Provided by: plc-utils-extra_0.0.6+git20230504.1ba7d5a0-1_amd64 
NAME
plclog - Qualcomm Atheros Log Retrieval Utility
SYNOPSIS
plclog [options] [device] [device] [...] [>stdout]
DESCRIPTION
Read and print the device watchdog and checkpoint report on stdout for subsequent analysis by Atheros
Technical Support. Report output is in XML format and contains base-64 encoded binary data returned by
the device. Aside from the XML tags, output is not in human readable format.
This program is part of the Qualcomm Atheros Powerline Toolkit. See the AMP man page for an overview and
installation instructions.
OPTIONS
-c Specify custom watchdog report.
-C Clear the report after reading.
-e Redirects stderr messages to stdout. By convention status and error messages are printed on
stderr while primary program output is printed on stdout. This option prints all output on stdout
in cases where this is desired.
-x Print the report in XML format. The default is raw (or binary) format.
-i interface
Select the host Ethernet interface. All requests are sent via this host interface and only
reponses received via this host interface are recognized. The default interface is eth1 because
most people use eth0 as their principle network connection; however, if environment string "PLC"
is defined then it takes precedence over the default interface. This option then takes precedence
over either default.
-q Suppresses status messages on stderr.
-v Print additional information on stdout. In particular, this option dumps incoming and outgoing
packets which can be saved as text files for reference.
-?,--help
Print program help summary on stdout. This option takes precedence over other options on the
command line.
-?,--version
Print program version information on stdout. This option takes precedence over other options on
the command line. Use this option when sending screen dumps to Atheros Technical Support so that
they know exactly which version of the Linux Toolkit you are using.
ARGUMENTS
device The MAC address of some powerline device. More than one address may be specified. If more than
one address is specified then operations are performed on each device in turn. The default
address is local. See DEVICES for information about symbolic device addresses.
LOGFILES
Log files are save in binary format by default but they can also be saved in XML format by adding option
-x to the command line. By convention, binary log files have a .log extension and XML log files have a
.xlog extension. The extension is not critical but it helps us determine the format before we open the
file.
DEVICES
Powerline devices use Ethernet Media Access Control (MAC) addresses. MAC addresses are 12 hexadecimal
digits (0123456789ABCDEFabcdef) in upper, lower or mixed case. Individual octets may be separated by
colons, for clarity, but not all octets need to be seperated. For example, "00b052000001",
"00:b0:52:00:00:01" and "00b052:000001" are valid and equivalent.
The following MAC addresses are special and may be expressed by name instead of number.
all Equivalent to "broadcast", described next.
broadcast
A synonym for the standard Ethernet broadcast address, FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF. All devices, whether
local, remote or foreign will respond to this address.
local A synonym for the Qualcomm Atheros vendor specific Local Management Address (LMA),
00:B0:52:00:00:01. All local Atheros devices will recognize this address but remote and foreign
devices will not. A remote device is any device at the far end of a powerline connection. A
foreign device is any device not manufactured by Atheros.
REFERENCES
See the Qualcomm Atheros HomePlug AV Firmware Technical Reference Manual for more information.
DISCLAIMER
Atheros HomePlug AV Vendor Specific Management Message structure and content is proprietary to Atheros
Communications, Ocala FL USA. Consequently, public information is not available. Atheros Communications
reserves the right to modify message structure or content in future firmware releases without any
obligation to notify or compensate users of this program.
EXAMPLES
The following example reads the Watchdog and Checkpoint Report from device 00:B0:52:BA:BE:02 and prints
them on stdout in XML format. The output contains data segments formatted in base-64 notation which
preserved data integrity when read or transmitted in text format.
# plclog 00:B0:52:BA:BE:02
The next example does the same thing but pipes output to file temp.log. Atheros recommends using a .log
extension for compatibility with the WIndows Device Manager.
# plclog 00:B0:52:BA:BE:02 > temp.log
SEE ALSO
amp(1), plctool(1)
CREDITS
Charles Maier