It is possible to test the OPeNDAP server to see whether an installation
has been properly done. The easiest way to test the installation is
with a simple Web client like Netscape or Mosaic. (A simple Web client
called geturl is provided in the OPeNDAP core software which
can retrieve text from Web servers. Look for it in the
$(DODS_ROOT)/etc directory.)
The simplest test is simply to ask for the version of the server, or
the help message. The OPeNDAP server uses helper programs to return the
DAS, DDS, and data. If you want to test the server itself, and not
the configuration of the helper programs, the version, help, or info
services will suffice. Issuing a URL with .ver on the end will
return the version information for this server, appending .info
will return the info message, and issuing a URL with a nonsense suffix
or .help will return a help message:
> geturl http://dods.gso.uri.edu/cgi-bin/nph-nc/data/test.nc.ver > geturl http://dods.gso.uri.edu/cgi-bin/nph-nc/data/test.nc.info > geturl http://dods.gso.uri.edu/cgi-bin/nph-nc/data/test.nc.help
To return the data attribute structure of a dataset, use a URL such as the following:15
> geturl http://dods.gso.uri.edu/cgi-bin/nph-nc/data/test.nc.das
Refer to Section 6.4.2 for a description of a data attribute structure. You can compare the description against what is returned by the above URL to test the operation of the OPeNDAP server.
You can use your web client to test the OPeNDAP server by using it to submit URLs that address specific services of the client. See Section 2.2 for information about how to request individual services. If any of the services fail, you can check the list of helper programs in Section 5.1.1 to find out which is missing. From the web browser, you can access all the OPeNDAP services, except the (binary) data service. However, if all the others work, you can be relatively assured that one will, too.
Using the .html suffix produces the WWW Interface, providing a
forms-based interface with which a user can query the dataset using a
simple web browser. There's more about the WWW Interface in
Chapter 3.