20030725: mctable issues & ssh issues

>From:  "Matthew J. Rosier" <address@hidden>
>Organization:  UNCA
>Keywords: 200307202337.h6KNb1lo026615 McIDAS ADDE DATALOC BLIZZARD

Hi Matt,

re: McIDAS not being able to "see" the BLIZZARD dataset

>The mcidas issue is actually not with UNCA's McIDAS, which at last check is
>working fine, but rather trying to set up mcidas on my personal linux box.

OK.

>As far as you logging in to my box remotely, well, for some reason I cannot
>ssh onto the machine from another PC, but this MIGHT have something to do
>with the fact that the machines are on a router, but I don't see why that
>would screw up my ssh.
>
>Actually, perhaps the router is not passing on port 22 traffic, because a
>netstat -la | grep ssh yields:
>
>tcp        0      0 *:ssh                   *:*                     LISTEN
>unix  2      [ ACC ]     STREAM     LISTENING     4275
>/tmp/ssh-XXZb3tLK/agent.1456
>
>Hmmmmmm.

If this is a router under your control, you can set it to pass port 22
traffic through (exactly how is dependent on the router itself).

The other thing to check is your /etc/hosts.allow and/or /etc/hosts.deny
files.  Make sure that there is no rule that explicitly denies ssh
access to all outside machines.

One thing to check.  Can you do a 'telnet adde.ucar.edu 500'?
(you will have to do a CTRL-C to stop this).  If yes, can you also
do a 'telnet adde.ucar.edu 503'?

If you can NOT do the telnet, then your access to adde.ucar.edu is
being blocked by something.

By the way, you can grab the BLIZZARD training set and install it on
your own machine:

<login as 'mcidas' to your machine>
cd mcidas/data/tutorial

ftp ftp.unidata.ucar.edu
  <user> umcidas
  <pass> XXXXXX
  cd data/tutorial
  binary
  get learn.data.tar.Z
  quit

tar xvzf learn.data.tar.Z

Next, you have to setup the BLIZZARD ADDE dataset.

<start a McIDAS session and do the following from the command line>

DATALOC ADD BLIZZARD LOCAL-DATA             <- must be done first!

REDIRECT ADD AREA8* "/home/mcidas/data/tutorial
REDIRECT ADD MDXX8* "/home/mcidas/data/tutorial
REDIRECT ADD GRID8* "/home/mcidas/data/tutorial

Test to make sure that you can see the files:

DMAP AREA8
DMAP MDXX8
DMAP GRID8

If not, check your REDIRECTions

Next, create the ADDE dataset BLIZZARD:

BATCH BLIZADDE.BAT

Test to make sure that you can access the various pieces of the dataset.

DSINFO IMAGE BLIZZARD
IMGLIST BLIZZARD/IMAGES.ALL

At this point, if all things worked you should be good to go.

>You mentioned the non-existence of mctable.txt as being a good thing,

Yes.  Again, the setup for the user 'mcidas' is special.  'mcidas' is
to be thought of as 'root' for McIDAS.  This is so much the case, that
the SSEC distribution of McIDAS does not even allow the user 'mcidas'
to run McIDAS!  I change that in the Unidata distribution so that the
user 'mcidas' can do things on behalf of all other users.

Operating in the 'mcidas' account assumes that the user really knows
what s/he is doing (just like being 'root' in Unix/Linux).  The
~mcidas/workdata/MCTABLE.TXT file for 'mcidas' is only updated if
'mcidas' creates and edits it manually, OR if that same user did not
follow the instructions on how to define MCTABLE_WRITE.

>but I
>suppose there is still no one solution to the problem, else you wouldnt need
>to access my machine remotely?

The failure of your McIDAS session to see the BLIZZARD dataset is not
something that occurs frequently, or, quite frankly, at all _unless_
there is some sort of network or McIDAS configuration problem.  This
is why nothing is jumping to my mind on what could be the problem on
your machine.

>Alex is a good guy a great professor, quite smart.

Yup, I knew all of that :-)

>I assume you know (or
>know of) Leigh Orf, he was more of our Linux guru, but has just left for
>Central Michigan University.

Yes, I had many email exchanges with Leigh.

>As far as the login info for McIDAS on storm2 incase you need it, well, I'm
>still trying to remember it, I thought the login info was
>unca-mcidas/mcidas2002 but that doesnt seem to be working.

If I had the 'mcidas' login to storm2, I would at least upgrade the
distribution to the latest addendum, v2002b.   In a week or so, I would
upgrade storm2 to the new McIDAS release, v2003 (a work still in
progress).  v2002b+ contain a fix for accessing upper air data from an
ADDE server running on Linux.  By the way, Leigh was the first person
to find this problem.  It was because of that problem that Leigh and I
exchanged email.

>Anyhow, one of
>the main reasons I am trying to get McIDAS up and running on my personal
>Linux box is so I can become more familar with it's command interface, I had
>no idea McIDAS was so powerful until I started an internship with
>Raytheon/NESDIS Forecast Products Development Team. All the derived product
>imagery and GOES sounder stuff is generated and run through McIDAS.

Not only that, but all of the images in the NOAAPORT broadcast are
created using McIDAS.  The command line interface may be pretty arcane,
but the underlying functionality is huge, so many users bite the bullet
and learn how to run the package.

>Thanks again Tom,

No worries.

Tom
--
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* Tom Yoksas                                             UCAR Unidata Program *
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