[daip] tek/msgserv do not start

[Eric Greisen]

Mike Bell writes:

 > a few words about our system here at brandeis:  we one main server which
 > runs aips.  we would like to do all of our processing on the one main
 > machine, though we need other computers for students to use.  we have about
 > 4 or 5 students who will be using aips at a given time.  we have a couple of
 > thin clients that allow users to log directly in to the system.  we would
 > also like to get a couple of stand alone pcs that users can work on, but
 > they should still be able to operate aips on them (using the main server for
 > processing and data storage).
 > 
 > 1) can we set up these other computers to run aips from the main server? do
 > users simply ssh into the main server?  do they need to type anything
 > special in when running aips to get the TV running on their machine?  i
 > think i need to add things to hosts.list or some such file, but i'm not sure
 > what...
 > 
 > 2) can i make it so users have their own folder for aips input/output ( i.e.
 > create subfolders within the fits folder and have aips read from and write
 > to that instead of the fits folder directly)?  with a few users using the
 > same copy of aips, the fits folder gets cluttered quickly.
 > 

Your environment is more like ours than most installations.  I will
tell you what we do.

We have a single AIPS source code area on a file server called
/home/AIPS.  Multiple AIPS versions and architectures (actually only
SUL and LINUX at present) are below this directory point.  Every
computer that is to run aips mounts this directory.  Because the 2
architectures we support do not have compatible binary format, the
HOSTS.LIST in /home/AIPS (== $AIPS_ROOT) has 2 site names NRAOAOC and
COAOARN (for Linux).  Each computer that is to run AIPS must be listed
there.  In $NET0 = $AIPS_ROOT/DA00, we have a DADEVS.LIST file for
Solaris boxes and a DADEVS.LIST.COAOARN file for the other "site".
One NETSP file suffices for both.  Each AIPS data area is listed in
one of the DADEVS files and in the NETSP file.

The DA00 areas for each of the HOSTS must appear in $DA00 as a
directory, but we strongly recommend that the actual directory and
files be on each particular HOST.  Thus the files in $NET0 are link
files, e.g.

           cd $NET0
           ln -s /home/primate/AIPS/PRIMATE PRIMATE

for a machine called primate (mine).  Note that we do this because
Linux file locking over NFS has troubles when the file is not on the
machine doing the locking.

We have a global aips data defining place which must be maintained by
the people with root privilege - so I do not recommend that.  Instead,
in $DATA = $AIPS_ROOT/DATA I would make link files to the desired data
locations.  E.g.

             cd $AIPS_ROOT
             ln -s /home/primate/AIPS/PRIMATE_1
             ln -s /home/primate2/AIPS/PRIMATE_2
             ln -s /home/primate/AIPS/PRIMATE_3
             ln -s /home/primate2/AIPS/PRIMATE_1
             ln -s /home/primate3/AIPS/WEEMONKEY_1

Note that this defines 4 aips data areas for primate to use on 2
actual disks and a data area for a machine called weemonkey that does
not have a large data disk.  The performance on weemonkey will suffer
since NFS file reading and writing is relatively slow.

If you want there to be a compute server, used by multiple users, then
there are several choices.  The users log in to SERVER and run aips
there.  AIPS will attempt to start the TV, message etc servers on the
user's desktop if that desktop is listed in HOSTS.LIST.  The method we
user is to have the users share the data areas on SERVER, which
requires that there be some agreement about who uses what aips
number(s).  Note that this does allow some access to a user's data by
another user.  Be sure to set the TIMDEST time limits to 365 days or
more to avoid potential problems.

A trickier method would be for user's to have in their $HOME directory
a dadevs file named .dadevs which points to separate areas on the
server, e.g.
             /home/server/AIPS/user1/SERVER_1
             /home/server/AIPS/user2/SERVER_1
             /home/server/AIPS/user3/SERVER_1
             /home/server/AIPS/user4/SERVER_1
You could vary permissions on these directories to assist in keeping
user1 out of user2's data.  To avoid warning messages and default
TIMDEST limits, every possible data area will have to be in
$NET0/NETSP.

Note that the host name running AIPS must appear in the directory name
at least as seen in the list of names in the alternative dadevs files.
What that directory links to can be anything, although that gets
confusing in a hurry.

In Socorro, we make a FITS directory in each host's first data area
and the AIPSASSN.*SH procs have an if SITE is NRAOAOC or COAOARN then
change $FITS to point to this.  You could add your site to this IF or
add an if of your own.  There is a small chance that the MNJ might
overwrite these files so keep a copy somewhere and watch the MNJ
reports.  In Charlottesville, they have a cron that deletes files from
a public FITS area after they are more than n days old.  Users are
warned about that.

An alternative for the FITS problem is to have each user set aside
his/her own data area and define $MYFITS in their login procs.  Then
run FITAB, FITTP, etc with 
              OUTFILE='MYFITS:filename
which leaves them responsible for their own FITS files, PostScript
plots, printouts, etc.

Eric Greisen