This section explains how to setup and configure the FLARECAST development infrastructure on your personal computer.

Getting ready

Install software

Software OS X Linux

Python

Install https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-2711/

Should be preinstalled. Test with

python --version

Otherwise check here.

PIP (Python installer)

PIP is shipped with Python 2.7.9+ and Python 3.4+.

pip --version

If you don't have it follow https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/installing/

Python IDE We suggest PyCharm, but any text editor or Spyder will work as well.

IDL

You can use your normal IDL setup to access data and prototype your algorithms.

Note: We do not support execution of IDL code on our cluster due to licensing issues. Let us know if this is a problem.

Please avoid SolarSoft/SSW-specific functionality in your algorithms. They tend to be hard to be ported to a cluster.

Git

(source code repository)

Install XCODE though the App-Store
open terminal
xcode-select --install
Click on "Install" and follow the wizard

sudo apt-get install git

Docker and

docker-compose

Requires Kernel 3.10+

sudo curl -L https://get.docker.com/ | sh
sudo pip install docker-compose

Install https://www.docker.com/docker-toolbox

Access to Infrastructure

This step is required to get access either to the HMI files stored in France or the properties extracted by our algorithms.

If you want to do all processing on your local machine, you can skip this step.

In order to access the FLARECAST development infrastructure in France you need a dedicated account.

To get an account send a message to Eric Buchlin <eric.buchlin@ias.u-psud.fr>.

With this account you can connect to the computing infrastructure. The following figure outlines how this connection is being established.

How to access the computing infrastructure in Meudon

Within this process you will be asked twice to enter your credentials. If you want to avoid this you can generate and install an SSH certificate as follows:

# Open terminal on your machine
local> ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "your-mail-address"                        # -C is just a comment
Enter file in which to save the key (/Users/mercuron/.ssh/id_rsa):     # use default
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):                            # protect your private key
Enter same passphrase again:                                           # protect your private key
...
Your public key has been saved in ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
...
local> scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub username@ias-ssh.ias.u-psud.fr:~/.ssh/authorized_keys

local> ssh username@ias-ssh.ias.u-psud.fr
inf-ssh2> ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "your-mail-address"         # -C is just a comment
# use default settings and no password
inf-ssh2> scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub username@cluster-head:~/.ssh/authorized_keys 
inf-ssh2> ssh username@cluster-head                        # to test the connection
cluster-head> exit
inf-ssh2> exit
local>

# create file .ssh/config to auto-forward yourself to cluster-head
local> nano .ssh/config
# content of .ssh/config
Host flarecast-infra
 ProxyCommand ssh username@ias-ssh.ias.u-psud.fr nc cluster-head.ias.u-psud.fr 22
 User username
 ForwardX11Trusted yes
 ServerAliveInterval 60 

# Ctrl-x y <return> to save and close 

local> ssh flarecast-infra
# accept fingerprint
# enter FLARECAST cluster password
# you can ignore message: /usr/bin/xauth:  file ~/.Xauthority does not exist
cluster-head> exit
local>

From now on you can login to the cluster as follows

local> ssh flarecast-infra
# enter FLARECAST cluster password
cluster-head> exit
local>

Test installation

Create a base directory for the FLARECAST development infrastructure. We will call this $FC_DEVINFRA in the remainder of this document.

local> cd $FC_DEVINFRA
local> curl

If you get message SSL certificate problem: Invalid certificate chain

Create directory <your_flarecast_homedir>
Download the docker-compose-yml file.
Go to a directory where you downloaded the file.
Run docker pull flarecast/smart-python
Run docker pull flarecast/regiongraph
Run docker-compose up.
In case you see any errors about database connection timeouts, just press Ctrl + C and run docker-compose up again.

Note: Windows has not been tested yet

* OS X or Linux (we have not tested Windows installations yet)

* Python 2.7

* Text Editor or your preferred Python Interactive Development Environment (IDE).

* Account to connect to the FLARECAST infrastructure at OBSPM.