This file is /cdf/run1/documents/development/cdfsga_stk.note



As of April 5th, 1994, the STK interface on cdfsga is now available 
for general use.




READING DATA FROM THE STK SILO:

There are additional setups needed in building an executable, namely:

    setup cern                        # The cern software
    setup shift                       # The staging software

An example of building an executable is found under URL
http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/offline/cdfsga/build_link_stk

    

There are additional setups needed in running an executable, namely:

    setup fatmen                      # Defines location of FATMEN catalog
    setup shift                       # The staging software

An example of running an executable using the STK silo is found under URL
http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/offline/cdfsga/run_stk

Such an executable automatically copies data from tape to disk, if
the data is not already on disk.





The usual analysis control commands are used, for example:
ANA>> Input File/Fatmen "//FNAL/CDF/PROD/SPT13/PAD03/DIL1-3P/T41838AC"



The usual fatmen command line interface is available, via
    setup cern v96a
    setup fatmen
    fatmen
    FM> CD //FNAL/CDF/PROD/STREAM1/PAD04/DIL1-1P
    FM> LS -A T45610AJ
There is documentation for FATMEN under URL
    http://wwwcn.cern.ch/asdoc/psdir/fatmen.ps.gz


Andreas Warburton has ported the usual fm_make_uic utility to UNIX,
it is used by:
    setup p_u development
    setup fatmen
    fm_make_uic
       FMINIT.  Initialisation of FATMEN package
       FATMEN   1.85/01 931021 08:50 CERN PROGRAM LIBRARY FATMEN=Q123
                This version created on       931023 at         1529
       FMLOGL. setting log level to            0
       Input generic name: (e.g. //FNAL/CDF/FATMEN/DISK/*)
    //FNAL/CDF/PROD/STREAM1/PAD04/DIL1-1P/*

       (blank line to exit)

fm_make_uic creates files with names similar to new01.uic with the
appropriate analysis control commands already in place.






WRITING DATA INTO THE STK SILO:

If you would like to have a set of data files (or a set of Monte Carlo
files) copied into the STK silo, please contact:

    Bill Robertson    robertson@hep.phy.duke.edu

When copying data files into the STK silo, please try to
arrange to have between 1 to 20 files per cartridge, to
avoid wasting tape space between files.  Having
more than 100 files per tape is not reasonable.
The new cartridges hold 800 Mbytes each.

When copying data files into the STK silo, please note that the
file names on the cartridge need to be 17 characters or less in length,
and in capital letters.  This is the ANSI and the CDF standard.
And so, the file names of those files to be copied into the STK
silo must have 17 characters or less when those files are on disk.

When copying data files into the STK silo, please try to
avoid ending the generic file name with the underscore character "_",
since this confuses the fatmen command line interpreter.  An example 
of a such a problematic generic file name is
//FNAL/CDF/MINB/R58166A_
Please try to avoid this.

Please note that the copy of the fatmen catalog is updated
from the master copy of the fatmen catalog on FNALD once a night,
at about 00:45.   So, usually you won't see the new files until
the next day.





WHEN YOU SEE PROBLEMS WITH THE STK SILO:

Please report problems to cdfsga-team@fnal.gov
Please give a lot of amount of information in the error report.  
Also, the time and date of the problem will be useful information, as the
log files of the staging system are time stamped.

However, there is one exception to the above mailing address.  
If you obtain exactly the error message:

    TP025 - bad label structure

please report this problem directly to:

     Bill Robertson   robertson@hep.phy.duke.edu



There is one shift command that has been found to be particularly 
useful when things go wrong, namely the sfrm command which 
deletes a file from the staging disk.   Here is a typical
example of use:

    setup shift
    sfrm TZZ4525.FSEQ161_T41838AC.DIL1_3P



Another useful shift command shows which files are
currently on disk:

    setup shift
    sfsh 'ls'

or similarly a subset of the files on disk can be shown:
  
    setup shift
    sfsh 'ls *R41838*'


There is one error message which can be ignored for the time
being, namely
FMFZO - error opening temporary file,
 name=/fnald/cdfkroot1/fatmen/database/todo
 /zz94011418292300000195310736.wicklund_cdfsga

We hope to fix this error message by changing things on FNALD 
so that users on cdfsga can write onto disk area 
/fnald/cdfroot5/fatmen/database/todo
on FNALD.

This todo area is used for recording the date of the last 
access of a particular file into the catalog.




For better performance, groups are encouraged to store CDF YBOS data 
in UNIX format when they prepare files to be put into the STK silo.
A convenient way to do this is via the Analysis Control command
   ANA>> OUTPUT FORMAT UNIX





Bob Yeager has done the work of designing and implementing the interface.
The CERN SHIFT project has kindly provided the SHIFT staging software.

This document last updated October 15th, 1999