CDM Coordinate System Validator Service

The Common Data Model (CDM) Coordinate System Validator Service is a web service that identifies georeferencing coordinate systems in a CDM file (e.g. NetCDF), using CF-1.0, COARDS or other conventions that it knows about. This accurately indicates what will be viewable in applications like the IDV that use the CDM Netcdf-Java library. It currently only works on gridded data.

As of TDS 4.0, the CDM Validator service is available as a separate web application.

System requirements are the same as for the TDS. Download information is also available on the TDS page.

Configuration

The CDM Validator configuration file, cdmValidatorConfig.xml, is in the ${TOMCAT_HOME}/content/thredds directory.

If the configuration file does not exist, the CDM Validator will write a generic version of the cdmValidatorConfig.xml file. 

File Upload

The first section of the configuration file contains information on allowed upload size and file cache configuration:

<CdmValidatorService>
  <maxFileUploadSize>1 Gb</maxFileUploadSize>
  <cache>
    <dir>\tmp\thredds\cdmValidateCache\</dir>
    <scour>10 minutes</scour>
    <maxAge>1 days</maxAge>
    <maxSize>1 Gb</maxSize>
  </cache>
</CdmValidatorService>

• maxFileUploadSize - the maximum size file that can be uploaded for validation.
• cache/dir - the directory in which uploaded files are cached.
• cache/scour - the frequency with which to scour the cache directory.
• cache/maxAge - the maximum length of time a file can remain in the cache.
• cache/maxSize - the maximum total size for all files in the cache.

Generated HTML Pages

The second section of the configuration file contains information used in the generated HTML responses:

<htmlSetup>
  <standardCssUrl>tds.css</standardCssUrl>

  <installName>Your CDM Validator</installName>
  <installLogoUrl>yourLogo.gif</installLogoUrl>
  <installLogoAlt>Your CDM Validator</installLogoAlt>

  <hostInstName>My Group</hostInstName>
  <hostInstUrl>http://www.my.site/</hostInstUrl>
  <hostInstLogoUrl>myGroup.gif</hostInstLogoUrl>
  <hostInstLogoAlt>My Group</hostInstLogoAlt>
</htmlSetup>

• standardCssUrl - a URL for the CSS document used in generated HTML pages.
• Name and logo for the installation:
• installName - the name of the installation.
• installLogoUrl - the URL for the installation logo
• installLogoAlt - a string to use as an alternate tag for the logo
• Name and log for the institution hosting this installation:
• hostInstName - the name of the institution hosting this installation.
• hostInstUrl - the URL to the web page of the institution hosting this installation
• hostInstLogoUrl - the URL for the logo of the institution hosting this installation
• hostInstLogoAlt - a string to use as an alternate tag for the host institution logo

Note: URLs may be absolute or relative, relative URLs will be interpreted as relative to the webapp URL, i.e., http://server:port/cdmvalidator/.

Using the CDM Validator

The CDM Validator main page is at

http://server:port/cdmvalidator/validate.html

and provides a form for requesting validation services on remotely accessible datasets (e.g., using OPeNDAP) or for uploading a file from your local machine.

This document is maintained by Unidata and was last updated March 2009. Send comments to THREDDS support.