OFF781 on CD-ROM

Official location of this help file is here

For the Brave and Impatient
How it is supposed to work
Things to check on your Linux box
Products that come with this CD
Software conflicts
FAQs and Troubleshooting

For the Brave and Impatient

 
# mount /dev/cdrom /fnal            - the only root operation
$ . /fnal/ups/etc/setups.sh 
$ setup -d off781
$ cp $OFF781_BIN/GNUmakefile .
$ gmake
$ ./soap.exe                        - don't forget the dot

How it is supposed to work

Installation procedure

Files that come on CD-ROM should end up in the directory /fnal You can reach it either by mounting CD-ROM:

 # mount /dev/cdrom /fnal

/fnal
     /ups
	  /cern
          /con781
	  /daft
          /db
	  /...

Warning: Unfortunately directory /fnal is hardcoded in many (most?) of UPS scripts. So if you decide to put products in different directory you have to modified quite a few scripts. I do not think it's worth it.
Word of wisdom: Mounting CD or copying files to /fnal is the only operations for which you might need root access. Do all other operation under some user account.

Initialisation of UPS

This is very much like it's done on any FNAL computer.

 $ . /fnal/ups/etc/setups.sh

You may want to add this line in your .bash_profile

Compiling and running SOAP

 $ setup -d off781

Now create directory and copy GNUmakefile from $OFF781_BIN to it. Compile and run the code:

 $ gmake 
 $ ./soap.exe

Distribution comes with compiled soap.exe, but it's compiled against some odd libraries, which are likely not to be installed on your computer. So recompile it. Warning: messing with dynamic libraries (like libreadline.so) to make CD-ROM version of soap.exe work can seriously screw up your system, up to the point that you will not be able to login into it. (The fact that bash is also using libreadline.so can give you an insight how big a trouble you can face).

Things to check on your Linux box

Well, as you know each UNIX has it's own opinion where files like bash and so on should be located. Here are programs you may want to check and fix if necessary. Those operations should be done only once by root.

/usr/bin/gawk On Linux boxes it is called awk . UPS scripts look for program gawk , so make symbolic link, so that gawk points to awk.
perl and bash . FNAL distribution thinks that proper location for those files is at /usr/local/bin, So make symbolic link if your Linux distribution does not follow this rule.

Products that come with this CD

Package	Version	Content
cern	v97a v99	CERN libraries and executables.
con781	v2_3	E781 constants
daft	v2_9_1	Daft libraries
dat781		Small filtered file of 10000 events for you to play.
db		UPS database
egcs	v1_1b	G77 compiler, GCC linker and libraries. You may want to switch to your linux box g77 package.
etc		UPS setup scripts
ftt	v2_3 v2_6	FTT libraries
gtools	v2_2	GNU tools. You don't need those, they are usually installed on every Linux box.
lib		Some libraries you may need (libreadline3.a ...) Avoid them, use ones which are on your system.
ocs781	devel	OCS database libraries and scripts
off781	devel_050800	Selex Offline code
perl	v5_005	Has some FNAL networking scripts. Used only in UPD. Avoid it.
upd	v4_2_2	Package manager developed at FNAL. Stay out of it. I always find FTP and editing of couples of files much easier then studying 200 page UPS/UPD manual
ups	v4_3	UPS scripts.

Software conflicts

Conflicts usually take place if your computer software is compiled against one library, and OFF781 software is compiled against another. Keeping it's straight is very important. There are also different versions of compiler/cpp/linker which can conflict with those that you have on your system.

libreadline.a There is one (libreadline.a version 3) which comes with the CD-ROM. Don't use it unless you are desperate. Stick with what comes with your system. It's a must. Some small systems may not have this file (libreadline4.a usually), then install it from your favourite distribution. It's very important that libreadline is consistent with other libraries on your system, so if nothing of above makes much sense to you let system administrator do the job. Warning: messing with dynamic libraries (like libreadline.so) can seriously screw up your system, up to the point that you will not be able to login into it. (The fact that bash is also using libreadline.so can give you an insight how big a trouble you can face).
libg2c.a By default you will get one which is installed on your system. OFF781 UPS setup script tries to find one. So as a result directory where libg2c.a is located is defined by environment variable: $USRLIB_GCC . If there is no local library, then library from CD-ROM will be used. Chances are that library from CD-ROM will not work for you. So I would recommend to install one on your computer. Usually it comes with g77 package.
cpp By default you will be using one which comes with the CD-ROM. Actually it worked for me better, than one which comes with my Linux box. Choice of cpp is defined by $CPP_781 , which is set in OFF781 setup scripts. environment variable. If $CPP_781 is not set /lib/cpp is used instead. (see f77_781 for more details)
g77 and gcc By default you will be using one which comes with CD-ROM. I did not see any dramatic impacts because of that.

FAQs and Troubleshooting

Do you have to have FNAL Linux installed on your PC to use this CD-ROM? No. Any distribution will do. Actually I personally do not like FNAL Linux distribution. It is designed to solve very specific Fermilab Run II problems, which are usually not an issue for most of the users.
What if I already have similar software on my PC Generally I would recommend to use whatever software is on your computer. It's usually coherent and well maintained. FNAL certainly can not compete in this matter with leading Linux distributions.

UPS Setup does not work on CD-ROM... When you try to execute setups script you may have the following error:

 
$ mount /cdrom
$ . /fnal/ups/etc/setups.sh
bash: /fnal/ups/etc/setups_products_init.sh: Permission denied
bash: /fnal/ups/etc/setups.common: Permission denied
****
**** Unable to initialize UPSII environment
****

Then talk to your system manager so that he allowed files on CD-ROM to be executed, basically mounting options in /etc/fstab should look like:


/dev/cdrom      /cdrom          iso9660 ro,user,exec,noauto,unhide   0      0

Setup complaints about gawk If you get an error like:
```
 
$ setup -d off781
bash: gawk: command not found 
```
That means that there is no gawk on your system. On Linux system gawk is called awk which definitely is on your system. So make a symbolic link.
Gmake complaints about ocs_fill_maker If you get an error like:
```
 
$ gmake
/fnal/ups/ocs781/devel/bin/ocs_fill_maker
gmake: /fnal/ups/ocs781/devel/bin/ocs_fill_maker: Command not found
gmake: *** [ocs_fill.o] Error 127 
```
That means that perl is not located where FNAL distributions like it to be ( /usr/local/bin/perl ), so make a symbolic link.
Gmake complaints about readline library . If you get an error like:
```
$gmake
..........
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lreadline
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
gmake: *** [soap.exe] Error 1
```
That means that your system do not have a library libreadline.a All Linux systems have run-time dynamic libraries (libreadline.so) but you can not use those to link SOAP. So ask system administrator to install those libraries. For Debian distribution package is called libreadline4-dev

Alexander Kushnirenko

Last modified: Wed May 31 13:51:56 CDT 2000