IRIX/IRAF Installation Guide

2.4. Run the INSTALL Script

Once all of the IRAF files have been restored to disk the IRIX/IRAF installation script must be run to complete the system installation. The install script modifies the system as necessary to reflect the new root directory and new default image storage and local bin directories, checks the mode and ownership of a number of files, installs a small set of IRAF commands in UNIX, and so on.

To make a trial run of the install script, enter the following commands:

% setenv iraf /path/iraf/
% cd $iraf/unix/hlib
% source irafuser.csh
% ./install -n

and answer the questions (don't forget the trailing `/' in the "setenv iraf"). The "-n" argument tells install to go through the motions without actually doing anything, so that one can see what will be done before committing to it.

Installing IRAF requires a few changes to be made to system directories outside the IRAF directory tree. Two fifo device entries are made in /dev. A symbolic link "iraf.h" is created in /usr/include. A number of links (cl, mkiraf, etc.) are made in /usr/local/bin or some similar directory which most users can be expected to have in their search path. The tape allocation task alloc.e is made suid root (there are no known security loopholes, although we cannot make any guarantees). A symbolic link imtoolrc is created in /usr/local/lib.

Following one or more trial "no execute" ("-n") runs to see what the install script will do, the install script should be run without the "-n" to complete the installation. This must be done by the superuser as superuser permission is required to carry out the necessary additions to UNIX.

It is necessary to run the install script separately on each node from which IRAF will be used. If a single version of IRAF is installed on a server and NFS mounted on one or more clients, the install script must be run first on the server and then on each client (when installing on a client there will be warnings about insufficient permission to make changes to files on the NFS mounted partitions, which can be ignored). To install IRAF on a diskless client it may be necessary to run the install script on the server to do the install for the client, since the client's /usr/include and /dev directories may only be writable by root on the server. On some systems /usr is mounted read-only, and must be unmounted and remounted read-write before doing the installation to allow an entry to be made in /usr/include. Once the installation is complete the default mount access mode may be restored.

The exchange with the install script will be along the lines of the following.

% ./install -n
new iraf root directory (/iraf/iraf):
default root image storage directory (/d0/iraf):
local unix commands directory (/usr/local/bin):
install iraf for machine type irix
old iraf root = /usr/iraf, old imdir = /d0/iraf
installing iraf at /iraf/iraf, imdir=/d0/iraf, lbindir=/usr/local/bin
proceed with installation? (yes):

The "iraf root directory" is the value of $iraf (minus the trailing `/'in this case). The "root image storage directory" is the default place to put image data for users; the program may prompt with /tmp if it cannot find any likely looking data storage areas on your system, but /tmp is not a good place to put image data as the contents are deleted whenever the system reboots. The value entered should be the path to a public iraf subdirectory of a designated data or scratch disk on your system. Lastly, the "local unix command directory" is where the UNIX callable IRAF startup commands will be defined. This should be a UNIX directory which is in the default path of anyone who might want to use IRAF; /usr/local/bin is the most common value.

After answering with "yes" or hitting return in response to the "proceed with installation" query, the script will issue a series of messages as it checks the system and performs the installation, possibly answering additional questions in the process.