , and then burt restore.
• Restart all the FE models in c1iscex, and c1iscey (only c1iscey computer was restarted) , and then burt restore.

These above steps did not fix the issue. Since we have  the testpoints (C1:SUS-ETMX_TRX_OUT & C1:SUS-ETMY_TRY_OUT) for now to monitor the transmission levels, we are going ahead with our upgrade work without resovling this issue. Please let us know if you have any insights.

It looks like the RFM problem started a little after 2am on Saturday morning (attachment 1). It’s subsequent to what I did, but during a time of no apparent activity, either by me or others.

The pattern of errors on c1rfm (attachment 2) looks very much like this one previously reported by Gautam (errors on all IRFM0 ipcs). Maybe the fix described in Koji’s followup will work again (involving hard reboots).

After being unable to fetch data offsite using the nds40 server, I found enlightment here. Our nds2 server is running on megatron and the link before should be sufficient to restore it after any hiccups.

# On Linux, "ezcastep" will interpret negative steps as command line arguments,
# because the GNU library interprets anything starting with a dash as a flag.
# There are two ways around this.  One is to set the environment variable
# POSIXLY_CORRECT and the other is to inject "--" as a command line argument
# before any dashed arguments you don't want interpreted as a flag.  The former
# is easiest to use here:

if (`uname` =~ m/Linux/) {
    # Add an environment variable for child processes
    $ENV{'POSIXLY_CORRECT'} = 1;
}

pushd /cvs/cds/caltech/users/tf/build/labca_2_1/bin/linux-x86
setenv PATH ${PATH}:`pwd`
cd /cvs/cds/caltech/users/tf/build/labca_2_1/lib/linux-x86
setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH ${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}:`pwd`
popd

addpath /cvs/cds/caltech/users/tf/build/labca_2_1/bin/linux-x86/labca
help labca
foo = lcaGet('C1:PSL-FSS_RCTRANSPD')