20040108: one more thing at stc (cont.)

>From: "Anderson, Alan C. " <address@hidden>
>Organization: St. Cloud State
>Keywords: 200401082149.i08Ln1p2002455 McIDAS ADDE LDM ldm-mcidas

Alan,

>using mcidas -config to start resulted in a .mcidasrc file created
>in the user's home dir,  so problem is solved.   I will make 
>a note in our set up book.  

Sounds good.

>As long as I am writing,  I will mention one other item.
>This problem occurred on the same machine with the missing
>.mcidasrc file,  but I had solved it so did not mention it earlier.
>
>When configuring the user account (other than mcidas), the
>LSSERVE.BAT failed to complete.  Most of it ran but it 
>failed and gave an error message that was abandoned because
>TE XCDDATA (or something related to it) was not found.  

That is correct, you have to define XCDDATA before running LSSERVE.BAT.
I believe that this is in the online documentation.

>I recalled that we had to do a TE XCDDATA "path name
>when configuring the mcidas account, where path name is
>the directory where the XCD data files are to go (I think).

Right.

>So I ran the same command for the user,  TE XCDDATA "path name
>and then  LSSERVE.BAT was successful.  In this case, I used
>/var/data/mcidas  as the path name since that is the directory
>where all of our data files are kept.

Execllent.

>Can you comment ?  Have I created  another gremlin?

I do have a comment.  I strongly recommend that the non-'mcidas' user
not have to setup ADDE dataset definitions since this is something that
the McIDAS super user 'mcidas' should do for everyone.  The
recommendation is that 'mcidas' setup ADDE dataset definitions by
defining XCDDATA, and running LSSERVE.BAT.  The next step is that the
ADDE remote server be installed on the machine that is ingesting data
and running decoders.  The McIDAS user then defines a set of DATALOCs
by configuring ~mcidas/data/LOCDATA.BAT and running 'BATCH LOCDATA.BAT"
from the ~mcidas/workdata directory.  All other users, by virtue of
their defining the Unix environment variable MCTABLE_READ to include
the ADDE DATALOC definition file created by 'mcidas',
~mcidas/data/ADDESITE.TXT, will then automatically be pointed at the
machines setup by 'mcidas' for ADDE access.  Those other users,
however, can override those definitions by pointing at different
machines for their data.  They do this by running DATALOC commands from
their McIDAS session.  Those commands update a file called MCTABLE.TXT
which should get put in their ~/mcidas/data directory.  MCTABLE.TXT
will get put there if they correctly defined the Unix enviroment
variable MCTABLE_WRITE (as per instructions).  When their McIDAS
session goes to access data from an ADDE server, it first reads
MCTABLE.TXT to see where it should go.  If it doesn't find a DATALOC
for the dataset there, it uses ~mcidas/data/ADDESITE.TXT definitions.
If it doesn't find what it needs there, it assumes that the data is
LOCAL-DATA.  It is the last case where dataset definitions created by
DSSERVE commands run from LSSERVE.BAT are needed.

>Bye Tom

See you.

Tom