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This section explains the software architecture of Luciol, for software development & integration or 3rd party tools, go to Development section. In Luciol products, there are three levels of software:
The firmware operate the resources of the Luciol Mother and I/O modules. There exists one firmware programme per module. The Mother firwmare deals with the communication between Mother modules -extension boxes-, between Mother module and local I/O modules and between Mother and CPU modules. The firmware codes are downloaded to modules at manufacturing and identified -name & version- by stickers on the EEPROMs. Note: this information is also available from web server configuration tool. Refer to Developer Guides to know which tools we use and how you may modify the different software levels. Note: modifying firmware may breach the warranty obligations of I.T. Lity. The Kernel operates the resources of the Luciol CPU module and it is the interface between the applications, the CPU ressources & Luciol modules. Luciol applications are the programmes dealing with the end-user function(s) of Luciol:
the Master and Slave parts of a same protocol make 2 Luciol applications. Indeed, you may not need both on board at the same time. The Kernel of Luciol runs on the aJ100 processor. The aJ100 operates a multi-threading and real-time environment. The Kernel software is downloaded in the Luciol FLASH memory at delivery of Luciol. The Kernel starts automatically at power-up of Luciol. The Kernel software is identified -name & version- by a sticker on the FLASH chips. Note: this information is also available from web server configuration tool. The Kernel of Luciol is a standalone application. The Kernel deals with the core services of Luciol:
The Kernel is first in charge of the thread scheduling on the top of the aJ100 processor facilities. Each Luciol application will claim the Kernel at least one thread to run. Thread switching is completed by the aJ100 in a few micro-seconds. The Kernel manages a general watch-dog in order to trap and address any problem which may occur at firmware or application level. The Kernel is also responsible for a dual-data repository. dual means there is an active and passive repository. Purpose of data repository is to store data coming through Luciol for applications purposes. The data structure is application independent although it has been built on the low level data of GOMSFE. Applications use an API to interface the Kernel. In this API they define a "data prism" to access the data in the active repository. This prism is defined by the application Developer, not the Users. |
The Kernel allows the applications to fetch, store
and forward information with other Luciol modules and external devices
connected to Luciol via the serial and Ethernet ports. The applications inter-act with the Kernel on a publish-subscribe event mode. They subscribe to the data they want to be advised when a new value is received. They publish data they can update. Thanks to this software architecture, the applications are 100% independent. Adding, removing an application is only a matter of configuration. The Kernel has a direct access to the serial RSxxx & Ethernet ports. Configuration of these ports is part of the Kernel configuration process. Luciol web server can be access by any usual Internet Browser and 128 bit SSL can be enable when required. The web server is used for:
To improve validation process, configuration of an application can be tested separately from others. Indeed Luciol web server allows to start only the application s we want to run and not the others. With web server, only the passive repository can be modified on-line. However, the Luciol web server provides an access to the live dump of the active data repository of all the on-board applications. In addition to the standard Kernel, we may include optional libraries in the kernel according to Luciol overall application purpose:
PPP is used when IP over serial link is required: web server over a PSTN link, application communicating over a modem, ... E-mail is an advanced function used in monitoring applications: upon detection of an event, an application may send to one or several recipients an e-mail with attachments. The attachments can contained. E-mail can be used over LAN or PSTN. Luciol applications are made of a programme, a configuration template and configuration files. The programme and the template are provided by the Application Developer. Note: list of applications is shown in Application section. If accepted by applications, several sessions of the same applications may be run simultaneously. For instance several DNP3 master applications may be run in parallel. Note: in the same way several master protocol applications may run in parallel to report to different units: using 101 to SCADA, using Modbus ASCII to a remote monitoring application. To use an pplication, the User has simply to create or modify the configuration file. A configuration can be populated automatically by an import function or manually using the Luciol plug-in for Eclipse. The plug-in and the web server support the application configuration template to dictate the User what to configure and what are the valid values for all the parameters. In fact, the configuration template is a DTD file and the configuration files XML files. Although this is fully transparent to User, the XML language offers a powerful grammar to describe data. The Kernel embeds an XML parser for this purpose. Refer to First Time User Guide in Download section to learn about how to use Luciol in your system. |
| LUCIOL SOFTWARE IS OPEN SOURCE, RE-USE IT IN YOUR OWN APPLICATIONS ! | |
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