Using MOOT Remotely

MOOT for Offline is comprised of a MySQL database, an archive of configuration-related files, and services which let you access these things. All information needed for access flows from one environment variable, MOOT_ARCHIVE.

MOOT_ARCHIVE should be defined to point to a suitable directory:

/afs/slac.stanford.edu/g/glast/moot/archive-mood, if that's accessible;

otherwise, to a local directory.

There is one special site-specific file, myHost.xml, which goes in the archive. This file is described in detail below.

Note: Remote users typically need to copy only a small fraction of the production archive files.

Archive Structure

When you look at the production archive, /afs/slac/g/glast/moot/archive-mood, you will see that there are two regular files in the top-level directory and several subdirectories.

Subdirectories

The subdirectories contain archived copies of various kinds of configuration-related files. Exactly which ones you'll need depends on what you plan to do. Most of the subdirectories have a similar structure, i.e., they have subdirectories of the form yyyy-mm (e.g. 2008-05). In turn, these subdirectories have subdirectories with names indicating the kind of object is being archived. For example, the Param/2008-02 has subdirectories latc_GEM_TRG_GEM, latc_TFE_TKR_Strips, and lci_ACD among many others.

Subdirectory Use
Ancil
 Ancillary files, such as results from charge-injection calibrations. Input in process of creating configuration; not of interest to most users.
Calib
 So far unused; will someday replace the calibration archive.
Constit
 Contains xml representations of certain Flight Software CDM shareables, including filter configurations.
FswIn
 Contains LATC master files (which MOOT itself has to create). Not of general interest.
Param
 So-called "parameter files". The bulk of the archive is taken up with these. Included are LATC source files and lci scripts. Many of these are of potential interest to Offline, but others (e.g., anything in a directory named with the form latc_XXX_backup) are not.
Vote
 Vote files describe intent of a configuration, and probably will (if they're not already) be of interest to Gleam.
tmp
 Of no interest whatsoever.

Describing the connection

Two top-level files are needed to find the correct MySQL database which matches the archive: connection.xsd is the same for everyone (just copy the one in the production archive); and the contents of myHost.xml, which depend on:

  • the MySQL server you want to connect to, and the database name.
  • whether or not you (or someone at your site) might need write access.

The following should work for a typical off-site user needing to connect to the production database for read only:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>  
<connection xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="connection.xsd"
              xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
              dbname="mood" write="false" nickname="prod_" >
    <master host="glastDB.slac.stanford.edu" port="0"  />
  </connection>

MOOT_ARCHIVE

If you set MOOT_ARCHIVE to the top level of your archive, the MOOT code will be able to find everything it needs. This can be done wherever you set other site variables (e.g., GLAST_EXT) or, if you're using the IMootSvc interface in Gleam for your Moot access, you can set the value in the job option MootSvc.MootArchive;for example: 

  MootSvc.MootArchive="/tmp/myArchive";

To use the SLAC archive this would be:

  MootSvc.MootArchive="/afs/slac.stanford.edu/g/glast/moot/archive-mood";

Owned by: Joanne Bogart

Last updated by: Chuck Patterson 12/01/2008