DFTS Message Queue Manual Testing

For each DFTS blue side instance, 2 executables stay running: 

• “onotify” is the new one
• monitors the send directory for that channel
• when it sees a file to send, it checks that the file is not in use, then writes to the message queue to notify dd_send_file to send it
• dd_sendfile – this process now acts as a linux daemon
• reads the message queue, sends files when it is told to do so
• With the new release 3.0.0.X, dd_send_file also deletes the file after sending.  It did not do that before.

These 2 executables are launched from bash script owlDftsSend.  For each DFTS instance, this script does a “cd” to the senddataX directory, where X is the instance number  (1-32, depending on how many channels you have set up)  The dd_send_file executable will only send files in the current directory, which is the senddataX directory for that instance.

Our “Owl common utilities” rpm comes with DFTS.  It contains a couple C programs to create or destroy the message queue when DFTS is started or stopped.  We also found an internal utility to write to the message queue.  I experimented with this, and was able to tell dd_sendfile to send a file.

I believe that the easiest way to get this working would be to do the following:

• Blue side owlDftsSend script gets modified, so that:
  • onotify does not get launched
  • the “cd” for every instance is hard coded to your 1 send directory, rather than the default senddataX directories.  This way, every dd_send_file instance can send from your 1 directory
• Use internal Owl utility smi_mq_sender to write to the message queue
  • It apparently checks that it can find the file, and assumes the pathname is relative to the current working directory. 
  • So, to run it, you would have to cd to your send directory, then invoke it with the full pathname
  • cd  /<your send directory>;  /Owl/dfts/utils/smi_mq_sender   <key file>  <file name with path relative to your 1 send directory>
    • (The key files are created by owlDftsSend script already, and are  /Owldata/dfts/keys/smi_on_dfts_blueX, where X is the instance number)
  • this “smi_mq_sender” program also needs to be run from the “send” directory
  • A test script/application can call this utility to write to the message queue