20051024: IDV ability to LOGON to access restricted ADDE server

Hello-

Tom Yoksas forwarded your note to me.

Tom Yoksas wrote:
> From: "Hans Peter Roesli" <address@hidden>
> Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 21:34:10 +0200
> To: <address@hidden>
> Cc: <address@hidden>
>
> Hi Tom
>
> I am working as a trainig consultant for EUMETSAT, mostly from home (cc
> address). My tasks include testing software for teaching and
> preparation of interesting cases of recent weather, all centred on MSG
> data. Unfortunate circumstances still block real-time access to MSG
> data directly from EUMETSAT. As a stop gap I am accessing the ADDE
> server msg.ssec.wisc.edu with McIDAS and a LOGON from EUMETSAT as well
> as Tom Whittacker's Hydra (which has free access).
>
> I would very much like to also try IDV with MSG data. I suppose it
> should be possible to access msg.ssec.wisc.edu also with IDV. Can you
> please tell me please whether this is possible, and if yes, what I
> would have to do formally and technically to have access enabled.

Currently, there is no way through the user interface to add in
login and project information for accessing restricted ADDE datasets.

However, for image data, you can add in a configuration file which can
pass along a user and project id.  Unfortunately, this is not documented
in the user guide.

The IDV stores it's resources in the .metapps/DefaultIdv directory of
the user's home directory (typically /home/<username> on Unix or
c:/Documents And Settings/<username> on windows).  If you create
a file called imagedefaults.xml with the contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<imagedefaults>
  <default name="msg.ssec.wisc.edu" user="userid" proj="#"/>
</imagedefaults>

(replacing userid with your McIDAS user name (case sensitive) and
the # with the project number) and place it in the
.metapps/DefaultIdv directory in your home directory, those
parameters will be passed along on image requests.  This mechanism
is used only for image access in the IDV and we will eventually
expand it to the conventional (grid, point) dataset access.

You can set up different access controls for different servers by
haveing multiple default lines.  For the name, you can specify
specific servers and datasets as follows:

general form:

name="server:group/descriptor"

where:

server - server name or *
group  - ADDE dataset group name or *
descriptor - ADDE dataset descriptor

(group and descriptor are case sensitive)

Examples:

name="*:RTIMAGES"   - apply properties to the RTIMAGES dataset on all 
servers

name="adde.ucar.edu:*/GE-IR"  - apply properties to all groups with 
GE-IR descriptors on the server adde.ucar.edu

name="RTIMAGES/GE-IR"  - apply properties to this dataset on any
server. (same as *:RTIMAGES/GE-IR)

You can also use this mechanism to set up specific defaults for 
datasets.  The following keywords can be used:

key=   - ADDE image placement key (LINELE, LATLON)
place= - ADDE image placement (CENTER, ULEFT)
loc=   - ADDE location of key/place (line ele or lat lon)
mag=   - magnification (same as McIDAS IMGDISP keyword)
size=  - returned image size (same as IMGDISP)


Here are some examples:

  <default
     name="RTIMAGES/GEW-VISTOPO"
     key="LINELE"
     place="CENTER"
     size="592 1000"
     loc="296 602"
     mag="1 1"/>
  <default
     name="RTIMAGES/GEW-IRTOPO"
     key="LINELE"
     place="CENTER"
     size="592 1000"
     loc="296 602"
     mag="1 1"/>
  <default
     key="LINELE"
     place="CENTER"
     name="RTIMAGES/MDRTOPO"
     loc="240 320"
     mag="1 1"/>
  <default
     name="RTIMAGES/MOLL-IRTOPO"
     key="LATLON"
     loc="0 0"
     size="350 640"
     mag="-2 -2"
     place="CENTER"/>

Please let me know if you have any problem using this facility.

Don Murray