[McIDAS #STG-808468]: Conversion of mcidas area to shapefile format

Hi Martha,

re:
> I have run the mcinet2007.sh uninstall mcadde and mcinet2008.sh install
> mcadde per the UNIDATA documentation.

OK.  This was not actually needed, but it hurts nothing.

> I think you may be right, the problem is we switched from SSEC to
> UNIDATA XCD software at some point and there are still artifacts of
> the SSEC install around.  As a test, I looked at the RESOLV.SRV files
> in the /home/mcadde/mcidas/data and in /home/mcidas/workdata, and the
> mcadde account's version did not have the RTGRID or RTGRIB2 dataset
> defined.  When I copied the RESOLV.SRV file from /home/mcidas/workdata
> to /home/mcadde/mcidas/data then tried to access RTGRIB2 and RTGRIBS
> remotely it worked.

Excellent!  Your testing demonstrates that the setup for 'mcadde' matches
SSEC's recommendations, not Unidata's.

> Do you have any suggestions about cleaning up - i.e., is the mcadde account
> still necessary,

I would say yes.  The major difference in SSEC's recommended setup and
Unidata's is that 'mcadde' is a completely separate account in SSEC's
setup and it is more-or-less an alias for 'mcidas' in Unidata's:

- the setup I describe in the Unidata McIDAS Users Guide:

  Unidata HomePage
  http://www.unidata.ucar.edu
    Unidata McIDAS
    http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/mcidas
      Unidata McIDAS-X Users Guide
      https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/mcidas/current/users_guide/toc.html
        Installing and Configuring McIDAS-X
        
https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/mcidas/current/users_guide/toc.html
          Installing McIDAS-X on Unix or Mac OS X Workstations
          
https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/mcidas/current/users_guide/InstallingMcIDAS-XonUnixorMacOSXWorkstations.html

          Preparing the mcidas Account
          
https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/mcidas/current/users_guide/PreparingthemcidasAccount.html
          
  instructs the site to create the accounts 'mcidas' and 'mcadde'.  'mcidas' is
  a login account in which McIDAS is built, installed, and configured.  'mcadde'
  is a non-login account that is used for running the ADDE remote server.
  The HOME directory for 'mcadde' is the same as the HOME directory for 
'mcidas'.
  'mcadde' and 'mcidas' are in the same group.

With this setup, the 'mcidas' account is used to do all configurations for the
package including remote ADDE access and configuration AND XCD processing.  In
SSEC's method, one has to have three accounts to do the same thing: 'mcidas',
'mcadde' and 'oper'.  I believe that the Unidata procedure is much simpler;
it is certainly easier to explain :-)

> i.e., does a remote ADDE request look first in /home/mcadde/mcidas/data
> before /home/mcidas/workdata?

Where the remote ADDE request process will look is defined by the MCPATH
setting in the file ~mcadde/.mcenv.  Please remember that the directories
contained in a MCPATH setting are used left to right.

So, the question is whether or not you should modify your McIDAS setup to
match Unidata's suggestion or SSEC's...  this is up to you.  You could
alter your current setup to take advantage of configurations in a single
'mcidas' account by altering the MCPATH entry in ~mcadde/.mcenv to look
like:

MCPATH=/home/mcidas/workdata:/home/mcadde/mcidas/data:/home/mcidas/data:/home/mcidas/help
export MCPATH

This way, the copy of RESOLV.SRV in /home/mcidas/workdata will be the one used
by the remote ADDE server.

If you choose to tweak your setup (not change massively), then I think 
everything
will work fine.  However, you will need to remember that your setup is non-SSEC
AND non-Unidata standard.  This should be no problem for "old McIDAS hands", but
it could cause problems if someone new comes on board at your shop and takes 
over
the maintenance of McIDAS.


> And the xcdscour in cron worked, once we had pruned off the large number
> of files that had accumulated and were causing some command in xcdscour to 
> fail.

Excellent!

The next topic we broached was your (NGC) access to CONDUIT data.  I would 
prefer
to handle this request/action from a different support category.  If you still
would like to get an LDM/IDD feed of CONDUIT (or some part of CONDUIT), please
send an email request to

Unidata IDD Support <address@hidden>

We will handle things from there.

> Thanks.

No worries.

Cheers,

Tom
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Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: STG-808468
Department: Support McIDAS
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed