sumo tips and tricks

A collection of some useful commands for sumo.

Create a local “sandbox” for builds

Use this when you intend to do tests and apply changes directly in the build and/or database directory. This creates a local build directory ‘TEST’:

sumo config local TEST

Show which configuration files are loaded

Enter:

sumo config list

Show configuration without loaded files

This usually shows the current configuration without the module list from ‘configure/MODULES’:

sumo config show --disable-loading

Show complete configuration from configuration files

Enter:

sumo config show

Build in parallel with download progress

Run (on Linux):

sumo build utilize --makeflags "-sj$(nproc)" --progress

Explanation: This starts make with multiple processes, but not more than the CPU cores you have on your machine.

Get a simple list of module specifications from your MODULES file

Enter:

sumo config show module -b

You get a list of all modules, one per line.

Create a build with a module list on the command line

Enter:

sumo build new --makeflags "-sj$(nproc)" --progress MODULE1:VERSION1 MODULE2:VERSION2 [...]

Note that when sumo is called like this, the module specifications from the configuration file (usually ‘configure/MODULES’) is ignored. See also option --append.

Put EPICS Base in a separate build

Usually your build contains EPICS Base. Compiling EPICS Base usually takes a long time and you don’t expect problems compiling it. Other supports however, may fail. If you start all over, compiling EPICS Base each time again and again is cumbersome. The following line puts your version of EPICS Base in a separate build:

sumo build new --makeflags "-sj$(nproc)" "$(sumo config show module -b | grep BASE:)"

The command in parentheses takes all modules, extracts only EPICS Base and appends this as command line argument.

Enable sumo command completion on the fly

If you have installed sumo but the command completion is missing, enter:

eval "$(sumo help completion-line)"

To make this permanent, append the output of sumo help completion-line to your shell configuration file, e.g. ‘$HOME/.bashrc’.

Bootstrap sumo your machine

If you want to test sumo on a machine where it is not installed, run these commands:

python -m venv VENV
source VENV/bin/activate
pip install epics-sumo
sumo config new SUMO sumo-free-database INITIAL
eval "$(sumo help completion-line)"

This creates a Python virtual environment in directory ‘VENV’ and puts the sumo dependency database and builds and directory ‘SUMO’. The sumo configuration file is created in ‘VENV’ at the location of the sumo python modules. The last line enables command completion for sumo. You may want to append the output of sumo help completion-line to you shell configuration, e.g. $HOME/.bashrc.