[IDD #DLW-777823]: Problems with LDM NLDN configuration

Hi Brian,

re:
> I am having trouble getting my LDM instance to grab the NLDN lightning data.

OK.  The quickest/easiest way to make sure that your have permission to
REQUEST the NLDN data from UAlbany is to do the following:

<login as 'ldm' to the machine running your LDM>
cd ~ldm
notifyme -vl- -f LIGHTNING -h striker2.atmos.albany.edu

You should see something like:

May 13 18:08:22 notifyme[30305] NOTE: Starting Up: striker2.atmos.albany.edu: 
20130513180822.205 TS_ENDT {{LIGHTNING,  ".*"}}
May 13 18:08:22 notifyme[30305] NOTE: LDM-5 desired product-class: 
20130513180822.205 TS_ENDT {{LIGHTNING,  ".*"}}
May 13 18:08:22 notifyme[30305] INFO: Resolving striker2.atmos.albany.edu to 
169.226.43.55 took 0.170697 seconds
May 13 18:08:22 notifyme[30305] NOTE: NOTIFYME(striker2.atmos.albany.edu): OK

If you do not see "NOTE: NOTIFYME(striker2.atmos.albany.edu): OK", it is very
likely that your machine has not been ALLOWed to REQUEST the LIGHTNING
feed (NB: the generic name for the datastream that contains lightning data
is LIGHTNING.  NLDN will still work as it is an alias for the lightning feed).

What does this 'notifyme' invocation return on your machine?

re:
> 1. Dave Knight at Albany put my machine (weather.rsmas.miami.edu) in the white
> list.

OK.  Your REQUEST could still be denied if there is not both forward and
reverse DNS for your machine.

re:
> 2. I edited /home/ldm/etc/ldmd.conf as directed, and ~ldm/etc/pqact.conf 
> already
> had these uncommented lines in it already:
> 
> # NLDN lightning data
> NLDN    .*
> PIPE    decoders/dcnldn -m 25000 -b 30 -s minute05
> -d data/gempak/logs/dcnldn.log
> -e GEMTBL=/home/gempak/GEMPAK6.2.0/gempak/tables
> data/gempak/nldn/YYYYMMDDHHNN_nldn.gem
> 
> I welcome any improvements -- we do not actually use GEMPAK, only IDV
> these days, the .gem decoding is a legacy standard and I don't know
> anything.

Since the IDV does not read lightning data from GEMPAK-decoded files,
you would be wise to change your action to one of FILEing the lightning
data directly into disk files.  I suggest creating one file per hour
as a starting point.  Here is a pattern-action file action that would
do this:

#
# LIGHTNING data
# Example Product ID: 2013133180911
#
LIGHTNING       
^([12][0-9][0-9][0-9]|[0-9][0-9])([0-3][0-9][0-9])([0-2][0-9])([0-5][0-9])([0-5][0-9])
        FILE
        data/nldn/\1\2\3/nldn_\1\2_\3

NB: all white space in this example are tabs, not spaces.  This action
can be read as:

LIGHTNING<tab>^([12][0-9][0-9][0-9]|[0-9][0-9])([0-3][0-9][0-9])([0-2][0-9])([0-5][0-9])([0-5][0-9])
<tab>FILE
<tab>data/nldn/\1\2\3/nldn_\1\2_\3

re:
> I will come to your July LDM training but it would be nice to capture
> summer data starting sooner than that, wet season is upon us.

Gotcha.

re:
> 3. I restarted LDM with sudo /etc/init.d/ldm restart

OK, this is one way to manage the LDM.  The more typical way is:

<login as 'ldm'>
ldmadmin restart

re:
> 4. Nothing happens, and my log file  logs/ldmd.log is empty

The first thing that needs attending to is making sure your LDM can
log information.  If you would give us the login for 'ldm' on
your machine, we will check out the LDM installation and let you know
what is amiss.  We can fix whatever needs fixing if we have 'root'
access (we need 'root' if we need to fix system configuration files).

re:
> I have reached the end of my personal resourcefulness and Dave Knight's
> volunteered help.

We understand.

re:
> Can I get a little help from you? Could be telephone if easier than writing,
> (305) 421-4275 or set up a time and I will happily call.

Could you call me at 303.497.8642 and give me the login information we
need?

Cheers,

Tom
--
****************************************************************************
Unidata User Support                                    UCAR Unidata Program
(303) 497-8642                                                 P.O. Box 3000
address@hidden                                   Boulder, CO 80307
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unidata HomePage                       http://www.unidata.ucar.edu
****************************************************************************


Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: DLW-777823
Department: Support IDD
Priority: Normal
Status: Open