20000914: Unidata-Wisconsin (MCIDAS) images broadcast cessation (cont.)

>From: "M. L. Baeck" <address@hidden>
>Organization: Princeton University
>Keywords: 200009112348.e8BNm5b26728 Unidata-Wisconsin image MCIDAS LWTOA3 
>pnga2area

Mary Lynn and Jim,

Jim previously noted:

>Yes, someone here has been trying to contact you for support.  The
>email was sent unidata.ucar.org   instead of .edu.

Oops...  Those emails must have bounced.

>I will forward a
>copy.  In the meantime, we have installed the LDM software on our LINUX
>machine and we are waiting to get access to the upstream feed site from
>that machine.  If all goes well there, we may abandon the SGI IRIX 6.2
>OS and run with the Linux machine.

OK.  The decoder code should work with no problems on either platform.
Can I ask what flavor of Linux you are using?  Unidata supports RedHat
(it is the only Linux platform we have for testing).  I personally
use RH 6.2 at home, so the ldm-mcidas code has gotten a pretty thorough
workout in this environment.  Slackware users have been known to have
problems with a variety of things in the past, so please beware.

>If there is a quick fix to the SGI IRIX decoder problem (as stated in
>the previous email) we would appreciate it so that we are running with
>the PNG compression for Friday.  If not, we will hope to get the LINUX
>site up and going by then.

There should be.  Please see below.

>Thanks
>Jim Smith
>
>>Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 10:56:11 -0400
>>To: address@hidden, address@hidden
>>Subject: for Tom Yoksas

>Hi -

>I am working with Jim Smith at Princeton University to reconfigure our
>LDM server for the PNG compression.  Our server is running on an SGI
>IRIX machine, OS 6.2.  I have downloading the ldm-mcidas 7.6.4 decoders
>for 6.5.  I reconfigures the pqact.conf file to include the pnga2area
>decoder and then checked it by executing
>
>pqact -vxl- -q /dev/null /data5/LDM/etc/pqact.conf

If you are running a current distribution of the LDM, you can check
the integrity of the pqact.conf file by running:

ldmadmin pqactcheck

This invocation is essentially running the command that you include
above.

I must warn you, however, that this check does not find all problems
in pqact.conf.  One problem that will not be found, but that is
deadly is a line that has a blank (a space) at the beginning of
the line.  This is not allowed, and will cause all patterns after
this point to be ignored by pqact when it goes to process products.

>and got a response saying unknown feed name in feedtype expression
>"MCIDAS ^pngarea  Q. (..) and so on.

OK.  This is telling you that the pqact.conf action is incorrect.

Right off, the most likely things are:

o a space before the MCIDAS on the first line of this action

o use of spaces between MCIDAS and ^pnga2area; this white space must
  be a tab

o you listed '^pngarea' above, the action should be '^pnga2area ...'.

>I got the same results when I reconfigured the pqact.conf file to use
>the ldm-mcidas 7.6.4  lwtao3 decoder so it seems as if there may be a
>system incompatibility problem (we have been using 7.1.1).

The incompatibility is most likely the use of spaces where tabs are
required.  For instance, in a pqact.conf action like:

MCIDAS  ^pnga2area Q. (..) (.*) (.*) (.*) (.*) (........) (....)
        PIPE    -close
        pnga2area -d /data/ldm/mcidas -r \1,\2

the following should be tabs:

o white space between MCIDAS and ^pnga2area
o white space before PIPE
o white space between PIPE and -close
o white space before pnga2area

All other white spaces are spaces.

Please remember that after making changes in pqact.conf, it is strongly
advised to run 'ldmadmin pqactcheck'.  Until this comes back with no
errors, things are guaranteed to not run.  Also, after making any
changes to pqact.conf, you have to send a HUP signal to pqact to tell
it to reread pqact.conf.  For current LDM distributions, this can be
done with a:

ldmadmin pqactHUP

For older versions, you have to get the process ID of pqact and
send it a 'kill -HUP'.

>One other piece of information. When I run the server with the pnga2area
>decoder and then run watch, pqutil finds the decoder and gives me
>header information for the products  that looks correct.

An 'ldmadmin watch' is watching the arrival of products in your LDM
queue.  It is the equivalent of doing a:

notifyme -vxl-

This will tell you that products are getting to you correctly, but will
not tell you about problems running actions in pqact.conf.  What would
inform you of possible problems is a:

ldmadmin tail

>Thanks for your help.

It would be helpful if you sent along the pnga2area action that you are
putting in your pqact.conf file.  This way, we can review it and note
where tabs are needed and see if there is anything else amiss with your
entry.

>Mary Lynn Baeck
>I can be reached by email or by phone at (609) 258-2274

If a quick reedit of pqact.conf doesn't work, please let me know and we
can discuss what is going on by phone.

Tom Yoksas

>From address@hidden Wed Sep 20 06:40:24 2000
>Subject: Re: 20000914: Unidata-Wisconsin (MCIDAS) images broadcast cessation 
>(cont.)

###### For Tom Yoksas ######

Tom -

We are up and running with the LDM server on our Linux machine and have
taken the UNIX machine LDM server down.  Thanks for your help.

Mary Lynn Baeck