Here are some of the notes I took while running simtest. Most of them are things I needed to change in configuration files; otherwise following the Simtest instructions was straightforward.

Preparation

Before starting the simtest, I recommend doing the following:

1) Set up a mysql database for your simulated data.

2) Configure and set up ippMonitor on your webpage. The software can be found under ~/ipp-2.1/ippMonitor/.

3) Download the reference astrometry database from Hawaii and make sure it is the full grizy version.

Configuration

Here's the collection of the files I edited to allow my simtest to run successfully. Some of them may not be necessary, but are helpful in understanding what is going wrong when an error pops up.

1) Create a ~/.ipprc file: Go to ~/psconfig/default.linrh/share/ippconfig/ and copy “ipprc.config” to your home directory and rename it “.ipprc”. In this file, check for the following:

• the PATH for default search path is pointed towards your configuration files, e.g. ~/psconfig/default.linrh/share/ippconfig:.

• the DATAPATH for SIMTEST and SIMWORK are correct; it might be necessary to create folders named as such in your home directory

• Database configuration: edit DBSERVER, DBNAME, DBUSER, and DBPASSWORD so that your mysql database can be accessed

• Under psLib section, make sure your LOGLEVEL is not set too high; 4 is a good number. Also comment out the line that starts with “err S32 10.” Those changes will help reduce error messages later on.

• Under CAMERAS and DVO.CAMERAS, make sure that the SIMPLE camera is uncommented out and always at the end of the list, as a good catch-all camera.

2) Create a ~/.ptolemyrc file: Go to ~/psconfig/default.linrh/share/ippconfig/ and copy “dvo.site” to your home directory and rename it “.ptolemyrc”. Check that CONFDIR points to your directory of simtest config files, i.e. ~/psconfig/default.linrh/share/ippconfig/

3) Go to the following files and edit their DVO.CATDIR line so that they are pointing to where you have your astrometry reference catalog:

• /psconfig/default.linrh/share/ippconfig/recipes/psastro.config

• /psconfig/default.linrh/share/ippconfig/simtest/psastro.config

A good way to check for any more configuration files (general or specific to a camera) that need to be changed, but you might have missed:

ppConfigDump -camera SIMTEST -dump-recipe PSASTRO -

You can change PSASTRO to whatever you're looking for, i.e. REJECTIONS.

4) Make sure you have the newest (current) version of Ohana. E-mail Gene or Paul for the current version; the one distributed with IPP-2.1 gave me errors during camera processing, but once I d/l-ed the current one my errors went away.

5) Also make sure that the computers in your cluster are all set up to access your mysql database as well as where your catalog is located. The location of your catalog should be set up properly so that file-sharing will not be an issue.

Using Pantasks

Edit pantasks.pro to add in your cluster's name and computer names (after setting up a passphraseless ssh). Here's a useful command to see what pantasks is currently doing:

pantasks: $VERBOSE = 3

You can use that to see what commands pantasks is currently calling, and you can also copy and paste them in a new terminal to run it by hand.

Also, the status command lets you see which tasks are turned on and off, which jobs are pending, and which have failed or succeeded. You can use the status command at any time to see what's going on. To turn on/off tasks: i.e. register.on, register.off, warp.on, warp.off, detrend.on, detrend.off. For specific detrending tasks: detproc.on, detproc.off, detnorm, on, detnorm.off, etc.

In addition, you can always check ippMonitor to see what has finished processing.