Karl Schwenz, Chris Golubieski, Gordon Maclean
Goals:
- Diagnose and fix reason that system has been offline for last few days (no data in Boulder after April 27).
- Replace data system box in order to take old back back to Boulder for checkout.
- Replace top TRHs which have not been working well.
- Make anti-climb door easier to latch.
Arrived at site, May 4 10:30.
Chris climbed tower and replaced the TRH units.
Karl fixed latching on anti-climb door. Works like a breeze now. If door is ever difficult to latch give a hand knock on the bottom right corner to shift it to the left. Hinge bolts should be replaced with correct size on a future visit.
System was up and taking data. (Reporting about 1000 spurious interrupts per second, then later 500 after Chris replaced some TRHs). The pocketec disk has data files for April 28 to the present, so no loss of data. Could not ping manitou server, 192.168.100.1, at other end of fiber link. Power cycling the fiber/copper media converter at the tower did not help. In retrospect I should have also cycled power on the 5 port switch. Cycling power on the media converter in the seatainer also did not bring it back. Only the power LED was lit on the converter at the tower, not SDF (signal detect fiber), SDC (signal detect copper), or RXC/F (receive copper/fiber). I am not sure whether the SDC LED was on in the seatainer.
The manual for the converters (Transition Networks, model E-100BTX-FX-05) describes the dip switch options. I've cut and pasted some of the manual to the end of this entry. It seems that we should disable the pause control, link pass-through and far-end fault options on both converters. Link pass-through and far-end fault options can cause a copper interface to be disabled if a fault is detected on the remote copper interface or on the fiber. These options appear to be for a building network with good network monitoring equipment. Perhaps a power outage, cable disconnect, or powering down a network switch could cause the converters to think there is a fault in the copper line, and then the copper interfaces would be disabled. The manual says nothing about whether the interfaces are automatically brought up if the fault disappears.
Dip switch 1 is auto-negotiation of speed and duplex and that was left enabled=UP. Set switches 2, 3 and 4 DOWN on both converters,
to disable pause control, link pass-through and far-end fault.
Link came back and we could ping the seatainer. Swapped data boxes and then couldn't ping. Eventually power cycled the 5 port switch at the tower and things worked again.
New data box is swapped in and all sensors are reporting. Taking the original pocketec back to Boulder so the system at the tower will have a different pocketec unit.
From the manual for the converters:
Pause Control The Pause feature can improve network performance by allowing one end of the link to signal the other to discontinue frame transmission for a set period of time to relieve buffer congestion. NOTE: If the Pause feature is present on ALL network devices attached to the media converter(s), enable the Pause feature on the media converter(s). Otherwise, disable the Pause feature Link Pass-Through The Link Pass-Through feature allows the media converter to monitor both the fiber and copper RX (receive) ports for loss of signal. In the event of a loss of an RX signal (1), the media converter will automatically disable the TX (transmit) signal (2), thus, “passing through” the link loss (3). The far-end device is automatically notified of the link loss (4), which prevents the loss of valuable data unknowingly transmitted over an invalid link. local converter sends a Far-End Fault When a fault occurs on an incoming fiber link (1), the media converter transmits a Far-End Fault signal on the outgoing fiber link (2). In addition the Far-End Fault signal also activates the Link Pass-Through, which, in turn, disables the link on the copper portion of the network (3) and (4).