20010122: XCD decoders not running on cacimbo

>From: Unidata Support <address@hidden>
>Organization: University of Georgia
>Keywords: 200101092215.f09MFJo10530 McIDAS NIDS

Tom,

In preparing to announce ADDE access to a set of cooperating servers,
I happened to notice that there is current
McIDAS point source data available on cacimbo.  I took the liberty
of logging in to snoop around and I see that McIDAS-XCD decoders
are not running:

[mcidas@cacimbo ~/workdata]$ ps -u ldm
  PID TTY          TIME CMD
  800 ?        00:00:14 pdinrsd
11718 ?        00:01:47 rpc.ldmd
11719 ?        02:36:09 pqexpire
11721 ?        02:35:57 pqbinstats
11722 ?        19:06:37 pqact
11725 ?        03:29:47 rpc.ldmd
11726 ?        00:13:03 rpc.ldmd
11727 ?        00:00:14 rpc.ldmd
24382 ?        00:05:46 dcmetr
31685 ?        00:00:00 sh
31688 ?        00:00:00 ldmadmin
31690 ?        00:09:54 perl
  618 ?        00:00:00 dcuair
  619 ?        00:00:01 dcacft
 3604 ?        00:00:00 pdinrsd
 3626 ?        00:00:00 pqact <defunct>

I don't know if this is by design on your part, or if something has
changed that is now preventing the XCD stuff from working.  A quick
check of the LDM configuration files, ldmd.conf and pqact.conf, shows
that the decoding should be running:

%more ~ldm/etc/ldmd.conf
 ...
exec    "xcd_run MONITOR"
 ...

%more ~ldm/etc/pqact.conf
 ...
# Entries for XCD decoders
DDPLUS|IDS      ^.*     PIPE
        xcd_run DDS
HRS     ^.*     PIPE
        xcd_run HRS
 ...

My poking around does not reveal a copy of xcd_run in directory in 'ldm's
PATH:

%more .cshrc
# @(#)cshrc 1.11 89/11/29 SMI
umask 002

# SET LOCAL PATH AND PATH
#set lpath=( /usr/local/ldm/bin /usr/local/ldm/decoders/bin /usr/local/bin ~/etc
 /home/gempak /home/gempak/bin/linux /home/mcidas/bin ~mcidas/bin )
set lpath=( /usr/local/ldm/bin /usr/local/ldm/decoders/bin /usr/local/bin ~/etc 
/home/gempak /home/gempak/bin/linux )
set path=(/bin /usr/bin /etc . /usr/sbin/ /usr/X11R6/bin $lpath)

# SET ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
#...OS stuff
#setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH 

setenv LDMHOME /usr/local/ldm

The first 'set lpath' is commented out, so ~mcidas/bin/xcd_run will not be
found.  I recommend that users copy xcd_run to the ~ldm/decoders (or similar
directory in 'ldm's PATH), and not try to use it from the McIDAS installation
bin directory.  To me this would have meant that you would copy it to
a directory like /usr/local/ldm/decoders/bin, but I don't see it there:

%ls /usr/local/ldm/decoders/bin
batch.k  mcscour.sh  nldn2md

I did find a copy of xcd_run in ~ldm, but, given the PATH for your 'ldm'
user, this would not be guaranteed to work (depending on how the ldm
was (re)started).

Was it your intention to turn off McIDAS-XCD decoding?  If not, was the
decoding that was working previously using the copy of xcd_run in ~ldm?

Do you run ldmfail as 'ldm'?  If so, it could be the case that the XCD
stuff stops working right after ldmfail is run.  I have seen a situation
like this on Clint Rowe's machine at UNL.

Is there anything I can do to help you get XCD running again (assuming
that you want it running, that is)?

Tom