Installing an IDL Upgrade

General License Information

RSI should send us several CD's and eight license.dat files. The most recent series were numbered:

They are distributed as follows:

  1. Floating license for general use in the department
  2. Node-lock license for orthrus (on Mt. Hamilton)
  3. Node-lock license for ettin (on Mt. Hamilton)
  4. Node-lock license for coude (on Mt. Hamilton)
  5. Node-lock license for Burt Jones' Win95 laptop
  6. Node-lock license for Andy Sheinis' WinNT PC
  7. Node-lock license for voyager (Bob Kibrick's Linux box)
  8. Node-lock license for quasar (Elinor Gates' Linux box)

This page will describe how to upgrade IDL on the server, using license 1.

  1. First, set up a time when no one is likely to be using IDL. Give them a couple of days' warning, and ideally (IDLly?) do this early in the morning.
  2. Get the unix CD, and put it in the CDROM of a suitable build host (nazca or bianchi). It doesn't matter if it's a Solaris or Linux system- versions for all managed hosts get installed. I'll use bianchi here (as of this writing, nazca's CDROM appeared to be about to go to the Great Bit Bucket in the Sky).
  3. Log into bianchi as root.
  4. ls cdrom There should be a file called idl_version. The latest one was idl_54.
  5. cd cdrom/idl_54
  6. ls There should be a directory called unix.
  7. cd unix
  8. ./xinstall.sh This starts the install program.
    1. Install all packages except the high-resolution maps.
    2. Install the X86 Linux, Compaq Alpha, and 32-bit Solaris versions. The 64-bit Solaris version doesn't work yet, but eventually we will install this one too.
    3. Install the packages to /usr/local/share/rsi/idl_5.4, instead of the default location of /usr/local/rsi/idl_5.4.
    4. Install with no links, and say it's OK to overwrite a previous version of IDL. Don't worry- there's a backup copy of the old version, and you'll be making the backup copy of this version later.
    5. At this point, the installation program will complain that it can't find the proper license, and say that if you answer "no", you can run a "demo version" of IDL. Say no.
  9. Log into bigdog, the license server, as root.
  10. Copy license number 1 into /usr/local/share/rsi/license/license54.dat. After doing this, edit license54.dat so its path is /usr/local/share/rsi instead of /usr/local/rsi.
  11. cd /sbin/init.d
  12. ./lmgrd stop
  13. Log out of bigdog.
  14. Back on bianchi, cd /usr/local/share/rsi/license
  15. cp license54.dat license.dat
  16. cd ..
  17. rm idl
  18. ln -s idl_5.4 idl
  19. Log back into bigdog
  20. cd /sbin/init.d
  21. ./lmgrd start

Now IDL is installed. Try running it on isis to make sure it works.