20040218: new ldm at stc, and configuring to run McIDAS-XCD and ldm-mcidas decoders

>From: "Anderson, Alan C. " <address@hidden>
>Organization: St. Cloud State
>Keywords: 200402182057.i1IKvTrV011544 McIDAS-X setup

Hi Alan,

>After Tom's reply of 6 Feb., the new ldm seems to start and run fine.

Excellent.

>Running    ldmadmin watch    immediately resulted in a stream of data
>products.

Sounds very good.  I took a look at the IDD real time statistics
pages:

http://my.unidata.ucar.edu/content/software/idd/rtstats/siteindex.php

to see if your new machine, cyclone.stcloudstate.edu, is reporting
stats.  It is.

One thing the stats tell us, however, is that the clock on cyclone
is not set correctly.  To see this, please look at a latency plot
for any of the feeds you are getting.  Here, for example, is the
plot ofr IDS|DDPLUS data:

http://my.unidata.ucar.edu/cgi-bin/rtstats/iddstats_nc?IDS|DDPLUS+cyclone.stcloudstate.edu

Notice how the latency numbers go below zero.  This shows that your
clock is running ahead of what it should be.  You need, therefore, to
install either ntpd or ntpdate on cyclone and use whichever you install
to set the clock off of a local timeserver.  This is not crutial right
at the moment, but as your clock drifts, it will be come important.

>I have copied the ldmd.conf and pqact.conf files over from waldo.

OK.

>This ldm will replace our present system on waldo, and I suspect there
>are a few more things to do in order to complete this second system.
>Aren't there some decoders to setup and install as well ?

Yes.

>Could you give me some discussion on what else I need to do ?   We use
>our ldm to ingest and store the data for our McIDAS  terminals.   We do
>not have any other software packages that use ldm data  at this point.

Here are the highlights:

- install McIDAS-X, McIDAS-XCD

- install ldm-mcidas decoders

- create the directories ~ldm/decoders and ~ldm/util; make sure that
  both of these directories are in the PATH for the user 'ldm'

- copy xcd_run from the McIDAS distribution to the ~ldm/decoders directory;
  edit xcd_run to set McIDAS enviornment variables to match your setup
  (this may be nothing if McIDAS is installed in /home/mcidas)

- copy mcscour.sh from the McIDAS distribution to the ~ldm/util directory;
  edit mcscour.sh to set McIDAS enviornment variables to match your setup
  (this may be nothing if McIDAS is installed in /home/mcidas)

- create a cron entry to run ~ldm/util/mcscour.sh once per day just after
  0 Z;
  create a cron entry to rotate ldm-mcidas log files
  create a cron entry to run LDM scouring (ldmadmin scour)
  create a cron entry to report pqbinstats stats

  You should be able to use the cron jobs on waldo as an example for
  all of the cron entries on cyclone.

- copy SCHEMA, ROUTE.SYS, and SYSKEY.TAB from the McIDAS distribution
  into the directory in which you will be decoding data into McIDAS
  compatible formats.  Make sure that all three of these files are
  readable and writable by users 'mcidas' and 'ldm'.

- make sure that the xcd_run entry in ~ldm/etc/ldmd.conf is correct:

  exec  "xcd_run MONITOR"

- make sure that the ~ldm/etc/pqact.conf file has correct entries
  for the directory where images will be decoded (by the ldm-mcidas
  decoder pnga2area), and to run the McIDAS-XCD decoding routines:

  DDPLUS|IDS    .*      PIPE
        xcd_run DDS
  HDS   .*      PIPE
        xcd_run HDS

- setup McIDAS REDIRECTions so that McIDAS (and McIDAS-XCD decoders)
  will know where to find AND write McIDAS files (e.g., MDXX, GRID, *.XCD).
  Use the example redirection file ~mcidas/data/EXAMPLE.NAM to create
  a LOCAL.NAM file with the set of redirections needed.

- as 'mcidas' define the McIDAS string XCDDATA to be the directory where
  you want the XCD decoders to read/write output data files.  For
  example, if you are decoding into the /data/ldm/mcidas directory,
  you would do the following as 'mcidas'

  cd ~mcidas/workdata
  te.k XCDDATA \"/data/ldm/mcidas

- as 'mcidas' run the XCD configuration BATCH scripts:

  cd ~mcidas/workdata
  batch.k XCD.BAT
  batch.k XCDDEC.BAT

- if you want to decode HDS model data into McIDAS GRID file format,
  you need to turn on GRID decoding in McIDAS:

  cd ~mcidas/workdata
  decinfo.k SET DMGRID ACTIVE

- make sure that the user 'mcadde' has been created, and that the
  HOME directory for 'mcadde' is the same as for the user 'mcidas'.
  Make sure that 'mcadde' is _NOT_ a login account.  Make sure that
  'mcadde' is in the same group as 'mcidas' and 'ldm'.

- install the McIDAS ADDE remote server.  This is done as 'root':

  cd ~mcidas
  sh ./mcinet2003.sh install mcadde

- define ADDE datasets as 'mcidas':

  - use ~mcidas/data/DSSERVE.BAT as a template for a local copy,
    LSSERVE.BAT

  - modify LSSERVE.BAT if/as needed

  - make the datasets defined in LSSERVE.BAT active:

    cd ~mcidas/workdata
    batch.k LSSERVE.BAT

- exercise access to the ADDE datasets defined above (after you have
  begun decoding data) first locally as 'mcidas', and then thourgh
  the remote ADDE interface
  
If all of the above go smoothly, you should have a fully working system.
There is a chance I left out something, so you should probably refer
to the complete set of McIDAS configuration instruction in the
Unidata McIDAS web site:

http://my.unidata.ucar.edu/content/software/mcidas/index.html

>Thanks

No worries.

Cheers,

Tom
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