Hi Stuart,
Thank you very much for this excellent write-up.
I just wanted to provide some information to everyone on this list about our
experiences w/getting IDV installed on our (headless) systems since Evan
(Lowery) and myself have been doing a good deal of posting about the issues
we have been coming across.
Our initial attempts to install IDV involved all versions > 2.7 on a Dell
PowerEdge (PE) 2970 running 64bit CentOS 5.4 w/the dreaded ATI ES1000
integrated graphics card and Xvfb v4.1. All of our attempts w/this
configuration failed. After months of sporadic (re)attempts to get the
above setup working I decided to wipe the system and install 32bit CentOS
5.4 since we had previous success getting IDV 2.7 running on one of our
older PE 2850s running 32bit CentOS 5.1 w/the same graphics card and Xvfb.
In hindsight, I'm not sure why it took me so long to try this other than
pure stubbornness.
So far our preliminary tests indicate that we were successfully able to
install IDV 2.8u1 on our PE2970 w/32bit CentOS 5.4 - using the (full) IDV
installer - but only when we chose v1.3 (compatibility mode option) of Java
3d; using v1.5 would result in fatal errors when trying to create images
using ISL files.
I'm not sure whether this information will be of any use to the list but I
wanted to put it out there since I had all but given up hope of the PE2970
hardware - specifically the ATI ES1000 graphics card - being able to support
IDV.
Cheers,
Matt
On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 11:36 AM, Stuart Wier <wier@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Running the IDV in background on a headless server with isl control, to
> make displays for a web page.
>
> This can be used also as a guide for other, non web, background IDV calls .
>
> Here are details of one working Linux/Redhat set up, as it is so far. I am
> also working on a Sun server but with no success yet.
>
> The web page and interface is some php file such as idvpage.php, with code
> including tyoically HTML, PHP, and Javascript. It provides the online user
> interface for the user to choose a data source, a display type, and other
> choices, and shows the display image file in the web page after the new
> display image is made.
>
> System used for development
>
> cat /etc/redhat-release
> CentOS release 4.4 (Final)
>
> uname -a
> Linux geon.unavco.org 2.6.9-42.0.2.ELsmp #1 SMP Wed Aug 23 00:17:26 CDT
> 2006 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
>
> The processes run by the web interface are under user apache. User apache
> has no login nor a shell:
> cat /etc/passwd | grep apache
> apache:x:48:48:Apache:/var/www:/sbin/nologin
>
>
> Installing the GEON IDV
>
> See http://geon.unavco.org/unavco/IDV_for_GEON_download.html.
> Use version 2.6u2 of the IDV; have not yet gotten newer versions to work.
> Installing the IDV involves running it with a graphics display, so you will
> need to log in remotely with ssh -X username.
> The installation process runs the IDV, so you will see that it works ok, or
> at least starts.
>
>
> XWindows support
>
> Run the Xwindows
>
> My glxinfo returns
> name of display: localhost:10.0
> display: localhost:10 screen: 0
> direct rendering: Yes
> server glx vendor string: Brian Paul
> server glx version string: 1.4 Mesa 7.5.2
> server glx extensions:
> GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer, GLX_MESA_pixmap_colormap,
> GLX_MESA_release_buffers, GLX_ARB_get_proc_address,
> GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating,
> GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_pbuffer
> client glx vendor string: Brian Paul
> client glx version string: 1.4 Mesa 7.5.2
> client glx extensions:
> GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer, GLX_MESA_pixmap_colormap,
> GLX_MESA_release_buffers, GLX_ARB_get_proc_address,
> GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating,
> GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_pbuffer
> GLX extensions:
> GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer, GLX_MESA_pixmap_colormap,
> GLX_MESA_release_buffers, GLX_ARB_get_proc_address,
> GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating,
> GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_pbuffer
> OpenGL vendor string: Brian Paul
> OpenGL renderer string: Mesa X11
> OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 7.5.2
> OpenGL extensions:
> GL_ARB_depth_texture, GL_ARB_draw_buffers, GL_ARB_fragment_program,
> GL_ARB_fragment_program_shadow, GL_ARB_fragment_shader,
> ...
>
>
> Xvfb
>
> Even in background the IDV still needs to be run with an active window
> system (e.g., X, MS Windows) for it to work.
> On Linux you need to run the IDV with the X virtual frame buffer, Xvfb.
>
> Download Xvfb.tgz from
> ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/4.8.0/binaries/Linux-ix86-glibc22/ and
> unpack it.
> I am using the most recent version of Xvfb, 4.8.0. At least one older
> version of Xvfb does not work with IDV 2.6u2.
>
> My Xvfb file that works has size and date
> 3918055 Jan 12 2009 Xvfb
>
> As user root or apache run this
> ./xvfb4.8.0/bin/Xvfb :9 -screen 0 1280x1280x24 &
>
> This sets the screen number to 0 and the display number to the arbitrary
> :9. Note that a small screen size like 1x1x24 causes the IDV to fail with
> errors. You may need root permission to start this as apache, or you can
> add it to the very first run of the script runidv2 described below. Note
> that Xvfb must be running for the IDV to make images. The IDV images must be
> smaller than 1280x1280 pixels; larger sizes may be possible by changing the
> Xvfb args.
>
> The running process looks like, for example, with ps aux | grep vfb
> apache 23658 0.1 21.4 1015432 444524 ? S Dec10 10:02
> /.../xvfb4.8.0/bin/Xvfb :9 -screen 0 1280x1024x24
>
> About Xvfb, See http://www.xfree86.org/4.0.1/Xvfb.1.html, a man page.
>
> Note that I was only able to get the IDV to make displays on this system
> with IDV 2.6u2 and Xvfb 4.8.0.
>
>
> Calling the IDV
>
> Scripts runidv1 and rundiv2 are static files which allow the processes to
> execute and also allow output or error messages to be caught. Set privileges
> so they cannot be deleted or overwritten.
>
> runidv1 has one line:
>
> ./idv_config_files/runidv2 >& logs/runidv1_log
>
> So runidv1 calls runidv2, with output log file.
>
> runidv2 contains this (or something like it):
>
> DISPLAY=:9
> # note this must match the display number in the Xvfb command line.
> export DISPLAY
> #echo " xwindow display number is "
> #echo $DISPLAY
>
> # kill running apache owned xvfb process
> # in rare instance you want to restart it
> # kill -9 22883
>
> # Start Xvfb with root, or here, or as user apache, i.e. sudo -u apache
> #echo " start Xvfb "
> #/home/xvfb/xvfb4.8.0/bin/Xvfb :9 -screen 0 1280x1024x24
> # echo " show Xvfb process: "
> # ps aux | grep vfb
>
> echo " start IDV "
> date
> # run the IDV under isl control:
> /home/idv/IDV_2.6u2/jre/bin/java -Xmx1200m -jar
> /home/idv/IDV_2.6u2/idv.jar -userpath /home/idv/DefaultIdv
> -Didv.enableStereo=false /home/idv/idv_config_files/working.isl >&
> /home/idv/docs/idv_isl_run_log
> echo " done "
> date
> # end runidv2
>
> runidv2 is static in operations but may be changed during development to
> run Xvfb (once), etc.
>
> Note that file permissions must be set so that apache can run or write to
> files.
>
> One might simplify this runidv1 and runidv2 method but it allows the
> developer to watch what is happening.
>
>
> ISL file
>
> The GEON IDV uses “isl” (IDV scripting language) files to make an image
> while running in background. For details about isl scripts, see
> http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/IDV/docs/userguide/isl/index.html.
>
> A sample isl file used in this case is
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
> <isl debug="true" loop="1" offscreen="true" sleep="60.0minutes">
> <bundle clear="true" file="/home/idv/configs/working.xidv" wait="true"/>
> <image
> file="/home/idv/displays/isosurface_view2_value-0.5_datetime20100105085837.png"/>
> </isl>
>
> The isl file is made from a generic isl file by the php code inserting the
> particular image file name.
>
>
> XIDV file
>
> The file working.xidv is a normal IDV xidv file with all the specifications
> to display some named data in a certain way.
> The xidv file is made from a generic xidv file by the php code inserting
> the particular data source file name and other parameters.
> For example, part of a working xidv file is, where the data file name
> MITP_USA_2008DEC.nc has been inserted:
> <object class="ucar.unidata.data.grid.GeoGridDataSource"
> id="id12">
> <property name="Sources">
> <object class="java.util.ArrayList">
> <method name="add">
>
>
> <string><![CDATA[/state/unavco/idvserver/datasets/MITP_USA_2008DEC.nc]]></string>
> </method>
> </object>
> </property>
>
> The Run Sequence
>
> On user “Submit request” the idvpage.php gets the user's choices with the
> usual HTML form-POST technique. idvpage.php code then creates the files
> working.ils and working.xidv needed for this particular request. The
> idvpage.php code also creates a new unique name for the image file that will
> be made.
>
> idvpage.php does the PHP “system” execute command for runidv1. rundiv1
> calls runidv2
>
> runidv2 runs the IDV with the command line above, using the isl file.
>
> The IDV starts and reads the “isl” file idv_config_files/working.isl which
> among other things tells the IDV to run in background.
>
> The IDV creates the image file. When the IDV completes, the idvpage.php
> resumes, redraws the screen, now showing the image file since the php code
> knows the path and name of the new image file.
>
> Making one 1200 pixel image takes from 20 to 60 seconds on this system
> depending on how complex the display is.
>
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