AIPS NRAO AIPS HELP file for AIPS in 31DEC24



As of Mon Mar 18 22:28:43 2024


AIPS: The AIPS (Astronomical Image Processing System) program

INPUTS

        itself.  No adverbs in the normal sense.

HELP SECTION

AIPS
Type: Main Program.

Use:  Start AIPS itself from the command line.  For Unix systems, the
      following usage applies:

         aips [OLD, NEW, or TST]
              [TV=[tvdisp][:][tvhost] or TV=local[:n] or NOTV] [TVOK]
              [DA=host[,host,...] or DA=default or DA=all]
              [PR=lpdev]
              [TP=tphost[,tphost,...]] [TPOK]
              [REMOTE or REM or TEK] [DEBUG[=prog][:aips]]
              [LOCAL] [NORL] [NOEX]

      (For VMS systems, the "=" options are not available; The last
      release to support VMS was 15APR91).  Note that the information
      here is also available in the Unix manual page for AIPS which in
      turn is found in the SYSUNIX area as "AIPS.L".

      The aips (or AIPS) command starts up the AIPS command interpreter
      and associated AIPS server processes.

Options: All command line options are case insensitive.

     AIPS allows up to three versions to co-exist (disk space
     permitting) in one installation.  They are identified either by
     date (e.g. 15OCT98) or name (OLD, NEW, or TST).  On most
     installations, these will all be the same.

     OLD     Start the OLD version of AIPS.  For NRAO this is a frozen
             version which has been distributed worldwide.

     NEW     Start the NEW version of AIPS.  For NRAO this is the
             most recently released version and is frozen right at the
             time of initial public release.

     TST     Start the TST version of AIPS.  For NRAO this is the
             unreleased, development version.  This is the default.

     TV=[tvdisp][:][tvhost] or TV=local[:n]

             TV display server to use instead of the default.  The AIPS
             startup script TRIES to deduce which host the user is
             sitting in front of (this may not work; it is often
             difficult or impossible to determine this information).
             This may not be the same as the machine on which AIPS is to
             be run if, for example, the user has remotely logged in to
             another machine within a terminal emulator window.

             The "TV=local" option allows use of Unix based sockets for
             the TV and other servers.  If you choose this option, you
             MUST run the XAS server and any AIPS sessions that will use
             it on the same host, though the DISPLAYs can be the same or
             different.  Also, no remote AIPS sessions will be able to
             talk to this local TV.

             If you instead use "TV=local:0", it will attempt to start a
             new instance of the TV and ancillary servers.  This can be
             used to have multiple TVs on the same host, and is useful
             in a compute server environment with X terminals.  If you
             have multiple Unix-socket based TVs already started, you
             can choose which one a new AIPS session will use by,
             e.g. "TV=local:2" to choose the second one.

             NOTE: The default TV behavior is to use INET or Internet
             based sockets, as the scripts have been doing since 1992.
             The "local" Unix socket based functionality does not change
             this.

             For the default use of internet sockets, the full syntax of
             this option is TV=TVDISP:TVHOST, where TVHOST is the name
             of the machine on which the TV display server (usually
             XAS), Tektronix graphics server (TEKSRV), message server
             (MSGSRV), and TV Lock server (TVSERV) are to run, and
             TVDISP indicates the machine to which the DISPLAY environ-
             ment variable should point for XAS.  Do NOT specify
             TV=hostname:0.0!  Both TVHOST and TVDISP can be different
             from the machine that AIPS itself is running on.  See the
             section on X Window System servers below for more
             information on how to control the servers.

             The default behavior of this option if only one of tvdisp
             and tvhost is specified is:

                TV=tvhost   tvdisp defaults to tvhost.

                TV=tvdisp:  tvhost defaults to where AIPS is running.

                TV=:tvhost  tvdisp defaults to where AIPS is running.

             For the remote TV options to work, you must be able to use
             the rsh or remsh command; see the notes on it under the tp=
             heading below.  Also see the notes on environment variable
             AIPSREMOTE.  By default, if you do not specify any tv=
             option, you will only get a TV if your current TERM
             environment variable matches sun*, *xterm*, *hpterm,
             dtterm, or iris*.  The DISPLAY environment variable is used
             if set, otherwise the "who am i" (on HP-UX, with the -R
             option) is used to make a guess at "where" you really are.

