Advanced Installation

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Before reading this document, please familiarize yourself with the short Installation guide.

What the installation process does

The term "installation" in the title is used for brevity, and it actually covers all three steps: configuration, build and install.

  1. Configure: determine what tools are available on the system and how they should be used to built the software. Creates a layer of abstraction so that the build is platform-independent. Should ideally either solve or flag all problems, so that the build either works, or does not proceed at all.
  2. Build: compiles the software and documentation using RSFSRC/build as a "workplace"
  3. Install: moves the compiled executables and the documentation to the final locations in $RSFROOT, sometimes changing filenames. Kept separate from build so that it can be done by root, and to avoid build failures leaving junk files all over the system.

A successful installation will have created in $RSFROOT the following directories:

  • bin/: executable programs
  • doc/: auto-generated HTML documentation
  • include/: header files with info on library procedures; fonts
  • lib/: libraries and Python modules

Prerequisites

Basic prerequisites are described in the short Installation guide. Here are some additional details.

Python and SCons

As described below under Platform-specific installation advice, Madagascar supports the oldest non-deprecated Python version currently supported by the latest stable version of SCons. If your version of Python is older and you experience problems you should probably upgrade.

Madagascar includes the latest stable version of SCons and the configure scripts will try to install it for you in RSFROOT if you don't have it already. However, if you have an older version of SCons the configure scripts will not try to install the newer version. Your older version might work fine, but Madagascar attempts to support only the latest stable version of SCons, so if you have problems you should upgrade.

To install the SCons bundled with Madagascar go to RSFSRC/scons, unpack the tar file, and type

<bash> python setup.py install </bash>

This will install SCons in the standard location. You might need root privileges. If you don't have root privileges, or you don't want to interfere with the system SCons you can install it somewhere else with a --prefix option. A logical choice is to put it in RSFROOT like this:

<bash> python setup.py install --prefix=$RSFROOT </bash>

Location

As long as you set the environment variables and directory permissions correctly, it does not matter in what part of your filesystem you place the install. If you have the luxury of installing anywhere, it is good practice to follow the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard and either:

  1. Install everything (including figs if you do testing) under /usr/local/rsf, with the source tree in /usr/local/rsf/src, OR
  2. Put the source tree in /usr/local/src/rsf, and specify RSFROOT=/usr/local, so that header files and binaries go in /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/include. To follow the standard, before installing set RSFDOC=/usr/local/share/rsf/doc and create the appropriate directories. The auto-generated HTML documentation will get put there. Also, if installed, the figs directory for testing should be /usr/local/share/rsf/figs/.
  3. Package Madagascar (i.e. build a RPM, etc) and install it in the default locations. For RPMs, those are as like the ones from the previous option, just directly in the /usr/ hierarchy, instead of in the /usr/local/ one.

Disk space

At present (Feb 2007, r2530), the source directory containing the build tree from the development version was approx. 200Mb, the full installation (bin/, doc/, include/ and lib) is 31Mb, and figs/ (the optional directory if you want to do testing) is about 10 Gb. The stable version is significantly smaller.

The only Madagascar-related directory where disk space can be an issue is $DATAPATH. Real 3-D seismic datasets can be measured in Terabytes. Buggy programs/processing flows can fill up $DATAPATH. A real problem are "disk memory leaks" -- removing header files with anything else than sfrm will leave the binaries intact. Crashed jobs which start to write to binary but never get to write the header also produce "leaks". Experience has shown that over time $DATAPATH inexorably fills up. You may need to

  1. keep irreplaceable data and expensive results in a separate place;
  2. remove the oldest files in $DATAPATH whenever the amount of free space declines under a preset threshold.

Dependencies

Some platforms feature complete lists of dependencies. See Platform-specific installation advice for details.

C++ API

A C++ compiler. SCons is smart and will try to find it for you. If it does not work specify the path to your compiler in the CXX environment variable (can be passed as an option to the configuration script, like the API one).

