1.3 Installing the OPeNDAP FreeForm ND Data Handler

If you don't have the OPeNDAP FreeForm ND Data Handler, and want it, follow these directions. If you have a copy of the OPeNDAP FreeForm ND Data Handler, and want to know how to use it, see Chapter 2 for quick instructions and examples of its use, and Chapter 6 for further information.

You can get the OPeNDAP FreeForm ND Data Handler from the OPeNDAP Home page. Follow the links to "Download Software" and then to "Current Release." If your computer is one of the platforms for which we provide a binary release, get that, otherwise get the source code.

To get a binary release, go to that page, click on the computer you use, and click on the "FreeForm" button in the "Servers" box. Click the Download button, and follow the directions. The server will make a custom binary file for you, which you then download.

To install the OPeNDAP FreeForm ND Data Handler, first make sure you have an http server running on the machine where you plan to serve the data. If you are unsure whether one is running, you can use a web client, like Netscape, to send an http request to your own machine. The OPeNDAP User Guide contains some hints about installing a web server.

When you are sure a web server is properly installed and running, unpack the archive file you downloaded from the OPeNDAP Home page. Binaries are available for Solaris, IRIX, Linux, et cetera. Folow the instructions that come with each, as they all have their own idiosyncrasies. After unpacking the server will, by default install some exectuable programs in /usr/local/bin and some other files in both /usr/local/share/dap-server and /usr/local/share/dap-server-cgi.

Follow the instructions on configuring the OPeNDAP server. This generally involves configuring a web server (e.g., Apache) to run the nh-dods CGI script and editing the dap-server.rc configuration file. Both reside in /usr/local/share/dap-server-cgi (assuming that you have chosen the default location for installation).

Now that the OPeNDAP FreeForm ND Data Handleris installed, Chapter 6 will explain how to use it to serve your data. It may be a good idea to familiarize yourself with the information in the intervening chapters, which will explain how to specify your data's format.

Compiling the OPeNDAP FreeForm ND Data Handler

If the computer and operating system combination you use is not one of the ones we own, you will have to compile the OPeNDAP FreeForm ND Data Handler from its source. Go to the OPeNDAP home page (www.opendap.org) and follow the menu item to the downloads page. From there you will need the libdap, dap-server and FreeForm handler software source distributions. Get each of these and perform the following steps:

1. Expand the distribution (e.g., tar -xzf libdap-3.5.3.tar.gz)
2. Change to the newly created directory (cd libdap-3.5.3)
3. Run the configure script (./configure)
4. Run make (make)
5. Install the software (make install or sudo make install)

Each source distribution contains more detailed build instructions; see the README, INSTALL and NEWS files for the most up-to-date information. See Section 1.3 for instructions on the final installation.