OPeNDAP is pleased to announce Hyrax 1.9.7!

Submitted by jimg on Fri, 04/25/2014 - 12:52

Hyrax by OPeNDAP logoServer Documentation

Fixes in Hyrax 1.9.7 (04 July 2014):
  • Repaired bug in OLFS that was blocking client access to regular (non-data) files.
Fixes in Hyrax 1.9.6 (22 May 2014):
  • Repaired bug in the OLFS that was breaking the ncISO service.
Fixes in Hyrax 1.9.5 (22 May 2014):
  • Repaired bug in the OLFS that was breaking the WebStart functionality for launching data viewers.
Fixes in Hyrax 1.9.4 (7 May 2014):
  • Sometimes when serving compressed files the BES would not be able to open the cached uncompressed data file. This would be signaled with an error message like "Too many open files". This is important enough for a new release. The good news is that only the BES binary and source distributions have changed, so if you've already downloaded 1.9.3, you only need the source or binary for bes-3.13.1.
  • A minor issue in one test for libdap has been fixed. This change affects the source distribution only - there is no change to the binary distribution, and you'll see this reflected in the version numbers. If you are using the RPMs to install Hyrax, you do not need to get a new libdap rpm; if you are building from source, the new source distribution has the fixed test baseline.
New Features (1.9.3; released 28 April 2014):
  • All of the software now builds on OS/X 10.9 using the clang compiler Apple bundles with XCode 5.
  • Major bug fix for the BES. (Corrects a problem that could cause the server to spawn zombie processes.)
  • The BES's control script now takes long options - thanks to Ezequiel Lara Gómez.
  • Support for TRMM version 7 hdf4 files.
  • Improved HDF5 file handling including fixes to reduce the number of file open/close operations.
  • More predictable netCDF/COARDS/CF behavior since the default behavior for the handler is explicitly set to use ShowSharedDimensions=true
New Features (1.9.2; released 4 Feb 2014):
  • And update to the HDF4 handler that addresses performance issues found with NASA data. This update affects only HDF-EOS conformant data files. The source and binary copies of the software are being made available by The HDF Group. From the release notes: In this release (version 3.11.3 of the handler), we improve the performance of access to HDF-EOS2 AIRS and MODIS products, including significant improvements to the performance of accessing AIRS level 3 version 6 and MOD08_M3 products. We also provide an option to suppress calculation of the MODIS data values based on the scale and offset rules of MODIS products, which may also reduce the time to access MODIS products.
  • Note that only the HDF4 handler was updated for Hyrax 1.9.2. Note that we're providing both the 3.11.2 and 3.11.3 versions of the HDF4 handler.
1.9.1 Features (released 18 Oct 2013):
  • New server functions including a new way to build arrays with constant values. This is documented on our page that covers server functions shipped with the server by default.
  • We have included experimental support for POST with this server. Look at the olfs.xml configuration file for more information. This new feature provides a way to pass very large constraint expressions to the server. We would like feedback on this feature.
  • Hyrax now supports the server function calling syntax used by the GDS and FTDS servers.
  • We have modified the constraint expression syntax in three important ways: It's possible to use a * for the end count in an array subset operation, so you can say x[10:2:*] to get every second element from 10 to the end of the dimension; The server supports multiple function calls separated by commas in a single expression; and the server will return metadata responses for server function calls. This means server functions will work with clients built using the netCDF C and Java libraries.
  • The server includes a new handler that returns GeoTIFF files for variables with recognized geospatial metadata.
  • Tweaks: Version 1.9.1 adds a change in libdap to normalize the behavior of the handler's 'read()' method for the Sequence data type. This affects only the FreeForm, netcdf file response and hdf4 handlers - those are updated while the remaining handlers should work just fine with the 3.12.1 version of libdap.
Features and fixes for specific formats or modules
 
HDF4 and HDF5
  • Enhanced support for the CF conventions. While many HDF4 and HDF5 files from NASA and other Government agencies contain the information covered by the CF convention, they often do not express it in a conformant way. The HDF handlers have expanded support for CF with the latest version of Hyrax. More details can be found in the HDF4 handler documentation as well as the HDF5 handler documentation. Here are two papers that describe the mapping to CF for these handlers (HDF4 to CF Mapping; HDF5 to CF Mapping). Thanks to The HDF Group for their work on this software!
NetCDF
  • The netcdf handler reads version 4 files now and the file response handler that builds netCDF files will make a netCDF 4 file if asked (append .dap.nc4 to the URL if you're using a client where you build URLs yourself). The HTML form interface has a button for NetCDF4 now, too.
GDAL
  • Hyrax now includes handlers that read and return files using the GDAL library. Any file type that GDAL can read can be served. For file return types Hyrax 1.9 uses GDAL for GeoTIFF with experimental support for JPEG2000. These return types only work when the data are georeferenced.

Required External Dependencies

In order to get Hyrax 1.9 running, you will need:

  • Java 1.6
  • Tomcat 6 or Tomcat 7
  • Individual handlers may have their own external dependencies that you can satisfy with YUM/RPM on Linux (Use yum install *.rpm and Yum will take care of getting the required packages if you've set up the EPEL repository. To set that up see the EPEL home page or just install its rpm.)
  • For a source build of the complete server hears what you'll need:
    • libxml2, libcurl, libreadline
    • hdf4, hdf5, netcdf4, icu, cfits - these you needs only if you want to read data from the corresponding handler.

Software downloads for Hyrax 1.9

To run the Hyrax server, you will need to download and install the following (from source or binary):

  • OLFS (which is a Java binary and runs on any computer with Java 1.6)
  • libdap
  • BES
  • General Purpose Handlers (aka dap-server)
  • One or more data handlers depending on which data you wish to serve
  • Our software distributions are signed using a public/private key pair. See Public Key for more information.

Binaries for Hyrax 1.9.7

Java icon Java
OLFS 1.11.4 Web Archive File (gpg signature) Unpack using 'tar -xvf filename' and follow the instructions in the README file. (Requires Java 1.6. Built using Java 6. Tested against Tomcat 7.0.x) - Note: If you are upgrading an existing installation you will need to update your olfs.xml file to reflect the many changes in the OLFS. The new file can be found here $CATALINA_HOME/webapps/opendap/initialContent/olfs.xml. Localize it to reflect your BES configuration and other options and copy it to $CATALINA_HOME/content/opendap/olfs.xml.
Linux Tux Logo Linux (CentOS 6) x86_64 RPMs

Source code for Hyrax 1.9.7