McIDAS-XCD Installation Instructions v. 2020.1

Note: You must install McIDAS-X 2020.1 on the workstation before you install McIDAS-XCD 2020.1. Then continue with the appropriate set of instructions, as described below.

McIDAS-XCD v. 2020.1

If you are installing McIDAS-XCD for the first time on the workstation, go to the McIDAS-XCD Administrator’s Guide‘s Installing McIDAS-XCD 2020.1 for the First Time and complete its instructions. (Use those instructions rather than those below.)

If you are installing McIDAS-XCD Fastrack version 2020.1 on a workstation that already has a previous version of McIDAS-XCD installed, complete the steps below.

  1. As root, disable the writing of binary log files associated with the database so that it is not enabled when MySQL/MariaDB is upgraded on your McIDAS-XCD system. This is needed because MySQL/MariaDB 8.0 and later enable binary logging by default, which fills large amounts of disk (possibly an entire file system) due to it logging millions of INSERT into file_list entries per day.

    Type: /home/oper/mcidas/bin/gribadmin disablelog

    When the command is finished, you should see a message like that below.

    /etc/my.cnf.d/disable-log-bin.cnf successfully written!

    Once its successful completion is verified, exit from root.

  2. At a Unix prompt as user oper, stop McIDAS-XCD and then LDM by running the commands below in order.

    Type: xcdadmin stop
    Type: ldmadmin stop

  3. As user oper, run the script below from the ~oper/mcidas directory to build and install McIDAS-XCD 2020.1 using the same settings for optional flags -noopt and -mysql as were used to build McIDAS-X 2020.1. You must use the same compilers and optional flag settings for both the McIDAS-X and McIDAS-XCD builds.

    Type: sh ./xcd2020.1.sh flags build

    where flags is zero, one or both of the two optional flags described below.

    • The -noopt flag is used to build McIDAS-XCD with no optimization. If you don’t specify this -noopt flag, McIDAS-XCD is built using the default optimization: -O1 for builds with gcc/gfortran.
    • The -mysql flag is used to build McIDAS-XCD using the MySQL/MariaDB database libraries. Use this flag if this workstation will be serving real-time GRIB files from the NOAAPORT data stream and you have installed and want to use a MySQL/MariaDB database to make the GRIB data access faster for your McIDAS-X clients/users. If the database is in a non-standard install location, specify the flag as -mysql=directory, where directory is the root MySQL/MariaDB install directory. Remember, the -mysql flag must be specified when building both McIDAS-X and McIDAS-XCD.

      When the script xcd2020.1.sh is finished, you will see the message below.

      McIDAS-XCD binaries built correctly
  4. As user oper, run the script below from the ~oper/mcidas directory to install the new executable code and a subset of the replaceable McIDAS-XCD data files for your workstation.

    Type: sh ./xcd2020.1.sh cutover

    When the script is finished, you will see the message below.

    McIDAS-XCD package cutover is now complete
  5. As user oper, start a McIDAS-X session and run the command below to remove the .IDT files. The .IDT files are recreated after McIDAS-XCD is restarted (last step below) and at that point will contain the STNDB.CORE updates.

    Type: BATCH RECREATEIDT.BAT

  6. In the McIDAS-X session started as user oper in step 5 above, run the two commands below. The first command (BATCH REGROUP.BAT) recreates the GROUPS.DAT and COUNTRY.DAT files so they contain the station database changes included in McIDAS-X Fastrack 2020.1. The second command (BATCH REBILDRAP.BAT) rebuilds the Rapid Access Pointer files so they include the same station database changes and rebuilds the Rapid Access Text files. Note that running the second command erases the previous content of the *.RAP and *.RAT files, so they will contain only new data. That means that the user commands MOSRPT, OBSRPT, RAOBRPT, SFCRPT, SYNRPT and TAFRPT will not be able to access any data from prior to McIDAS-XCD being restarted (last step below).

    Type: BATCH REGROUP.BAT
    Type: BATCH REBILDRAP.BAT

    Note: This McIDAS-XCD 2020.1 release includes software changes that allow you to specify a value of up to 20 for the maximum number of Metar obs per station per hour that are stored in the SAOMETAR.RAT file (which users access with the SFCRPT command). The maximum value was previously 6 but now is 20. The prior default setting of 6 is maintained in the REBILDRAP.BAT file that you run in this step.

    If you would like to set a different value for your McIDAS-XCD system, edit the REBILDRAP.BAT file prior to running the BATCH commands above and change the “6” in its BILDTEXT INIT SAOMETAR.RAP SAOMETAR.RAT 12500 6 C4 36 1 80 SAOMETAR X 144 entry to the value you would like for your system (up to 20). If you want to do it at a later time, you will need to stop McIDAS-XCD, run the command in a McIDAS-X session as user oper, then restart McIDAS-XCD.

  7. As user mcadde, start a McIDAS-X session and run the command below to recreate the GROUPS.DAT and COUNTRY.DAT files in the mcadde account so they contain the station database changes included in McIDAS-X Fastrack 2020.1.

    Type: BATCH REGROUP.BAT

  8. As user mcadde, make a backup copy of your RESOLV.SRV file (e.g., cp RESOLV.SRV RESOLV.SRV.BAK) in preparation for adding the restructured RTGRIDS/* datasets below.

  9. In the McIDAS-X session started as user mcadde in step 7 above, run the command below to remove obsolete and add new RTGRIDS/* datasets.

    Type: BATCH UPDATEGRIB2020_1.BAT CONTINUE=YES

  10. In the McIDAS-X session started as user mcadde in step 7 above, run the command below to update the TDWR/* and RADAR/TDWR-* datasets so they contain the data currently available over the NOAAPORT NEXRAD feed.

    Type: BATCH UPDATETDWR2020_1.BAT CONTINUE=YES

  11. As user mcidas, run the script below from the ~oper/mcidas directory to install the new ADDE server executable code in the mcidas account.

    Type: sh ./xcd2020.1.sh install addeservers

  12. Restart LDM and then McIDAS-XCD by running the commands below in order at a Unix prompt as user oper.

    Type: ldmadmin start
    Type: xcdadmin start

.

This concludes the McIDAS-XCD Fastrack version 2020.1 installation procedure.

Depending on your site’s configuration and needs, additional actions may be required now or at a later time. Go to Configuring McIDAS-XCD in the McIDAS-XCD Administrator’s Guide for all configuration options. Also note that a new optional data monitor was added in version 2020.1: the DMCOND data monitor for GRIB2 files from the LDM CONDUIT feed.