F77 API

A Fortran 77 compiler. If SCons does not find one, then you can either specify its path through the F77 variable, or if the executable is in your path, add its name to the list of F77 compilers in RSFSRC/configure.py .

F90 API

Same as for Fortran 77 – just substitute F90. If using the gfortran compiler, make sure to get the latest version. If you have more than one compiler installed on your system, specify the desired one at configuration time: <bash> ./configure API=f90 F90=/path/to/preferred/compiler </bash>

Java API

The interface requires the Mines Java Toolkit for fast Java file IO. The Mines JTK, is an open-source Java package that can be downloaded from Mines JTK.

Matlab API

Besides Matlab itself, you need Mex, which compiles C code into regular Matlab functions. Use the MATLAB and MEX environment variables to specify their paths if they are installed, but not found.

Octave API

The Octave function compiler (mkoctfile) is sometimes bundled in a separate package, so it may be missing from the Octave installation.

Python API

This API requires SWIG and numpy. Numpy requires Python 2.4 or newer (i.e. RHEL 5 or newer). However, these dependencies are unnecessary for the common case when Python is just used as glue to create chains of programs, and it only needs to read the RSF header, and not the binary. To allow Python metaprograms in madagascar to function, and programming in this style to be done, a fallback development kit implementing only the header-related functionality will be installed in the lack of these dependencies.

Python modules in user space

Python is an evolving language. Many large systems have old versions for stability reasons, and administrators of such large systems tend to not install all software users may wish, and to not allow access to rpm either. To install a module in your user space, download the tarball, unzip it, cd into the directory and run:

python setup.py install --prefix=/path/to/your/place

The installer will create a subdirectory named lib, or lib64 under the directory above. These lib* dirs will have a directory named python, or python2.3 for example, and those will have a subdirectory named site-packages. Add all paths to these site-packages subdirectories in your PYTHONPATH environment variable. Some (numpy) may create a bin directory that needs to be added to PATH.

Environment variables

Besides RSFROOT, DATAPATH and PYTHONPATH (described in the short Installation guide), Madagascar programs may read the variables below. They usually have reasonable defaults and were introduced just to provide more power to the advanced user.

For future documentation writers: the environment variables read by Madagascar that have not been documented below can be found by running the script $RSFSRC/admin/find_env_var.py. If the script does not exist or does not work, a summary of all environment variable calls can be obtained by going to $RSFSRC, temporarily moving the directory build/ outside RSFSRC, and typing <bash> grep environ.get *.py */*.py */*/*.py */*/*/*.py grep getenv */*.c */*/*.c */*/*/*.c </bash>

Used by the Madagascar core

Variables introduced by Madagascar's non-graphic programs
Name Default Meaning
RSF_DATASERVER ftp://egl.beg.utexas.edu/ Data server for benchmark datasets
RSFDOC $RSFROOT/doc Directory for the HTML self-doc
RSFFIGS $RSFROOT/figs Directory with figures for testing examples in $RSFSRC/book
RSFALTFIGS $RSFFIGS Alternate directory with figures for testing examples not in $RSFSRC/book
RSFMEMSIZE 100 Maximum RAM (Mb) to be used by some programs
RSFSRC undefined Root of the Madagascar source tree
TMPDATAPATH $DATAPATH Datapath for temporary files on local disk.
LATEX2HTML undefined LateX2HTML customization directory


Variables introduced by Madagascar graphics programs
Name Default Meaning
DEFAULT_PAPER_SIZE "letter" For pspen. Other options: legal, a3, a4, a5.
FATMULT ? Fatness multiplication factor.
GIFBORDER 0.25 For vplot2gif (spacing)
GIFDELAY 100 For vplot2gif (for animations)
IMAGE_TYPE 'png' Icon type for LateX2HTML
PATTERNMULT None Pattern multiplication factor
PLOTSTYLE None Used in vplot
PPI 75 For vplot2gif (screen resolution)
PPMSCALE 1 For vplot2gif
PSBORDER 0.05 For vplot2eps (border around the plot)
PSPRINTER postscript or colorps For pspen
PSTEXPENOPTS color=n fat=1 fatmult=1.5 invras=y Other vplot2eps options
VPLOTFONTDIR ? Dir with backup fonts in case the runtime-loaded vplot fonts are not found
VPLOTSPOOLDIR /tmp Where to put vplot tmp files
WSTYPE "default" Workstation type.


