Generate UCP Config File

In order to utilise the Grass Valley UCP cards within our TFC Flow nodes at the moment some manual configuration is still required. Going forwards this process is going to be automated by a deployment tool built into TFC, but this is the workaround for now.

PLEASE BE CAREFUL NOT TO MAKE ANY MODIFICATIONS TO THIS SPREADSHEET OTHER THAN THE DESIGNATED CELLS. THERE IS LOTS OF COMPLICATED FORMULAS PRESENT IN THE BACKGROUND WHICH COULD BE EASILY BROKEN.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1w3kP-eZTTI2IY6Elnta7EOHCMyCGlk9tP15uMXayjBg/edit?usp=sharing

• Generate an ‘IP Map’ for your UCP cards.

First you need to browse to the below link and select the tab named either “Main Node IP Mapper” or “Sub Node IP Mapper” depending on if your wanting to configure UCP cards located within a Main node or a Sub node. The process for both node types is similar. For the purposes of this tutorial, I’m going to work on the basis of configuring cards to go into a Sub Node.

Within the “Sub Node IP Mapper” tab, first enter the number of the ‘Main Node’ which your ‘Sub Node’ is to be connected too, this number is located on a sticker on top of the node, then enter the sub node number that the card is physically located within in the box below. Finally, specify which switch port on the Mellanox switch your node is to be connect to.

It is important that on site you connect the right sub node to the correct port on the Mellanox switch as per the config you’ve generated, otherwise the multicast IP addressing won’t work. If you switch cards around between nodes, or even the position of a card within a node, you’ll need to generate a new config file for it.

For reference;

Once you’ve entered all the correct numbers and port numbers to the spreadsheet, you then need to export the result as a .CSV file. This can be accomplished by selecting File -> Download -> .CSV from the menu. Rename your .CSV something sensible such as ‘Main10Sub3.csv’ to indicate which Main Node and which Sub Nodes are being referenced inside the file.

Next you need to copy your .CSV file onto a Linux server, this is going to allow you to use the file as input in order to generate the Grass Valley config files.

The server in question can be reached at 192.168.2.38 and is Windows file share. Access this like any other shared folder, and paste the .CSV you generated into here, the root directory is absolutely fine, just remember to delete it once you’re done to keep things tidy.

Next you need to connect via ssh to the server and run the script to generate the card config files. This can be done using CMD in Windows, or Terminal on Mac. Use the command

ssh root@192.168.2.38 (Password Creat1ve)

Once you’re logged in with SSH use ‘CD’ to move yourself into the correct folder in which the script is contained.

cd /home/administrator

You can then run the script using the below command making the following ammendments;

./ucp-config-recovery2.sh 8 /tmp/main3_sub10.csv qe2sub10_card1

8: The row no in the Google Sheets spreadsheet that you exported for the card you wish to generate config for. This is usually row ‘8’ for Card 1, row ’19’ for Card 2 etc etc. Double check this against the Google Sheet before continuing to ensure the row no is correct. This row no should match up with the bold text stating ‘Card 1’, ‘Card 2’ etc.

/tmp/main3_sub10.csv: Here you specify the file location of the .CSV you dropped into the shared folder earlier. The shared folder you accessed is the directory /tmp/ so your file path will be /tmp/main3_sub10.csv as above.

qe2ssub10: This is the name you’d like to give the .rct Grass Valley config file that you’ll load onto the UCP card. This is the config file for a single card only so qe2sub10_card1 would be an appropriate name, you don’t need to specify a file extension.

If you we’re generating the config file for Card 2 in this same Sub Node the command would look as below.

./ucp-config-recovery2.sh 19 /tmp/main3_sub10.csv qe2sub10_card2

Once this file has been generated by the script. You should fine the output file in the same shared folder you accessed earlier that you dropped the .CSV into. You can then copy this file back onto your local PC.

Fire up Grass Valley Roll call and enter the IQ frame’s IP address. For Sub Node 10 this would be 10.169.0.110, right hand click on the card you wish to apply the config to in the tree and select ‘Restore Config’ from the drop down. Point this at the config file and the card should load in the config file.