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Miniconf Run-time Settings
Stabilizer supports run-time settings configuration using MQTT.
Settings can be stored in the MQTT broker so that they are automatically applied whenever Stabilizer reboots and connects. This is referred to as "retained" settings. Broker implementations may optionally store these retained settings as well such that they will be reapplied between restarts of the MQTT broker.
Settings are specific to a device. Any settings configured for one Stabilizer will not be applied to another. Disambiguation of devices is done by using Stabilizer's MAC address.
Settings are specific to an application. If two identical settings exist for two different applications, each application maintains its own independent value.
Installation
Install the Miniconf configuration utilities:
python -m pip install git+https://github.com/quartiq/miniconf#subdirectory=miniconf-py
To use miniconf, execute it as follows:
python -m miniconf --help
Miniconf also exposes a programmatic Python API, so it's possible to write automation scripting of Stabilizer as well.
Usage
The Miniconf Python utility utilizes a unique "device prefix". The device prefix is always of the
form dt/sinara/<app>/<mac-address>, where <app> is the name of the application and
<mac-address> is the MAC address of the device, formatted with delimiting dashes.
Settings have a path and a value being configured. The value parameter is JSON-encoded data
and the path value is a path-like string.
As an example, for configuring dual-iir's stream_target, the following information would be
used:
path=stream_targetvalue={"ip": [192, 168, 0, 1], "port": 4000}
python -m miniconf --broker 10.34.16.10 dt/sinara/dual-iir/00-11-22-33-44-55 stream_target='{"ip": [10, 34, 16, 123], "port": 4000}'
Where `10.34.16.10` is the MQTT broker address that matches the one configured in the source code and `10.34.16.123` and `4000` are the desire stream target IP and port.
The prefix can be found for a specific device by looking at the topic on which telemetry that is being published.
Refer to the application documentation for the exact settings and values exposed for each application.
The rules for constructing path values are documented in miniconf's
documentation
Refer to the documentation for Miniconf for a description of the possible error codes that Miniconf may return if the settings update was unsuccessful.
Telemetry
Stabilizer applications publish telemetry utilizes MQTT for managing run-time settings configurations as well as live telemetry reporting.
Telemetry is defined as low rate, general health information. It is not intended for high throughput or efficiency. Telemetry is generally used to determine that the device is functioning nominally.
Stabilizer applications publish telemetry over MQTT at a set rate. Telemetry data units are defined by the application. All telemetry is reported using standard JSON format.
Telemetry is intended for low-bandwidth monitoring. It is not intended to transfer large amounts of data and uses a minimal amount of bandwidth. Telemetry is published using "best effort" semantics - individual messages may be dropped or Stabilizer may fail to publish telemetry due to internal buffering requirements.
In its most basic form, telemetry publishes the latest ADC input voltages, DAC output voltages, and digital input states.
Refer to the respective application documentation for more information on telemetry.
Livestream
Stabilizer supports livestream capabilities for streaming real-time data over UDP. The livestream is intended to be a high-bandwidth mechanism to transfer large amounts of data from Stabilizer to a host computer for further analysis.
Livestreamed data is sent with "best effort" - it's possible that data may be lost either due to network congestion or by Stabilizer.
Refer to the the respective application documentation for more information.