20030507: McIDAS installation at UFRJ

>From:  David Garrana Coelho <address@hidden>
>Organization:  UFRJ
>Keywords:  200305071213.h47CDk7U003082 McIDAS-X v2002b install

Hi David,

I started writing this note this morning and was just now able to
get back to it.

>       I'm writing to ask if our LDM is behaving well, since rstats page
>for brisa is a bit odd, but I believe its due some kind of tests you may
>be doing.

Right after seeing your note this morning, I checked the stats pages
for brisa and verified your observation.  I have since looked at several
other stats reports and see a systematic problem.  I touched base
with the maintainer of the rtstats pages/procedures and he found a
problem with the receiving LDM on our end.  The real time stats are
now updating normally, and the latencies to brisa are looking pretty
good.

>       I'd like to ask too how MCIDAS instalation is going, and if there
>is anything we can do here to help you in the process, since you seems to
>be a very busy person (and kind as well :)).

I was out of town the end of last week through Monday.  I spent Tuesday
dealing with high priority email, so your note was very timely indeed.
I FTPed the Unidata McIDAS-X distribution, mcidasx2002.tar.Z, down
to brisa this morning in the 'mcidas' account and built and installed
the package.

1) <logon as 'mcidas'>

2) get the distribution

cd ~mcidas
ftp ftp.unidata.ucar.edu
  <user> umcidas
  <pass> XXXXXX
  cd unix/2002
  binary
  prompt
  mget mcinstall mcinet2002.sh mcidasx2002.tar.Z
  quit

3) setup the .bash_profile file with needed environment variable definitions
   needed to build McIDAS.  Reference:

Unidata HomePage
http://my.unidata.ucar.edu/
  Software
  http://my.unidata.ucar.edu/content/software/index.html
    McIDAS
    http://my.unidata.ucar.edu/content/software/mcidas/index.html

Version 2002 Installation and Configuration
http://my.unidata.ucar.edu/content/software/mcidas/2002/mcidas-x.html
  Initial Preparations
  http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/mcidas/2002/mcx/prepare_mcx.html 

    Prepare the mcidas and mcadde Accounts
    http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/mcidas/2002/mcx/mcxacct.html

The last link contains information on environment variables that one
needs to define to build McIDAS.  It also has a link to a document
called "Notes and Warnings" which has information on environment
variables needed for the netCDF portion of the McIDAS build.  I took
the information from the two pages and incorporated the mods into
~mcidas/.bash_profile and created the file ~mcidas/.mcenv.  The latter
file will be used by the ADDE remote server _if_ you decide that you
want other machines to be able to access McIDAS data remotely from
brisa.  More on this later.

4) build the distribution

cd ~mcidas
chmod +x mcinstall
./mcinstall                   <- creates needed directories and unpacks the
                                 distribution file, mcidasx2002.tar.Z

rm mcidasx2002.tar.Z          <- clean up a bit to conserve disk space
cd mcidas2002/src

make all VENDPR=-g77          <- build McIDAS-X and McIDAS-XCD (XCD is the
                                 decoder component of McIDAS).  The build
                                 proceeded with no problems

make install.all VENDOR=-g77  <- 'install' McIDAS files in the appropriate
                                 locations: help files in ~mcidas/help;
                                 executables in ~mcidas/bin; ancillary
                                 data files in ~mcidas/data; decoder
                                 configuration files and 'mcidas' supervisor
                                 configuration files in ~mcidas/workdata

At this point, McIDAS is built and installed on brisa, but it is not
yet configured to do anything useful.  The next step in the process is
to setup a data directory in which McIDAS data files can be written.
Since the 'ldm' account is already setup with a data directory under
which is a gempak subdirectory, I did the same for 'mcidas':

<as 'ldm'>
cd ~ldm/data
mkdir mcidas
chmod 777 mcidas              <- these are needed since 'mcidas' is not in
chmod 777 /usr/local/ldm         the same group as 'ldm'.  I recommend
                                 that 'mcidas' and 'ldm' be put in the
                                 same group AND that a user named 'mcadde'
                                 also be created and put in the same
                                 group.  The HOME directory for 'mcadde'
                                 should be the same as both 'mcidas' and
                                 'ldm'

So, as I leave off for tonight, McIDAS has been downloaded, built,
installed, and mostly configured.  There are some more configuration
steps that I need to finish, but I will have to get to these tomorrow.

>We planning to remodel our
>Home Page to add observational and satellite products near end May/early
>June, if everything goes well. Not meaning to rush you, of course, but if
>there is something within my reach to help you help us, I'd like to
>know...=)

I should have McIDAS configured tomorrow some time.  The next step is
to setup some cron jobs that will create the sectors that you expressed
interest in.  This will take a couple of days to get working correctly,
so you will have to bear with me.  After I get the sector creation
working, I will want to inject them into the LDM queue so that they can
be sent to downstream sites which, to begin with, will be UFPA and U
Buenos Aires.

More tomorrow...

Tom
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* Tom Yoksas                                             UCAR Unidata Program *
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