20021025: Help with ADDE

>From: "Paul L. Sirvatka" <address@hidden>
>Organization: COD
>Keywords: 200210252051.g9PKpRq26172 McIDAS ADDE NEXRCOMP

Hi Paul,

>OK...we have NEXRCOMP data being saved in some directory local here...

Super.

>How to I tell McIDAS that the data file is here?

This is pretty easy.  I outline the steps below.

>Do i need to configure our ADDE server?

If you mean do you need to configure your remote ADDE server, the
answer is No and Yes.  No if you only want to access the data from a
single account you do not have to setup the remote server.  If you want
to access the data from multiple accounts at your site, the best thing
to do is to setup the remote ADDE server and access the data through
it.

>I have no idea how to do any of this so I am not sure
>what to ask.

No problem.

>Then...when that is possible, should I kick off a script to display that
>data when it has arrived or do I need to wait a little time.

After the data has been filed, you can kick off a script immediately
to display the data.

OK, here goes with setting up an ADDE data set.  The steps in setting
up the dataset are:

1) setup the LDM to ingest/decode/file the data and name the files
   with a consistent scheme

2) make sure that your McIDAS session is not pointing to a remote server
   for the NEXRCOMP dataset:

   DATALOC ADD NEXRCOMP LOCAL-DATA

2) setup McIDAS to recognize the data files as members of a set.  This
   can be done in the 'mcidas' account or in individual user accounts.
   If you want to make the data available through the remote ADDE server,
   you need to do the setup in the 'mcidas' account.

   You create and ADDE dataset in McIDAS using the DSSERVE command.
   I include a BATCH file in the Unidata McIDAS distribution, NEXCADDE.BAT
   that makes setting up a dataset named NEXRCOMP easy.  Your job is
   to make a copy of NEXCADDE.BAT (which gets installed in /home/mcidas/data)
   and edit that copy to match your setup (where you are saving the files
   and how they are named).

   I strongly setup your system to serve the data through the remote
   ADDE interface.  This is done as follows:

   <login as 'mcidas'>
   cd workdata
   cp ~/data/NEXCADDE.BAT CODNEXC.BAT

   <edit CODNEXC.BAT>

   There are several DSSERVE command lines in NEXCADDE.BAT that you will
   have to modify.  You should keep the lines that refer to the NEXRAD
   composite data you are ingesting via the LDM, and comment out the others.
   NEXCADDE.BAT contains lines that will define the following sets:

   NEXRCOMP/1KN0R-NAT   -  1 km national NEXRAD N0R composite
   NEXRCOMP/2KN1P-NAT   -  2 km national NEXRAD N1P composite
   NEXRCOMP/4KNTP-NAT   -  4 km national NEXRAD NTP composite
   NEXRCOMP/6KN0R-NAT   -  6 km national NEXRAD N0R composite
   NEXRCOMP/10KRCM-NAT  - 10 km national NEXRAD RCM composite

   It also contains a couple of additional sets that are commented out.

   It is likely that you have decided to _not_ ingest/decode/store some
   of these data.  Comment out the lines for the products that you will
   not have on your system in your copy of NEXCADDE.BAT.  A commented
   out line begins with 'REM '.

   Lastly, you need to change the value of the DIRFILE= keyword for
   each of the types of data that you will have on your system.
   The entry as sent out will look like:

DSSERVE ADD NEXRCOMP/1KN0R-NAT  GINI TYPE=IMAGE 
DIRFILE=/data/ldm/gempak/nport/RADAR/1km/n0r/n0r_* "1 km N0R US Base 
Reflectivity Composite

   The thing you will have to change is 
'/data/ldm/gempak/nport/RADAR/1km/n0r/n0r_*'.
   This line contains a regular expression for who to find files in
   this set.  For instance, if you decided to store your data in the
   directory /data/nexrad/N0R and name the files so that they matched
   the regular expression N0R_* (like N0R_200210251207, etc.).  The
   easiest way to check to see if you have a correct regular expression
   is to clip out the value for DIRFILE and use it in an 'ls' invocation:

   ls /data/ldm/gempak/nport/RADAR/1km/n0r/n0r_*

   or, in my hypothetical example:

   ls /data/nexrad/N0R/N0R_*

   If you see the correct list of files, you are set; if not, you need
   to modify your regular expression.

   After making all changes to CODNEXC.BAT (including commenting out
   lines that will not be used), make those definitions active
   in McIDAS:

   BATCH CODNEXC.BAT

   At this point, you should be able to run the following commands
   and get correct output:

   DSINFO IMAGE NEXRCOMP
   IMGLIST NEXRCOMP/1KN0R-NAT.ALL

   If either/both of these commands don't work, return to the start of 3)
   and see what went wrong.

The final thing is the setting up of the remote ADDE server on your machine.
This has to be done as the user 'mcidas'.  Also, your system administrator
would have had to setup a user named 'mcadde', and this user's should be setup
so that:

o the HOME directory for 'mcadde' should be the same as the HOME directory
  for the user  'mcidas'

o the default shell for 'mcadde' should be /bin/false (so that 'mcadde'
  does not support logins

o the user 'mcadde' should be in the same group as the user 'mcidas' (and
  'ldm')

Next, create the file .mcenv in the HOME directory of the user 'mcidas'.
The contents of .mcenv are listed in:

Prepare the mcidas and mcadde Accounts
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/mcidas/2002/mcx/mcxacct.html
   
It can be downloaded directly from:

http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/mcidas/2002/mcx/mcadde_env.ksh

.mcenv must be readable by 'mcadde' and 'mcidas'.

Now, 'root' has to run the ADDE remote server installation script:

<become 'root'>
cd ~mcidas
./mcinet2002.sh install mcadde

The thing to look for after this is conflicts in /etc/services.
Check the entries added by the mcinet2002.sh script (at the end
of the file) and compare the port numbers with those in the rest
of the file.   You may have to comment out entries for ports 112, 500
and 503 (this is OS dependent).

After all of this, you should be able to point other machines
at your host and list/display/etc the data.

DATALOC ADD NEXRCOMP weather.cod.edu

(assuming that the name of your machine is weather.cod.edu).

I don't think I have left out anything.  Let me know if I have or if
you have any problems.

Tom