Variables set by OS/other apps, read-only to Madagascar
Name Primarily used/set by
CWPROOT Seismic Unix
DISPLAY Operating System (OS)
HOME OS
LD_LIBRARY_PATH linker
MATLABPATH Matlab
XAUTHORITY X-Windows

Used by the Madagascar build process

Type scons -h in RSFSRC to get a list of environment variables that affect the build process, with explanations, defaults and actual values. Below are more detailed explanations for some of them:

  • RSF_CLUSTER: used by pscons

Used by the Matlab API

To use the Matlab API, you need to add $RSFROOT/lib to MATLABPATH

Used by the Octave API

To use the Octave API, you need to add $RSFROOT/lib to Octave's path. Determine Octave's version with <bash> octave -v | head -1 </bash> If your version is lower than 2.9.6, type at a Unix command line: <bash> echo 'LOADPATH = "::$RSFROOT/lib/octave"' >> ~/.octaverc </bash> For later versions, use: <bash> echo 'addpath([getenv("RSFROOT") "/lib/octave"])' >> ~/.octaverc </bash>

Used by the Java API

The path to the downloaded Mines JTK must be specified in the MINESJTK environment variable in order to install the Java API. For example: <bash> export MINESJTK=/home/user/edu_mines_jtk.jar </bash>

RSFROOT for NFS-shared user home directories

Heterogeneous networks with user home directories shared through NFS are quite common in many institutions. In addition, even when the architecture is the same (i.e. 64-bit) and the operating system is the same (i.e. RHEL), the difference between operating system versions may be very significant because clusters may run legacy versions, while desktop workstations may run the latest-and-greatest (even beta), and entirely different Madagascar versions may be needed to support both.

One possible solution of detecting the distribution version and architecture and setting RSFROOT appropriately is shown below. In the example network, all RHEL4 machines have the same architecture, but there are RHEL 3 machines with several architectures: <bash> REDHAT_RELEASE=`awk -F'release' '{ print $2 }' /etc/redhat-release | awk -F' ' '{ print $1 }'`

RSFROOT=/usr/local/rsf/rhel$REDHAT_RELEASE

if [ $REDHAT_RELEASE == '4' ] ; then

   export RSFROOT

elif [ $REDHAT_RELEASE == '3' ] ; then

   export RSFROOT=$RSFROOT/$ARCH

fi </bash> Of course, the Madagascar administrator will have to download appropriate versions of Madagascar to each $RSFROOT, and compile them on the appropriate system.

If you have many kinds of systems to maintain, with multiple versions of Madagascar, and users have more than one shell, you may find it easy to outsource the complex logic to the easy-to-debug Python, i.e.:

<bash> export RSFROOT=`$M8R_SETUP/get_rsfroot.py` export PYTHONPATH=`$M8R_SETUP/edit_pythonpath.py` export PATH=`$M8R_SETUP/edit_path.py` </bash>

and similarly for (t)csh. The Python scripts determine the operating system and its version, determine the machine name, and simply print to stdout the desired string.

Eclipse + Pydev

If you use Eclipse with Pydev, configure the interpreter by adding $RSFROOT/lib to the PYTHONPATH for your chosen interpreter.

Platform-specific installation advice

Supported platforms

Madagascar attempts to support any POSIX-compliant operating system demanded by users. For systems that bundle Python (i.e. Linux distributions, BSDs), backwards compatibility will attempt to cover those systems that were bundled with the oldest non-deprecated Python version currently supported by the latest stable version of SCons. For example, in early 2009 the stable SCons release (1.2) supported Python 2.2 or newer. Python 2.2 was bundled by RHEL3, so RHEL 3 and newer are supported.

