[Miscellaneous #UFF-250801]: GOES east & west geotiff files

Hi Frank,

re:
> Which table  imgtyp.tbl entries should I use for the arctic and mollewide
> images that you set up for me?  I do see them on the Unidata website table.

Since I don't know the answer to this question, I created a new inquiry in
the GEMPAK department of our inquiry tracking system so that Michael James,
our GEMPAK guy, can chime in.

As far as the things I did on ldm.engin.umich.edu, here goes a high level
overview:

- change the HOME directory for the users 'mcidas' and 'mcadde' to be
  /home/mcidas

- install any packages needed to build McIDAS

  The command I ran was:

  yum install gcc-gfortran gcc-c++ byacc flex ncurses-devel libXt-devel 
libXext-devel xorg-x11-fonts-misc xorg-x11-fonts-100dpi xorg-x11-fonts-75dpi

  I think that only one of the packages in this list (one of the fonts) needed 
to
  installed since all of the other ones were already there.

- download, build and install McIDAS-X in the 'mcidas' account

  After the install, I made sure that the 'ldm' user could "see" McIDAS
  executables in ~mcidas/bin.

The rest of the things I did were in the 'ldm' account:

- add a couple of crontab entries to make sure that log files
  are getting rotated

  Here are the operative ones now:

# Scour
10 0 * * * bin/ldmadmin scour >> logs/scour.log
#
# Rotate LDM log files
#
0 18 * * * bin/ldmadmin newlog
1 18 * * * bin/newlog logs/scour.log 7
#
# Rotate LDM-McIDAS and ROUTEPP log files
#
2 18 * * * bin/newlog logs/ldm-mcidas.log 7
3 18 * * * bin/newlog logs/ROUTEPP.LOG 7

  NB: rotation of the ldm-mcidas log file was sorely needed since the existing
  ldm-mcidas log file was 1.7 GB (I deleted it since it held nothing really
  useful)

- after verifying that ~ldm/util is in the PATH for 'ldm', I created the
  Bourne shell script 'pnga2geotiff.sh'

  This script does a variety of things in the process of converting the
  PNGA-compressed Global Thermal IR images in the UNIWISC IDD datastream
  to GeoTiff:

  - makes sure that the output directory exists

  - creates needed McIDAS ADDE datasets for input (PNGA-compressed AREA)
    and output (GeoTiff) datastes

  - copies (IMGCOPY) from the input dataset to the output one

    This automatically converts from PNGA-compressed AREA format to
    GeoTiff.

  - copies the GeoTiff image (which gets created in the ~ldm/mcidas/data
    directory; this is the McIDAS working directory for 'ldm') to
    the output directory structure (~ldm/data/geotiff/...)

- while investigating why LDM logging was not working correctly (fully
  actually), I noticed that the final installation step for the LDM
  had not been run:

  <as 'root'>
  cd ~ldm/ldm-6.5.4/src
  make install_setuids

  This step changes the mode for the LDM applications rpc.ldmd and
  hupsyslog to be setuid root.  This is needed for:

  - getting port 388 (rpc.ldmd)
  - sending a HUP signal to the system logging daemon so that log
    files can be rotated (hupsyslog)

- I changed the upstream LDM host from which your machine was
  REQUESTing NEXRAD Level III data

  The machine you were REQUESTing from had been changed at UIUC
  for a new one, and it seems that the new machine's LDM was/is
  not ALLOWing your REQUEST(s).

  The new upstream host for NEXRAD3 (also known as NNEXRAD) is
  idd.meteo.psu.edu.

- I added a REQUEST for the FNEXRAD NEXRAD Level III composites

  I setup the upstream for these images to be idd.unidata.ucar.edu.

- I also added some actions in the ~ldm/etc/pqact.conf pattern-action
  file

  The actions I added were to process UNIWISC (aka MCDIAS) image into
  the directory hierarchy (~ldm/data/gempak) that you are using for
  GEMPAK.

- I also corrected some pqact.conf actions that were setup to "decode"
  (via the ldm-mcidas decoder, pnga2area) UNIWISC images into 
  /data/ldm directories

  Your machine does not have a /data/ldm directory hierarchy, and
  'ldm' could not create /data (permission problem, but you really
  didn't/don't want to write there anyway (I think that is, of course)).

Left to do:

- I need to go through your LDM pattern-action actions for UNIWISC imagery
  to make sure that I added all of the ones that were left to be added,
  and to make sure that they are all working correctly.

- evaluate the impact of upgrading your LDM installation to a current
  release

  LDM-6.4.5 is now very old.  The current LDM release is 6.12.15.

  NB: I did not upgrade the LDM because I/we have to think hard about
  what, if any, impacts this may have on your setup (which maybe none).

- upgrade GEMPAK (?)

  This is the toughest decision to be made mainly because the semester is
  in full swing (so GEMPAK not being available would have impacts), AND
  because Garp is no longer bundled with GEMPAK (it is available, but
  it only has community support (for all versions)).

I will try to get to the review of your LDM pqact.conf UNIWISC actions today.
Upgrading the LDM is not of crucial importance, but it should be done
sometime.  Upgrading GEMPAK is a much bigger step, but should be done when
you have time to evaluate the new distribution.

Cheers,

Tom
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Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: UFF-250801
Department: Support McIDAS
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed