D. Starting a Tango control system

1 Without database

When used without database, there is no additional process to start. Simply starts device server using the -nodb option (and eventually the -dlist option) on specific port. See

to find informations on how to start/write Tango device server not using the database.

2 With database

Starting the Tango control system simply means starting its database device server on a well defined host using a well defined port. Use the host name and the port number to build the TANGO_HOST environment variable. See

to find how starting a device server on a specific host. Obviously, the underlying database software (MySQL) must be started before the Tango database device server. The Tango database server connects to MySQL using a default logging name set to root. You can change this behaviour with the MYSQL_USER and MYSQL_PASSWORD environment variables. Define them before starting the database server.
If you are using the Tango administration graphical tool called Astor, you also need to start a specific Tango device server called Starter on each host where Tango device server(s) are running. See [19] for Astor documentation. This starter device server is able to start even before the Tango database device server is started. In this case, it will enter a loop in which it periodically tries to access the Tango database device. The loop exits and the server starts only if the database device access succeed.

3 With database and event

1 For Tango releases lower than 8

On top of what is described in the previous chapter, using event means using CORBA Notification service. Start one Notification Service daemon on each host where device server(s) used via events are running. The Notification Service daemon event channel factory IOR has to be registered in the Tango database. This is done with the notifd2db command. The notification daemon is a process with a high thread number. By default, Unix like operating systems reserve a big amount of memory for each thread stack (8 MByte for Linux/Ubuntu, 10 MByte for Linux/RedHat 4). If your process has several hundreds of threads, this could generate a too high memory requirement on virtual memory and even exceed the maximun allowed memory per process (3 GBytes on Linux for 32 bits computer). The notification service daemon works very well with a value of only 2 Mybtes for thread stack. The Unix command line ulimit -s 2048 asks the operating system to give 2 Mbytes for each thread stack. Example of starting and registering a Notification Service daemon on a UNIX like operating system

$\begin{picture}(0,0)\thicklines \put(0,0){\line(1,0){400}} \end{picture}$

:      1  ulimit -s 2048
     2  notifd -n -DDeadFilterInterval=300 &
     3  notifd2db

$\begin{picture}(0,0)\thicklines \put(0,0){\line(1,0){400}} \end{picture}$

The Notification Service daemon is started at line 2. Its -DDeadFilterInterval option is used to specify some internal cleaning of dead objects within the notification service. The -n option is used to disable the use of the CORBA Naming Service for registering the default event channel factory. The registration of the Notification Service daemon in the Tango database is done at line 2.
It differs on a Windows computer

$\begin{picture}(0,0)\thicklines \put(0,0){\line(1,0){400}} \end{picture}$

: 1 notifd -n -DDeadFilterInterval=300 -DFactoryIORFileName=C:\Temp\evfact.ior &
2 notifd2db C:\Temp\evfact.ior

$\begin{picture}(0,0)\thicklines \put(0,0){\line(1,0){400}} \end{picture}$

2 For release 8 and above

A new event system has been implemented starting with Tango release 8. With this new event system, the CORBA Notification service is not needed any more. This means that as soon as all Tango device server processes running on a host and all clients using events from their devices used Tango 8, it is not required to start any process other than the device servers and the clients. You can forget the previous sub-chapter!

4 With file used as database

When used with database on file, there is no additional process to start. Simply starts device server using the -file option specifying file name port. See

to find informations on how to start Tango device server using database on file.

5 With file used as database and event

1 For Tango releases lower than 8

Using event means using CORBA Notification service. Start one Notification Service daemon on the host where device server(s) using events are running. The Notification Service daemon event channel factory IOR has to be registered in the file(s) use as database. This is done with the notifd2db command. Example of starting and registering a Notification Service daemon on a UNIX like operating system

$\begin{picture}(0,0)\thicklines \put(0,0){\line(1,0){400}} \end{picture}$

: 1 notifd -n -DDeadFilterInterval=300 &
2 notifd2db -o /var/myfile.res

$\begin{picture}(0,0)\thicklines \put(0,0){\line(1,0){400}} \end{picture}$

The Notification Service daemon is started at line 1. Its -n option is used to disable the use of the CORBA Naming Service for registering the default event channel factory. The registration of the Notification Service daemon in the file used as database is done at line 2 with its -o command line option.
It differs on a Windows computer because the name of the file used by the CORBA notification service to store its channel factory IOR must be specified using its -D command line option. This file name has also to be passed to the notifd2db command.

$\begin{picture}(0,0)\thicklines \put(0,0){\line(1,0){400}} \end{picture}$

: 1 notifd -n -DDeadFilterInterval=300 -DFactoryIORFileName=C:\Temp\evfact.ior &
2 notifd2db C:\Temp\evfact.ior -o C:\Temp\myfile.res

$\begin{picture}(0,0)\thicklines \put(0,0){\line(1,0){400}} \end{picture}$

2 For release 8 and above

A new event system has been implemented starting with Tango release 8. With this new event system, the CORBA Notification service is not needed any more. This means that as soon as all clients using events from devices embedded in the device server use Tango 8, it is not required to start any process other than the device server and its clients.

6 With the controlled access

Using the Tango controlled access means starting a specific device server called TangoAccessControl. By default, this server has to be started with the instance name set to 1 and its device name is sys/access_control/1. The command line to start this device server is:

: TangoAccessControl 1

This server connects to MySQL using a default logging name set to root. You can change this behaviour with the MYSQL_USER and MYSQL_PASSWORD environment variables. Define them before starting the controlled access device server. This server also uses the MYSQL_HOST environment variable if you need to connect it to some MySQL server running on another host. The syntax of this environment varaible is host:port. Port is optional and if it is not defined, the MySQL default port is used (3306). If it is not defined at all, a connection to the localhost is made. This controlled access system uses the Tango database to retrieve user rights and it is not possible to run it in a Tango control system running without database.

Emmanuel Taurel 2012-06-06