     NOTV    Prevents automatic activation of the TV server if no
             display is wanted.  This option also disables the Tektronix
             graphics server, the message server and the TV lock server.
             See the section on X Window System servers below for
             information on how to control the Tektronix and message
             servers.

     TVOK    Assume that the TV display servers are already running; the
             particulars (display, host) are still worked out -- from
             the TV=... argument (see above) if necessary -- but no
             servers will be started.

     DA=host[,host,...] or DA=default or DA=all

             Select user data areas (directories, or "disks" in
             AIPSpeak) that are local to the comma separated list of
             machines.  Data areas from "required" hosts and those on
             the local machine are always added, regardless of the list
             of hosts.

             All disks from each named host will be assigned.  Use the
             FREE command within AIPS to see the disk assignments you
             end up with.  They are also shown on startup.

             AIPS has a limit of 35 disks in any one session.  The limit
             on the number of disks that can be defined for any given
             site is 512.  Disk 1 is special in that it stores the AIPS
             message and save/get files.  The system is designed so that
             one particular required disk will almost always be assigned
             as disk 1.  For performance reasons, this may be
             undesirable if the filesystem in question is mounted via
             NFS.  See the description of personal .dadevs files
             below, as it can be used to customize the list of possible
             user data areas.

             Selecting DA=ALL will try to include every area defined in
             the startup file, up to the session limit.  Bear in mind
             that most AIPS tasks only have 10 slots for "BADDISK".
             Selecting DA=DEFAULT will completely bypass the
             configurable data areas and choose only those data areas
             preconfigured by the AIPS manager; THIS IS NOT NORMALLY
             ENABLED, CHECK WITH YOUR AIPS MANAGER BEFORE USING
             DA=DEFAULT.

             There is a hierarchy of disk "lists" that AIPS will look
             for on startup.  These are:

             $HOME/.dadevs       This would be in your private login
                                 area (what $HOME points to).  It need
                                 not exist.  If it doesn't, AIPS looks
                                 for the next file:

             $DA00/DADEVS.LIST   This is a host-specific file possibly
                                 set up by the AIPS manager.  If it
                                 doesn't exist, AIPS finally looks for:

             $NET0/DADEVS.LIST   which is the site-wide data area
                                 configuration file.

             The normal state of affairs is to have just one place for
             data areas to be defined, namely $NET0/DADEVS.LIST.  Your
             AIPS manager can choose to install host-specific list
             files, and you can choose (if you run AIPS from your own
             private account) to override both of these two with your
             own private version.  This allows for considerable
             flexibility but moves the onus of maintenance of these
             files to the user.  In other words, if you have your own
             .dadevs file, YOU have to keep track of your site's disk
             configuration!

             If your AIPS installation supports multiple sites, e.g. to
             support both little-endian (Intel, Alpha) and big-endian
             (Sparc) systems, you can have any of these files refer to
             one or the othe site by appending the site name,
             e.g. $HOME/.dadevs.VCOARN for SITE=VCOARN.

             The format for these files is all the same: a list of
             directory names preceded by a "+" for required or a "-" for
             optional.  There should be two (2) spaces between the "+"
             or "-" (in the leftmost column) and the directory name.

             In addition to all of the above, you may define a list of
             data areas in an optional $HOME/.dadevs.always file.
             This is used in addition to whichever of the DADEVS files
             have been selected by the rules above.  The data areas
             that you will be assigned start with any required data
             areas in the $HOME/.dadevs.always file followed by any
             required data areas in the selected DADEVS file
             regardless of name.  The 3rd group of data areas are
             those optional ones in the selected DADEVS file
             containing a string matching the user's host name.  Then
             come the optional data areas in the $HOME/.dadevs.always
             file regardless of name.  Finally, the optional data
             areas in the selected DADEVS file with strings matching
             the names of any hosts given in the DA=host[,host,...]
             command-line option.  The order of data areas within each
             group, i.e. which is disk 1, etc., is determined by the
             order in the files.

             There is also a $NET0/NETSP file that is maintained by the
             AIPS manager and controls TIMDEST and aips user-number
             access to the disks.  You will get error messages if your
             private .dadevs file includes AIPS data areas ("disks")
             that are not in the NETSP file.  Regardless of the number
             of sites in your installation, there is only one NETSP
             file.

     TP=host[,host,...]

