I'm testing a new commissioning reservation system I wrote this afternoon using python. This is a file based system replacing the old EPICS system. The main reason for the change is that the old EPICS system developed problems related to updates and required a lot of maintenance. It was also awkward to configure and restrictive in what it could do.

The reservation file is /opt/rtcds/lho/h1/cds/reservations.txt

There are three python scripts:

make_reservation.py is available to all users, it allows you to create your reservation

display_reservations.py script loops every second and shows the currently open reservations

decrement_reservations.py script is ran as a cronjob every minute, it decrements the time-to-live of each reservation and deletes them when they expire.

I have a display running on the left control room TV closest to the projector screen.

Here is the usage document for the make_reservation.py script

controls@opsws6:~ 0$ make_reservation.py -h

usage: make_reservation.py [-h] system name task contact length

create a reservation for a system

positional arguments:

  system      the system you are reserving, e.g. model/daq

  name        your name

  task        description of your task

  contact     your contact info (location, phone num)

  length      length of time (d:hh:mm)

optional arguments:

  -h, --help  show this help message and exit

If you need to use spaces, surround the string with quotes. There are no limitations on string contents. Here is an example reservation

      make_reservation.py "PEM and DAQ" david.barker "update PEM models, restart DAQ" "phone 255" 0:2:0