System Requirements

The system requirements for running McIDAS-XCD are the same as those for running McIDAS-X. Please refer to Unidata McIDAS-X - Supported Platforms for additional information.

The McIDAS-XCD 2008 software package was tested and is supported by SSEC on Enterprise Linux 4.0. SSEC recommends that Enterprise Linux workstations be run in 32-bit mode.
Unidata tests extensively on 64-bit Fedora Core Linux. Unidata testing has shown that McIDAS-XCD routines work well on 64-bit Linux. Issues related to GRIB/GRIB2 processing and serving discovered in initial testing of SSEC v2008 have been corrected in the Unidata release.

McIDAS-X 2008 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.

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 these data in the Unidata community is through the use of the Unidata LDM.

The user mcidas on the Unix workstation running the McIDAS-XCD software must be in the same group name as the user ldm.

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 May 2008.

Data type

Daily space requirements

* ASCII text stream

1,200 MB

* MD files (all types/schemas)

150 MB

All GRIB data

3,700 MB

All GRIDs from the GRIB data

16,300 MB

All NEXRAD products and stations

8,200 MB

All BUFR data

1,000 MB

* These data are generated by default for first-time installations.
The GRIB, GRID and NEXRAD decoders are inactive by default.

NOAAPORT approximate total

30,500 MB

Data type	Daily space requirements
* ASCII text stream	1,200 MB
* MD files (all types/schemas)	150 MB
All GRIB data	3,700 MB
All GRIDs from the GRIB data	16,300 MB
All NEXRAD products and stations	8,200 MB
All BUFR data	1,000 MB
* These data are generated by default for first-time installations. The GRIB, GRID and NEXRAD decoders are inactive by default.
NOAAPORT approximate total	30,500 MB

In addition, there is a static requirement of 500 to 1,000 MB for other -XCD files. If enabled, the MySQL 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 32-bit Linux workstations.

Remember that the space requirements above 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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