Attempts for backward compatibility with a given operating system are also stopped if the operating system itself becomes unsupported. For example, Python 2.2 was bundled by Fedora 1 and newer, but in January 2010 only Fedora 11 and 12 are actively maintained. Thus, in January 2010 Madagascar was not attempting to support Fedora 1, even though it included Python 2.2.

Please keep in mind that the above statements constitute only general guidelines for what will be attempted, and do not constitute in any way a warranty of support. An application of the above guidelines to some Linux distributions follows:

Support info

Distribution Life Cycle Supported versions
CentOS/RHEL 7 years
  • 3 until 2010-10-22
  • 4 until 2012-02-15 or until SCons stable drops support for Python 2.3, whichever comes first.
  • 5 until 2014-03-14, or until SCons stable version ceases to support Python 2.4, whichever comes first.
Fedora Release X maintained until one month after the release of X+2
  • 12 until end of December 2010
  • 13 until end of June 2011
Ubuntu Releases every 6 mo, maintained for 1.5 yrs; LTS versions every 2 yrs, maintained for 5 yrs
  • 6.06 LTS Server until end of June 2011
  • 8.04 LTS Desktop until end of April 2011
  • 8.04 LTS Server until end of April 2013 or until SCons stable version stops supporting Python 2.5, whichever comes sooner
  • 9.04 until end of October 2010
  • 9.10 until end of April 2011
  • 10.04 until end of April 2015 or until SCons stable version stops supporting Python 2.6.5, whichever comes sooner
Debian Usually: stable releases every 1.5 yrs, release X maintained 1 yr after release X+1 5 (Lenny) until its end of life, or until SCons stops supporting Python 2.5, whatever comes sooner.
openSUSE openSUSE releases Lifetime of 2 years
  • 11.0 until 2010-06-30
  • 11.1 until 2010-12-31
  • 11.2 until 2011-11-30

Ubuntu

In Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx, you can install all of Madagascar's dependencies by running

sudo apt-get install freeglut3-dev g++ gfortran libgd2-xpm-dev libglew1.5-dev libjpeg62-dev libx11-dev \
libxaw7-dev libnetpbm10-dev swig python-dev python-scipy python-numpy libtiff4-dev scons units libblas-dev \
libcairo2-dev libavcodec-dev libplplot-dev 

In the previous version (9.04) the corresponding command is

sudo apt-get install freeglut3-dev g++ gfortran libc6-dev libgd2-xpm-dev libglew1.5-dev libjpeg62-dev \
libx11-dev libxaw7-dev libnetpbm10-dev swig python-dev python-scipy python-numpy libtiff4-dev scons units 

Earlier versions may work with

sudo apt-get install mesa-libGL-devel g++ g77 libc6-dev libgd2-xpm-dev libglew-dev libjpeg62-dev \
libx11-dev libxaw7-dev libnetpbm10-dev swig python-dev python-scipy python-numpy libtiff4-dev scons units 

If working with the development version, you will also need subversion.

Fedora, CentOS

Dependency package names, sorted by Linux distribution and m8r feature they provide. Packages that are not included in the standard distro repositories are hyperlinked to their providers. The tables below cover build dependencies.

Note: In the future, we should distinguish the subset of runtime dependencies (necessary to run already-compiled binaries installed through a package manager)

Note: In the future, it should be possible for the configuration scripts to output the dependency tables below, so that they are guaranteed to be in synch with a given m8r version

Minimal install ("Core"), publishing and development

Core LaTeX Development version C++ API F77 API, F90 API Python API Java API Octave API Matlab API
Fedora 12, 13 binutils, gcc, glibc-headers, scons texlive-latex subversion gcc-c++ gcc-gfortran numpy, python, swig Java (Sun's? IcedTea?), Mines JTK octave, octave-devel Matlab
CentOS 5 binutils, gcc, glibc-headers; scons (needs RPMforge's RHEL5 repository) ? subversion gcc-c++ gcc-gfortran NumPy, python, swig Java (Sun's? IcedTea?), Mines JTK Octave, octave-devel Matlab

Numerical and file manipulation utilities

OpenMP MPI BLAS/ATLAS Interface to the Fast Discrete Curvelet Transform sfunits
Fedora 12, 13 libgomp openmpi, openmpi-devel; openmpi-libs (?) blas, blas-devel, atlas, atlas-devel pyct units
CentOS 5 ? ? ? pyct Gnu Units

Graphics and visualization

vplot2gif vplot2avi Some sort of movies? TIFF output JPEG output PLplot graphics OpenGL graphics X11 graphics ppm (?)
Fedora 12, 13 gifsicle ffmpeg (needs the RPM Fusion repository enabled) ffmpeg-devel (needs the RPM Fusion repository enabled) libtiff-devel libjpeg-devel plplot-devel mesa-libGL-devel, freeglut, freeglut-devel libXaw-devel netpbm-devel

Other

Inclusions from Seismic Unix
Fedora 12, 13 Seismic Unix

Command to install all dependencies present in the public repositories

Usually package management software will not install again a package that is already installed, so it should be safe to copy and paste the command below to a command line:

Fedora 12, 13 yum -y install binutils gcc glibc-headers scons texlive-latex subversion gcc-c++ gcc-gfortran numpy python swig octave octave-devel libgomp openmpi openmpi-devel openmpi-libs blas blas-devel atlas atlas-devel units gifsicle ffmpeg ffmpeg-devel libtiff-devel libjpeg-devel plplot-devel mesa-libGL-devel freeglut freeglut-devel libXaw-devel netpbm-devel
CentOS 5 yum -y install binutils freeglut freeglut-devel gcc gcc-c++ gcc-gfortran glibc-headers libjpeg-devel libXaw-devel netpbm-devel scons units

Debian 5

Specific dependencies:

  • Debian 5.0 ("Lenny"): Please make sure you have the libc6-dev package before trying to compile from source. The libXaw7-dev package might be a dependency for xtpen (was in Debian 4.0)

openSUSE 11.*

The development version of m8r has dependencies beyond the packages installed by the default openSUSE 11.0 DVD install:

  • To download the development version, you need subversion
  • To compile the package, you need scons and gcc
  • To install the C++ API, you need gcc-c++
  • To install the F90 API, you need gcc-fortran
  • To install the Octave API, you need octave
  • To install sfbyte2jpg and sfjpg2byte you need libjpeg-devel
  • To install the vplot graphics, you need xorg-x11-devel
  • To install LaTeX for building papers and books, you need texlive-latex
  • To install some graphics programs, you need cairo-devel, gd-devel, glew-devel and libtiff-devel

Packages can be installed by running as root zypper install <package name>. The graphical front-end to Zypper integrated with YaST2 can of course be used as well (Geeko button... Applications... System... Configuration... Install Software)

Yellow Dog Linux 6.1 on Sony PlayStation 3

See W. Burnett's guide (PowerPoint)

Mac OS X

First of all, a Mac OS X precompiled binary package of the latest Madagascar stable release is available for download from SourceForge.

If you want to install a development version of Madagascar, the following might help.

  1. C compiler for Mac OS X. You can download the precompiled binary package of Xcode tools, including the gcc compiler, from Apple. Other sources are:
    • MacPorts, an easy-to-use system for compiling, installing, and upgrading open-source software on Mac OS X.
    • Fink, a tool that brings the full world of Unix Open Source software to Mac OS X.
  2. Subversion client for Mac OS X. There are two methods to install Subversion in Mac OS X: you can use MacPorts or Fink to update Subversion client package or the precompiled binary. Some useful information can be found on the Wikihow website and Collab. You can use Subversion to download the development version of the Madagascar source code. Next, follow Installation instructions to install.
  3. SEGTeX, a LaTeX package for geophysical publications. To use SEGTeX, you may need TeX Live. MacPorts and Fink provide an easy way to install it with commands sudo port install texlive or sudo fink install texlive.

