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Log Files Explained
The first thing to remember is that, all being well, each Field System PC (pcfshb, pcfske or pcfsyg) is running the field system software locally and keeping a local copy of the experiment log. The log lives on that PC in /usr2/log. We usually run the field system software in the VNC session on the PC (it’s started by typing ‘fs’ in a terminal window).
Whenever you send a command, either via eRemoteCtrl or via the ‘oprin’ window in the VNC session, it is received by the field system and the output is logged in that local file.
Whenever you issue a ‘schedule=XXX‘ command all following commands are logged to /usr2/log/XXX.log. If that log file already exists, it is appended. The field system will never delete a log or create multiple versions of a log. You actually have to do something at the unix prompt to make these ‘bad' things happen. The idea is to make sure there is only ever one log for the entire experiment.
When an experiment finishes, the scripts we run (comments.sh and flogit_auscope.pl) retrieve the log file from the Field System PC and send it off to the IVS server.
Note that we also create a copy of the log on ops2 with eRemoteCtrl which updates continuously during an experiment. This log file is never sent to IVS, you can call it whatever you like, and is never used after the experiment finishes. The purpose of this eRemoteCtrl log is to give the Log Monitor software a way of monitoring what’s going on and to ring alarms when something bad happens. If for some reason eRemoteCtrl needs restarting and you need to start recording a log again (that red button) you can safely overwrite the log or give it a new name, it doesn’t matter. (However if you do give it a new name, you need to tell Log Monitor what it is).
So, in general, if you need to restart eRemoteCtrl during an experiment, it shouldn’t have any affect on the observations because they should continue locally (you can check the VNC session to confirm this) and you shouldn’t even need to mention it in the message sent at the end of the experiment.
