System Requirements

The McIDAS-XCD 2020.1 software package was tested on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 Intel and is supported on RHEL 7.x and 8.x.

McIDAS-X 2020.1 (released in pair with McIDAS-XCD 2020.1 in July 2020) must be installed in the mcidas account according to the specifications in Chapter 1, Installing and Configuring McIDAS-X, in the McIDAS User's Guide. Be sure to include the directory ~mcidas/bin in the environment variable PATH.

The Unix workstation running the McIDAS-XCD software must have the user account oper. This account must be configured with the appropriate directories, links, and paths to run McIDAS-X. For more information, see the section titled Configuring a New User Account in Chapter 1 of the McIDAS User's Guide. If you already have an oper account on your workstation and do not want to run the -XCD package under this account, contact the McIDAS Help Desk at (608) 262-2455 or by e-mail.

The Unix workstation running the McIDAS-XCD software must have the group name mcdata which contains the user oper.

McIDAS-XCD is designed to process data from the NOAAPORT data stream that is broadcast by the National Weather Service. The standard method for receiving this data stream is through the use of the LDM software from Unidata.

In addition, the workstation must have enough disk space to run the McIDAS-XCD software package and store its data files. The table below lists the approximate disk space requirements per day for each data type decoded with the -XCD package. The space requirements were derived from the NOAAPORT broadcast in June 2020.

Data type	Daily space requirements
* ASCII text stream	2,700 MB
* MD files (all types/schemas)	198 MB
All GRIB1 and GRIB2 data	450,000 MB
All radar (WSR-88D and TDWR) products and stations	55,000 MB
All BUFR data	3,100 MB
* These data are generated by default for first-time installations. The GRIB, GRID and NEXRAD decoders are inactive by default.
NOAAPORT approximate total	511,000 MB (511 GB)

In addition, there is a static requirement of 500 to 1,000 MB for other -XCD files. If enabled, the MySQL/MariaDB database (60 MB) and LDM product queue (default=400 MB) also consume significant disk space. Note: The LDM product queue can be set as large as 4 GB on a 32 bit Enterprise Linux workstation.

Remember that the space requirements above are approximates and are per day. If you save multiple days of data you must multiply the figures by the number of days for your disk space requirements.

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