Preparing the mcidas Account

Follow the steps below 7 steps to prepare the mcidas account.

If the workstation does not have mcidas and mcadde account, have the system administrator create them.
The mcidas account should allow logins; the mcadde account should not allow logins. Both of these accounts should be in the same group and both should have the SAME home directory.
If the mcidas and mcadde accounts are not in the same group as the user running the Unidata LDM, have the system administrator put them in the same group. This group should be different than the one that general users are in.
Log on to the workstation as mcidas.

Modify the shell-appropriate configuration file: .cshrc for non-conforming shells like csh and tcsh; .profile for Bourne Shell users; .bash_profile for bash; .kshrc for Korn Shell users; etc.

First, define the Unix/Linux environment varible McINST_ROOT. Set this to the directory under which you want McIDAS installed. The most typical setting for this is the HOME directory of the user mcidas.
Next, define the Unix/Linux environment varible VENDOR. VENDOR specifies which supported compiler set to use. Unidata McIDAS can be built with operating system vendor compilers (-vendor) or the Free Software Foundation GNU compilers gcc and g77 (-g77).

Finally, define a series of McIDAS environment variables and others needed to build packages included with the McIDAS. For convenience, files with the settings described below are included in the Unidata McIDAS-X distribution in the $HOME/admin directory.

mcidas_env.csh

mcidas_env.sh

The names of environment variables that are needed and their meaning is listed in the following table.

Environment Variable

Purpose

MCHOME the HOME directory of mcidas

McINST_ROOT the directory under which you wish to install Unidata McIDAS-X. This is usually the same as MCHOME)

MCDATA mcidas' 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

MCGUI the directory in which the Unidata Tcl/Tk GUI executables and scripts reside

MCTABLE_READ a semi-colon separated list of fully qualified pathnames of ADDE client routing tables that will be read by McIDAS applications when determining the server from which data will be requested

MCTABLE_WRITE the ADDE client routing table that will be modified when the McIDAS DATALOC command is run

MCCOMPRESS when set, makes McIDAS clients request that ADDE servers send them data in compressed format

XCD_disp_file fully qualified pathname of the XCD decoder status file, DECOSTAT.DAT. This should be located in mcidas's working directory.

PATH add the MCGUI directory to the front of your PATH

Environment Variable	Purpose
MCHOME	the HOME directory of mcidas
McINST_ROOT	the directory under which you wish to install Unidata McIDAS-X. This is usually the same as MCHOME)
MCDATA	mcidas' 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
MCGUI	the directory in which the Unidata Tcl/Tk GUI executables and scripts reside
MCTABLE_READ	a semi-colon separated list of fully qualified pathnames of ADDE client routing tables that will be read by McIDAS applications when determining the server from which data will be requested
MCTABLE_WRITE	the ADDE client routing table that will be modified when the McIDAS DATALOC command is run
MCCOMPRESS	when set, makes McIDAS clients request that ADDE servers send them data in compressed format
XCD_disp_file	fully qualified pathname of the XCD decoder status file, DECOSTAT.DAT. This should be located in mcidas's working directory.
PATH	add the MCGUI directory to the front of your PATH

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)

# McINST_ROOT and VENDOR non-conforming shell defines needed to build McIDAS setenv McINST_ROOT $HOME setenv VENDOR -g77 if ( -e $HOME/admin/mcidas_env.csh ) then source $HOME/admin/mcidas_env.csh endif

# McINST_ROOT and VENDOR conforming shell defines needed to bulid McIDAS McINST_ROOT=$HOME VENDOR=-g77 export McINST_ROOT VENDOR if [ -e $HOME/admin/mcidas_env.sh ]; then . $HOME/admin/mcidas_env.sh fi

NOTE: The ~mcidas/admin directory may not exist at this point. This is not a problem as it will be created when the distribution is unpacked.

Have the system administrator make sure that the umask setting for the user running the Unidata LDM is 002.
If you are updating an existing McIDAS-X user and have locally developed McIDAS BATCH files, McBASI scripts, or Tcl/Tk scripts, you should back them up before beginning the installation process.
All BATCH files and McBASI scripts in the $MCHOME/data directory that have the same name as ones in the Unidata McIDAS-X distribution will be automatically copied to a backup directory, $MCHOME/savedata, but these files can still be overwritten under certain circumstances. Saving the files you have modified before you begin will prevent loss of work later on.

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