             Make sure tape servers are running on the comma separated
             list of machines.  While the AIPS account is usually set up
             so that it can perform remote shell (rsh) commands, your
             personal account may not.  Check with your system
             administrator or network guru for details.  Also check the
             Unix manual pages on rsh (remsh on HP-UX), rhosts, and
             hosts.equiv.  The tp= option uses rsh to issue commands to
             remote hosts.

     TPOK    Do NOT check or launch the TPMON tape daemons on the local
             host.  The default is to check if they are running and to
             launch them if not found.

     PR=#    Select printer number (e.g., pr=2).  If this option is not
             specified, the user will be presented with a menu of
             available printers and prompted to enter a choice.  If
             there is only one printer, no menu will be presented.  You
             may change the selected printer within AIPS via the PRINTER
             adverb.

     REMOTE or REM or TEK

             Indicates that the user is running from a terminal with
             Tektronix display capability.  Graphics output will be sent
             directly to this terminal.  NOTE: AIPS will NOT switch from
             text to graphics mode on terminals with a separate graphics
             "screen".

     DEBUG[=prog][:aips]

             Start AIPS in debug mode.  With no arguments, the user will
             be prompted for the name of the debugger (e.g. gdb, dbx, adb,
             csd, xde, dbxtool, debugger, xxgdb), and whether to run AIPS
             itself in debug.  If you answer no, only AIPS tasks will be
             run in debug mode.  If "=prog" is specified, this suppresses
             the prompt for the name of the debugger program.  If ":aips"
             is specified, this suppresses the prompt for whether to run
             AIPS itself in debug mode and assumes it will.  Use of both
             these options is useful in speeding up the startup of the
             system when debugging a program or AIPS itself.

     LOCAL   Start a local copy of AIPS.EXE residing in the current
             directory.

     NORL    Disable GNU readline library and command-line editing.
             This is primarily useful for running back-grounded AIPS
             sessions, running AIPS from "here-document" shell-scripts,
             and for debugging.

     NOEX    This defers AIPS execution and is not normally used
             directly by users.

COMMAND-LINE EDITING (NEW to 15JAN96)

     AIPS now utilizes, under most UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems,
     the GNU "readline" library for user input.

     This library gives the user the ability to use the cursor-arrow
     keys, as well as various "control" and "escape" key sequences, to
     recall previously-entered commands, edit the current command-line
     (without having to back-space and re-type the entire line), search
     the command history for previously-executed commands, define
     customized key bindings for executing commands and macros, etc.

     The default key bindings should be very familiar to users of Emacs
     and/or the bash shell; many of them should also be recognizable to
     users of the Korn and tcsh shells.  Hard-core vi users can put AIPS
     into "vi-mode" and use vi-like key-bindings instead.

     The user's command-line history is automatically saved between
     sessions (unique to both the user and the "AIPS number" of the
     session) and then recovered at the next AIPS startup.

     Within AIPS,"HELP READLINE" will give a short summary of this
     functionality.  Outside of AIPS, "man readline" will probably give
     you more information about this functionality than you would ever
     want to know...

     This feature can be disabled with the norl command-line option.

RUN FILES:

     There are two areas where AIPS "run files" are stored: $RUNSYS and
     $RUNFIL.  The former is for system files (AIPS user number 1) and
     the latter is for individual's own run files (any user number).
     You can override the latter if you have the environment variable
     RUNFIL already defined (e.g., in you .login or .profile).

X WINDOW SYSTEM SERVERS

     If you are running under the X Window System, AIPS will open up to
     three windows: a TV window (normally XAS), a message window
     (MSGSRV) and a graphics window (TEKSRV).  If you specify the notv
     option on the command line, none of these will be started.

     MSGSRV and TEKSRV are actually simple programs running inside a
     terminal emulator.  You may use any terminal emulator that you
     would normally use on the machine on which you are running AIPS for
     the MSGSRV window.  Examples include xterm (the sample vt100/
     Tektronix emulator that comes with the MIT X Window System code);
     cmdtool and shelltool (the standard terminal emulators for
     OpenWindows) and AIXterm (the standard terminal emulator on
     RS/6000s).  You can choose which one to use by setting the
     environment variable AIPS_MSG_EMULATOR to the name of the terminal
     emulator you wish to use.  For example, if you want to use cmdtool
     you would type

                setenv AIPS_MSG_EMULATOR cmdtool

     if you use the C or TC Shell, or

                AIPS_MSG_EMULATOR=cmdtool; export AIPS_MSG_EMULATOR

     if you use Korn, BASH, or Bourne shells before you start up AIPS.
     You could also add these commands to your .login file (C Shell) or
     .profile (Korn/BASH/Bourne Shells) to make the assignment more
     permanent.  You can also give AIPS_MSG_EMULATOR the special value
     of "none" which will disable the message window without affecting
     the Tektronix window or the TV.  If AIPS_MSG_EMULATOR is not set,
     the default is xterm.

