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Overview

  NSTX Computers
Access to the NSTX MDSplus data is available at PPPL on VMS Alphas and the UNIX cluster. A good way to access NSTX data in MDSplus is through the Web Tools . All access to the NSTX CAMAC highways must be done from VMS (Luna for the "A" highway, Kees for "B" and "C"). IDL is now available on all PPPL computers.

OPERATING SYSTEM
Available hosts
To invoke NSTX MDSplus and IDL definitions
VMS
Europa Alphaserver ES40 2cpus
Birch Alphaserver DS20E 1cpu
Kees* Alphaserver ES40 2cpus
Luna* Alphaserver DS20E 2cpus
Mel Alphaserver ES40 4cpus
Leda Alphaserver ES40 4cpus

* priority given to data acquisition

  $ SETUP NSTX

  ! not case sensitive
Linux
A large number of hosts are available on the Beowulf cluster. NSTX users should log in to the pseudo-host "nstxpool" to be assigned to the least-loaded of sunfire11-sunfire16. The pseudo-host "portal" also provides interactive computing services.
lark, a Dell PowerEdge 2650 with 2 2.4 GHz cpus, is the MDSplus Linux dataserver; it has a non-standard configuration and is generally not a user machine

  % module load nstx/mdsplus

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other permissions may be necessary depending on what you need to do. See New NSTX User Setup for more detail.

  NSTX trees and signals The "NSTX" MDSplus tree is the top of the NSTX data hierarchy, but it contains very little data itself. Rather, it contains subtree nodes, collecting together the subtrees which actually contain branches for each of the diagnostics and for various analysis codes.

Usually a diagnostic branch has a RAWDATA branch beneath it where the shot data is stored directly as it comes from digitizers or other devices. Higher level signal names are arranged according to the preference of the diagnostician; it is typically these signals that users wish to read into IDL programs or plot in Scope displays.

The Traverser program produced this partial layout of the NSTX tree in late 2005.

Currently, these trees and diagnostics are defined for NSTX.
  Shot Cycle Diagram of NSTX shot cycle with software events and MDSplus phases.
  Publications and Reports Various NSTX Computer and Software publications are online.
  Site Map NSTX Software Web Pages Sitemap.
A new site guide is being developed with categories that cross those used in our tabbed sections.

NSTX Home Page

 

Last modified Oct. 9, 2007
For questions, contact Bill Davis