20000222: Configuring Unidata McIDAS-X Accounts (cont.)

>From: Anthony James Wimmers <address@hidden>
>Organization: UVa
>Keywords: 200002031536.IAA25399 user accounts

Tony,

>Jennie wanted me to write you today. We're trying to set up the
>environment for a new student, Shali, and everyting works but her ADDE
>links. I think her instructions say it all:
>
>1) contact Tom, I spent a little while looking at Shali's environment
>(being interuppted by phone calls), and I couldn't figure out what was
>missing relative to mine.  I think each user need to have a DATALOC
>command run, but I cannot remember what file gets created from
>this....just explain to Tom that the DSSERVE command cannot locate any
>data, and then find out whats missing.

If the 'mcidas' account has correctly setup DATALOCs, and if the user's
account is setup so that MCTABLE_READ has included the
~mcidas/data/ADDESITE.TXT file, then the user's ADDE "links" should work.

Assuming that the student's login name is shali, then her MCTABLE_READ
should look like:

MCTABLE_READ="${MCDATA}/MCTABLE.TXT;/home/mcidas/data/ADDESITE.TXT"

In the above, MCDATA would be defined to be (assuming ~shali is /home/shali):

MCDATA=/home/shali/mcidas/data

This tells her McIDAS-X session to first look in the
~shali/mcidas/data/MCTABLE.TXT for the dataset being requested.  If the
dataset is not defined there, the file /home/mcidas/data/ADDESITE.TXT
is then searched.

If this is not working for Shali, then I would investigate any of
three possibilities:

o DATALOCs have been done for Shali so that the datasets are defined in
  her mcidas/data/MCTABLE.TXT file; these definitions may be wrong

o the 'mcidas' account has not setup the systemwide DATALOCs that should
  occupy ~mcidas/data/ADDESITE.TXT

o Shali's account has no DATALOCs setup which will mean that the McIDAS
  programs in her session will look for data as LOCAL-DATA.  For this
  to work, her McIDAS-X session must:

  o be able to locate McIDAS data files (i.e. have REDIRECTions setup
    correctly

  o must have defined which files comprise which data sets

As a response to Jennie's last comment, the various files that are used
to setup data access in Unidata McIDAS are:

file         purpose
------------+-------------------------------------------------------------
LOCAL.NAM    REDIRECTions valid for the site's environment
LOCDATA.BAT  DATALOCs for the site's environment
LSSERVE.BAT  DSSERVEs for the site's environment

My recommendation is that all users except 'mcidas' access data files
through the site's remote ADDE server.  This way, the users' accounts
do not have to have REDIRECTions setup to find McIDAS data files, nor
do they have to have DSSERVEs setup to define dataset contents.

So, I would have recommended that the DATALOCs in LOCDATA.BAT (which is/
should be located in the ~mcidas/data directory) look like:

DATALOC ADD RTGRIDS   windfall.evsc.virginia.edu
DATALOC ADD RTIMAGES  windfall.evsc.virginia.edu
DATALOC ADD RTNIDS    windfall.evsc.virginia.edu
DATALOC ADD RTNOWRAD  windfall.evsc.virginia.edu
DATALOC ADD RTPTSRC   windfall.evsc.virginia.edu
DATALOC ADD RTWXTEXT  windfall.evsc.virginia.edu
DATALOC ADD TOPO      windfall.evsc.virginia.edu

Since you are not getting NIDS or NOWrad (tm) data, the DATALOCs for these
datasets are not needed and may be left out (commented out in LOCDATA.BAT
by putting a 'REM ' at the beginning of the line).

If you have other, local datasets (meaning that they don't have the standard
names sent out in the Unidata McIDAS-X distribution), then you should add
DATALOCs to those datasets in LOCDATA.BAT.

The above is covered in:

Configuring Unidata McIDAS-X Accounts
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/mcidas/mcx/config_mcx.html
  
   1.Configuring the mcidas Account
     http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/mcidas/mcx/config_mcidas.html

   2.Configuring User Accounts
     http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/mcidas/mcx/config_users.html

Please let me know if the above doesn't get you going.

>Thanks,
>Tony

Tom