MS Windows

Due to its size, this topic has been assigned its own Wiki page.

How to adapt Madagascar to a new platform

The most laborious part of adapting madagascar to a new platform is finding the proper dependency names. This usually proceeds as follows: dependency X fails with a "missing file" error either as a header file in config.log, or a missing library during the build step. Possible package names are found through an internet search for the missing file name and the distribution name or by using specific rpm search tools. Packages are installed and the configure (and, if necessary) build processes are repeated until the error goes away.

Multi-user installs

Some organizations may find it desirable to deny write access of some users to all RSFSRC/RSFROOT except their own user directory. Fortunately, this can be easily done by placing the restricted user dirs outside RSFSRC/RSFROOT, i.e. in their home dirs, say /home/joe/rsfsrc. In order to move a user's directory out of RSFSRC, you must:

  • "tell" the SConstruct in the user's dir where to find RSFSRC so that when the user builds in his directory, it can import configure.py and config.py You do that by setting the environment variable RSFSRC to the absolute path of the Madagascar source root, and by making sure that lines 2 and 3 in the users' SConstruct files are

<python> srcroot = os.environ.get('RSFSRC', '../..') sys.path.append(srcroot) </python> and then replace ../.. throughout the SConstruct using os.path.join and the srcroot variable.

  • "tell" the build scripts about the user's dir, so that it is included in the builds launched from RSFSRC. You do that with a symbolic link:

<bash> ln -s /home/joe/rsfsrc $RSFSRC/user/joe </bash> When the link exists, those of Joe's programs that are mentioned in the "prog" string in SConstruct get included in the distribution, complete with self-doc. If Joe is just learning how to code and his stuff breaks the build, just remove the symbolic link. Even if build+installs are done after the link is removed, his stable programs and self-doc will continue to remain installed system-wide as long as the admin does not type scons -c install (not likely).

  • point the user's RSFDOC environment variable to a location where the user has write access
  • edit the users' SConstruct so that it uses the RSF library and headers already installed in $RSFROOT/lib and $RSFROOT/include , instead of building again the whole librsf with user-specific flags in RSFSRC/filt/lib/. To do that, replace in the user's SConstruct the env.Prepend statement with

<python> rsfroot = os.environ.get('RSFROOT','/usr/local/rsf')

env.Prepend(CPPPATH=[os.path.join(rsfroot,'include')],

           LIBPATH=[os.path.join(rsfroot,'lib')],
           LIBS=['rsf'])

</python>

  • If the link from RSFSRC to Joe's directory was not made, add Joe's directory to his own path so that he can execute his own binaries.

To understand how $DATAPATH disk space issues may become an issue in a multi-user environment, refer to the Disk Space subsection at the beginning of this document.

Keeping your stuff separate

A user may add his own programs and recipes to the Madagascar system. He may also create his own computational examples, data, and locked figures for testing. All of these components can be placed in their default locations, but it is not necessary to make them public. To keep these items private simply do not add them to the repository.

However, it might be desirable to keep these components in separate places. For example, if you keep your private programs in RSFSRC/user you will have to remember to make a copy somewhere else if you ever want to delete the Madagascar installation to perform a fresh install. Yup, I deleted all my programs that way once. Good thing I had a back up! Fortunately, it is easy to keep each of these components in a separate place if desired.

Keeping programs separate

User programs are ordinarily kept in a subdirectory of RSFSRC/user. However, if you want to keep your programs separate all you have to do is put your subdirectory somewhere else and make a link to it in RSFSRC/user: <bash> ln -s path_to_my_programs $RSFSRC/user/my_programs </bash> The additional instructions above for "multi-user installs" are for the case where the other users do not have write access to RSFSRC. However, if you have full write access and only want to keep the programs in a separate place the link is the only thing you need.

