ATNF VLBI Wiki

The Mark5A protocol uses two TCP ports:

• m5data 2630/tcp # Mark5 data
• m5drive 2620/tcp # Mark5 control

Commands are sent to the m5drive port as newline terminated strings. The replies are newline terminated also.

Data is sent to the m5data port.

The following commands from the Mark5A command need to be sent to the Mark5 at the station:

• play_rate
• play
• play?
• net_protocol
• in2net
• mode
• status?
• mtu

A typical session would involve the following commands being sent:

→mtu=9000 (if UDP)
net_protocol=udp:8388608:131072:8
mode=mark4:32
play_rate=data:16
ipd=10 in2net=connect:145.146.96.21
in2net=on

Time passed

→in2net=disconnect

A more detailed description for the commands issued:

Used to set the output data rate of the Mark5 at the station.

Expected response:

[=!=]play_rate = 0 ;

Used to make the Mark5 stop playing if it was playing back data from disk.

Used to set the network data-transport protocol. The <sockbuf size> argument is the socket send buffer size. You should probably use this value in a setsockopt(…, SOL_SOCKET, SO_SBDBUF, …) call on the socket used to send the data.

Expected response:

[=!=]net_protocol = 0 ;

Set the mtu for UDP transfers

Expected response:

[=!=] !mtu = 0 : $mtu bytes;

Used to make the Mark5 at the station connect to the Mark5 at JIVE. The <ip> argument will be the IP address of the Mark5 at JIVE, which should at that point be ready to accept a connection from the Mark5 at the station. The connection should be made to the m5data port. No data will be sent yet.

Expected response:

[=!=]in2net = 0 ;

Used to make the Mark5 at the station start sending data.

Expected response:

[=!=]in2net = 1 ;

Used to make the Mark5 at the station stop sending data and terminate the (tcp) connection.

Expected response:

[=!=]in2net = 0 ;

??

Expected response:

[=!=]in2net = 0 ;

Used to set the playback mode of the Mark5 at the station.

Expected response:

[=!=]mode = 0 ;

Used to query the status of the (remote) Mark5.

Expected response:

[=!=]status? 0 : 0x00000001 ; (when not sending data)
[=!=]status? 0 : 0x00010001 ; (when sending data)

Request play state (disk only??)

Expected response:

[=!=]status? 0 : 0x00000001 ; (when not sending data)
[=!=]status? 0 : 0x00010001 ; (when sending data)

To setup the Mark5 to sent thr TVG test vector, run:

mode=tvg:8 play_rate=data:4

This will send 8 tracks at 4 Mbps, ie a total of 32 Mbps.