Ask your system administrator to create user individual accounts for running McIDAS-X.
Individual users or the system administrator must complete the following tasks for each account in which McIDAS-X will be run:
For convenience, files with the settings described below are downloadable here (remember to hold down the shift key while pressing mouse button 1 to transfer these files):
Defining all of these enviornment variables is easily accomplished by adding the following lines to your shell definition file:
| non-Conforming shells (e.g., .cshrc) | Conforming shells (e.g., .profile, .bash_profile, or .kshrc) |
setenv MCHOME /home/mcidas if ( -e $MCHOME/admin/user_env.csh ) then source $MCHOME/admin/user_env.csh endif |
MCHOME=/home/mcidas export MCHOME if [ -e $MCHOME/admin/user_env.sh ]; then . $MCHOME/admin/user_env.sh fi |
The environment variables that will be defined by sourcing the appropriate envionment definition file for each account in which McIDAS-X will be run are:
| Environment Variable | Purpose |
|---|---|
| MCHOME | the HOME directory of the user mcidas |
| MCDATA | user's working directory for McIDAS-X sessions |
| MCPATH | MCPATH - a colon-separated list of directories that McIDAS routines will search when looking for data and ancillary data files |
| MCBIN | the directory in which the McIDAS-X executables and reside. If you have your own McIDAS executables, add the directory location for those after the main McIDAS executable directory |
| MCGUI | the directory in which the Unidata Tcl/Tk GUI executables and scripts and McIDAS-X executables reside. If you have your own McIDAS executables, add the directory location for those after the main McIDAS executable directory |
| MCSRC | directory that has the McIDAS-X source code |
| MCUPDATE | directory where update compressed tar files are to be written |
| MCTABLE_READ | a semi-colon separated list of fully qualified pathnames for ADDE client routing tables that the user can read |
| MCTABLE_WRITE | the single ADDE client routing table that the user can modify |
| MCCOMPRESS | Compression method the client routines will request from servers. NB: it is strongly recommended to leave this as GZIP. |
| MCSTRETCH | set the EXPanded or ORIGinal stretch environment |
| MCVER | Unidata McIDAS-X version |
| PATH | add the MCGUI directory to the front of your PATH |
| Operating System | Modification |
|---|---|
| Linux | none known |
| Mac OS X | none known |
The actions required to enable certain keyboard keys used by McIDAS-X (for example, Alt A, Ctrl F11) vary depending on your workstation and its configuration. This section describes these actions for workstations running SSEC-recommended configurations.
Complete the section appropriate for your configuration. The directions assume that you are in the account's $HOME directory and logged on to the workstation console.
Enabling McIDAS-X Keys for Linux and GNOME
Complete the steps below if you use an Linux workstation console and the GNOME desktop environment.
1. Bring up the Keyboard Shortcuts window by clicking the following in order: Main Menu (in lower-left corner), Preferences, Keyboard Shortcuts.
2. Highlight each shortcut associated with a key combination you want to use in McIDAS-X (e.g., <ALT>F2) and press the Backspace key to change it to Disabled. This allows McIDAS-X to use the key combination for strings and other applications.
Enabling McIDAS-X Keys for macOS and XQuartz
Complete the steps below if you use a macOS workstation console and Apple's XQuartz desktop environment.
1. Start XQuartz by double-clicking the XQuartz icon in the Applications>Utilities folder. If XQuartz is already running, click the XQuartz icon in the dock to make the application active.
2. Click the XQuartz menu at the top of the display, then click Preferences to bring up the X11 Preferences window.
3. Click the Input tab, then uncheck the checkbox labeled Enable key equivalents under X11.
Steps 1-3 allow the open-apple keys (on each side of the spacebar) to function as the Alt keys in McIDAS-X.
4. Start a Terminal by double-clicking the Terminal icon in the Applications>Utilities folder. If a Terminal is already running, click the Terminal icon in the dock to make the application active. Then use the xmodmap utility to configure a key to function as the Insert key during McIDAS-X command entry. Choose the appropriate command below, depending on whether you have a fullsize (desktop) keyboard or a laptop.
On a fullsize keyboard, run the command below to configure the help key to function as Insert. The spaces before and after the equal sign (=) are required.
Type: xmodmap -e 'keysym Help = Insert'
Type: xmodmap -e 'keysym Mode_switch = Insert'
For instance, users other than mcidas need only do the following to setup access to datasets and ADDE servers defined by mcidas:
Start a McIDAS-X session:
If this is the first v202x session that the user has started, the file .mcidasrc will be created in his/her HOME directory.
If the mcidas user decided to not setup a remote ADDE server, each user must define the ADDE datasets that s/he wants to access from the realtime data ingested by the LDM. That user will need to complete the following steps.
In Preparing the mcidas Account, we saw that the user mcidas is responsible for creating a set of file redirections in /home/mcidas/data/LOCAL.NAM. These same redirections can be used by the non-mcidas user. To make those redirections active in their sessions, users need to do the following:
Within the now-active session, the user needs to restore the redirection definitions from LOCAL.NAM to his/her session:
LOCAL.NAM should be accessible to the McIDAS-X session by virtue of the user's MCPATH containing the /home/mcidas/data directory.
After the redirections are restored, the user should be able to access the data files accessible to his/her machine (either on local or NFS mounted disks). ADDE datasets accessible from the site's remote ADDE server will be available after the remote server is installed by root.
Next, the user will need to define the ADDE datasets that contain the locally accessible data files by using the LSSERVE.BAT file that mcidas also created. This is done as follows:
Here, fully_qualified_directory_name is the directory where McIDAS data files to be served are located.
In order to access McIDAS data files through local ADDE access, the user should now update her/his ADDE client and server routing tables by defining a dataset named MYDATA and declare it to be locally accessible. This is accomplished using the McIDAS BATCH file, MYADDE.BAT:
The same should be done for the TOPO dataset since the images that make up the dataset are included in the Unidata McIDAS-X release:
As this completes the configuration steps the user needs to make, he/she should now EXIT McIDAS:
This concludes the instructions for installing McIDAS-X and configuring user accounts. Continue with Configuring McIDAS-X Sessions with .mcidasrc , which provides information about tailoring McIDAS-X sessions to your preferences.