     You may choose the terminal emulator used for the Tektronix window
     using the environment variable AIPS_TEK_EMULATOR in the same way
     that you use AIPS_MSG_EMULATOR to choose the terminal emulator, but
     it MUST support Tektronix graphics codes.  On most machines the
     only values of AIPS_TEK_EMULATOR that make any sense are "xterm"
     and "none".  If AIPS_TEK_EMULATOR is not set AIPS will behave as if
     it were set to "xterm".  (Note: dxterm, aixterm, cmdtool,
     shelltool, and x-hpterm are not "xterm"; they cannot display tek
     graphics).

     You can set preferences for positions and colors for all three
     servers using the standard X Window System mechanisms.  Further
     information is available through the AIPS HELP system (subjects
     MSGSRV, TEKSRV, XAS and XVSS).

     Note that AIPS expects that a terminal emulator can start a program
     that is specified using a -e flag on the command line.  This is
     true of all of the terminal emulators we know about but if you find
     one that requires a different flag you can specify the flag as
     AIPS_TEK_EXE_FLAG or AIPS_MSG_EXE_FLAG.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

     In addition to the Message and Tek server customizations, you may
     choose to set a variable AIPSREMOTE to indicate your choice of remote
     shell command.  It is strongly recommended that the secure shell
     (ssh) be used in place of the traditional Berkeley rsh or remsh
     command:

            setenv AIPSREMOTE "ssh -n"

     for csh or tcsh shells, or

            export AIPSREMOTE="ssh -n"

     for bash, korn, zsh and other bourne-like shells.

NOTES

     Further help is available after AIPS starts via the HELP command.
     Within AIPS, "HELP TASKS" lists a one-line summary of each task.
     Also, there is an APROPOS verb for listing tasks, verbs, procedures
     and pseudoverbs that have a specified keyword in their one-line
     descriptions (e.g. APROPOS GAUSSIAN to find out about things that
     deal with Gaussian functions).

Authors (Approximately chronological):

     NRAO: Eric Greisen, Bill Cotton, Gary Fickling, David Brown, Ed
           Fomalont, Fred Schwab, Don Wells, Kerry Hilldrup, Tim
           Cornwell, Pat Moore, Arnold Rots, Alan Bridle, Phil Diamond,
           Pat Murphy, Brian Glendenning, Bill Junor, Chris Flatters,
           Dean Schlemmer, Doug Wood, Gareth Hunt, Glen Langston, Dave
           Adler, Leonid Kogan, Juan Uson, Gustaaf van Moorsel, Jeff
           Uphoff ...

     ATNF: Mike Kesteven, Mark Calabretta, Neil Killeen, Henrietta May

     Leiden: Walter Jaffe

     And plenty more.

Files:

     The following is a superficial list of the more important setup
     files.  All these files are located relative to the $AIPS_ROOT
     directory.


     LOGIN.CSH         File to call from your .login if your login shell
                       is the C shell or tcsh.

     LOGIN.SH          File to call from your .profile if your login
                       shell is the Bourne, Korn, or Bash shell.

     HOSTS.LIST        List of hosts that can run AIPS (or that are X
                       terminals or servers).

     START_AIPS        The script that actually starts AIPS.  Should be
                       pointed to by a symbolic link in $SYSLOCAL/AIPS
                       and/or $SYSLOCAL/aips.

     DA00/PRDEVS.LIST  Defines printers for your site.

     DA00/TPDEVS.LIST  Defines tape device names for AIPS.

     DA00/DADEVS.LIST  List of aips "disks" or data areas; see above.

     DA00/NETSP        TIMDEST and  user  reservation  parameters
                       for disks.

     TPDEVS.LIST       Defines hardwired AIPS TV devices, if any.

     AIPSASSN.[C]SH    Contains extra site/host specific definitions
                       (reserved and message terminal definitions,
                       overrides of other settings).

     AIPS.MSG          Login notice, to be edited by the local AIPS
                       manager.

Adverbs: None.

AIPS