This page describes the process of running an XAL model of the LCLS accelerator, and uploading that model to Oracle, from where it can be accessed by Matlab and Java applications through AIDA.
Run a model
Copy the file to the following directory. It's necessary to copy it to here because it has to be in a directory that can be accessed by the web browser used in the following step.
/u1/lcls/physics/onlinemodel/xal
Upload the files.
Start a browser
Start a browser on lcls-prod02, such as by hitting the browser icon on a control room OPI. The reason it's important to run the browser on lcls-prod02, is that the browser has to be able to access a URL in the SLAC internet space, and simultaneously access the filesystem directory where the models have been put. Don't complain to me about this complexity, talk to the Controls Department Systems Group. It should of course be that any browser should be able to access LCLS model data output.
So, either, on lcls-prod02:
kinit (to get a token, which is necessary to start firefox) firefox &
or, go to a control room OPI and use the 
icon in the taskbar at the bottom o the screen to launch firefox. This will launch the special firefox on lcls-prod02, from where you can upload the model xml files in the nxt step.
Use APEX to upload the file.
In the browser launched on lcls-prod02, browse to this URL:
https://oraweb.slac.stanford.edu/apex/slacprod/f?p=400
Supply your Windows username and password to login to APEX. Don't tell firefox to remember your password.
Once you're in the application you should see "Select Device File" and "Select Elements File". When a file has been entered for BOTH of these, and you have selected a hardware file and initial conditions file, you can hit "Submit" at the bottom of the dialog screen to start the process of Upload into Oracle.
The following helps with the buttons on the above dialog window.
"Select Device File".
You can either enter a full filename by hand, or use the filebrowser, to browse to /mccfs2/u1/lcls/physics/onlinemodel/xal and select the file "modelDevices.xml", select it, and hit Open icon in the filebrowser dialog to make the selection. (It's a bit confusing using the word "Open" to mean "Select" - talk to Oracle about that - they went cheap and used the firefox file selection widget, designed for selecting a file to open, but they use it to mean "select").
"Select Elements File".
In the filebrowser, browse to /mccfs2/u1/lcls/physics/onlinemodel/xal and select the file "modelOutput.xml".
Select a Hardware File and a Initial Conditions File
Pull-down and select a Hardware file, like "hw_file1", and pull-down the Initial Conditions and select "ic_file1". At the time of writing these are placeholders, any of the values in the pull-downs may be used, but you must select a value before the Submit button will work.
Start the upload to Oracle
Hit "Submit".
Update the AIDA Directory service
Having uploaded a new model, we have to tell Aida to update its database of the names of XAL modelled devices. We will teach first aidadev, then aidaprod databases. These are, respectively, the Oracle usernames (ie subschema) of the Aida directory services used on the aida development and production networks.
Log into an AFS Solaris machine like tersk02, and set up the cdsoft environment
ssh -l<your-username> tersk09 tersk> source /afs/slac/g/cd/soft/dev/script/ENVS.csh
Enter sqlplus for user AIDADEV on database SLACPROD (SLACPROD will be set by sourcing ENVS.csh above).
sqlplus AIDADEV/<aidadbpassword>
Run the updating procedure. This will look in the ELEMENT_MODELS which was updated by the APX load above, and, for every row that has a match in LCLS_ELEMENTS, it will update Aida's directory service with a name composed of the EPICS name of the device + '//twiss' and '//R', and tell Aida that that device's model is to be acquired from the XAL Aida data provider (service id 202).
aida_xal_names_update takes an optional parameter, to specify whether or not to set the service-id to 202 of names it finds to be already in the aida directory. The default (or "N") is not to set the service-id (that is, leave names which are in both the SLC namespace and EPICS name, assigned to the SLC modelling environment (service id 63). If given, and valued "Y", all names modelled by XAL will be assigned to the XAL model service id (202).
SQL> exec aida_xal_names_update [Y]; PL/SQL procedure successfully completed. <-- you should see this
At the time of writing aida_all_changes will overwrite the service id of all the matching names it finds in LCLS_ELEMENTS whose name it finds in the aida directory database, from service 63 (SLC Dimad) to 202 (XAL). That is, for the names in both SLC and EPICS namespaces, as writen, it will assign them to XAL. So, this should be changed before uploading a new model to AIDAPROD unless the XAL model in ELEMENT_MODELS is completely certified.
You can see which names are assigned to the XAL model server by AIDA, use the following sql script
SQL> @show_IA_given_serviceid 202
Now go over and update the AIDAPROD names too (don't wait, all names should be in sync), run aida_all_changes again, and verify the names added again.
SQL> connect aidaprod/<aidadbpassword> Connected. SQL> exec aida_xal_names_update [Y]; SQL> @show_IA_given_serviceid 202
Test the upload by asking Aida to retrieve the model parameters (twiss or R) of a device in the model file uploaded. This link takes you to the AidaWeb modelling page, from where you can as for teh names of devices (eg 'BPMS:%//twiss' will return the names of all modelled BPMS, or 'BPMS:IN20:521//twiss' will return model for that device.
https://seal.slac.stanford.edu/aidaweb/modelling.jsp
Developers Guide
At the time of writing (31/Jul/08), Elie's upload parser has some restrictions:
Syntax and constraints of the modelOutput xml files:
- the xml header <?xml..> must be on a single record at the top of teh file, followed by a LF.
- the <model_output> element tag must be on a record on its own
- Each <element> element must be composed of a single record (no CR or LN)
- There must be no NaN attribute values. Twiss params (or R matrix elements) that don't have a good value must have some numeric value.