Keeping recipes separate

Computational recipes written in Python and imported by the SConstruct file of a workflow are normally stored in RSFSRC/book/Recipes. The install process copies these recipes to a directory like $RSFROOT/lib/python2.5/site-packages/rsf/recipes and adds this directory to your PYTHONPATH so that Python can find them.

However, you can put you own recipes anywhere you want. You only have to add that place to your PYTHONPATH like this (bash): <bash> export PYTHONPATH=${PYTHONPATH}:path_to_my_recipes </bash> Or like this (csh): <bash> setenv PYTHONPATH=${PYTHONPATH}:path_to_my_recipes </bash>

Keeping examples separate

Madagascar's public collection of example workflows are stored in RSFSRC/book, but you can put your private workflows anywhere you want. No special instructions are required.

However, Madagascar assumes that the workflows are organized into a three-level book/chapter/section directory hierarchy when it creates a directory tree for the data and locked figures associated with your workflow. It is not required, but it might be easier to find the data and locked figures if you put your workflows in a three-level directory tree something like this: path_to_my_book/chapter/section/SConstruct.

Keeping data separate

The location of the data portion of your *.rsf files is controlled by your DATAPATH environment variable. However, you may want to keep the data for your private workflows in a different place, or several different places, than the data created by the public examples in RSFSRC/book. The way to do that is to temporarily change the DATAPATH variable in the SConstruct before importing rsf.proj like this: <python> import os os.environ['DATAPATH'] = 'path_to_my_private_data'

from rsf.proj import * </python>

Keeping locked figures separate

The command "scons lock" in the directory of a workflow will store a "locked" copy of your figures for regression testing. Normally these figures are stored in the location pointed to by your RSFFIGS variable, and that is where the figures from the figures repository should be stored for testing in RSFSRC/book.

However, you may want to keep your private figures in a different place. The way to do that is to temporarily change the RSFFIGS variable in the SConstruct before importing rsf.proj like this: <python> import os os.environ['RSFFIGS'] = 'path_to_my_private_figures'

from rsf.proj import * </python> If you also create a RSFALTFIGS environment variable pointing to path_to_my_private_figures, then the testing script sffiglist will automatically test your figures against those in RSFALTFIGS when the sffiglist command is executed from a location outside of RSFSRC/book.

Capturing error and warning messages

The messages during configuration are few and their importance quite high, so they should be watched "in person". A complete log of the configuration process is recorded in RSFSRC/configure.log

Console messages generated during the build step can be captured to a log file and observed at the same time with a command like this (tcsh): <bash> nice +10 nohup /usr/bin/time -p scons -k |& tee log_build.asc </bash> The log file can be of course named otherwise than log_build.asc. The file can be later grepped for error and warnings with commands such as: <bash> grep -c error log_build.asc grep error log_build.asc | awk '/error.c/ {next}; /error.h/ {next}; /error.o/ {next}; {print}' grep -c warning log_build.asc grep warning log_build.asc | awk '/imaginary constants are a GCC extension/ {next}; {print}' </bash>

Advanced troubleshooting

  • If you removed one of your programs or changed its name, and scons install fails with "Source oldprogname not found, needed by target install", and you cleaned everything there was to clean but still get this message, remove RSFSRC/.sconsign*
  • If during scons install you get a DBAccessError : (13, 'Permission denied') in some reproducible papers, check permissions in your $DATAPATH directory. This is where SCons places database ".sconsign" files for its dependencies (according to the rules in rsfproj and rsftex).
  • If scons or scons install fail due to an a bug introduced in a tool you are certain you will not use, a quick workaround for the problem is already built into scons: the -k option, which means "keep going". Thus, if you use scons -k or scons -k install, SCons will not be able to build the failed component, or anything that depends on it, but it will keep going and make everything else that it can.

Further support

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