4. Avnsetup

4. Avnsetup
	Chapter 1. System Administration

avnsetup is a graphical user interface (GUI) which can be used to configure most features of AvnFPS. In most cases, the data displayed and modified in avnsetup are contained in the various files described in Section 2, “Configuring AvnFPS”.

avnsetup main GUI

This section describes tasks that can be accomplished with this program.

	Important
	The AvnFPS severs and, often, AvnWatch GUI are required to be restarted for changes made using the following setup GUIs, except the Trigger Editor, to take affect. The reason for this, is that the underlying files, Section 2, “Configuring AvnFPS”, are read once into memory on startup of the servers and AvnWatch.

4.1. Editing Monitoring Rules

From the avnsetup main GUI, select the Monitoring Rules button. The Monitoring Criteria Editor will be shown.

Monitoring Criteria Editor

The Monitoring Criteria Editor contains several pages, one for each monitored data source. Pages are selected via “recipe tabs” near the top of the menu. The labels on the tabs refer to the following data sources:

Rules for monitoring METARs (mtrs)
Rules for monitoring lightning observations (ltg)
Rules for monitoring lightning nowcasts (rltg)
Rules for monitoring Colaborative Convective Forecast Product (ccfp)
Rules for monitoring forecast grids (grids)
Rules for monitoring low level wind shear (llws)

Each page has an identical layout: the top part lists currently defined rules, the bottom part contains a list of all available methods and the area where you can view, modify, add or delete a rule.

AvnFPS supports site-specific monitoring rules as well as a set of default rules. When the rule editor is started, the default rules are loaded. This is indicated by XXXX in the Site Id entry field.

To load the default set of rules:

Enter the 'XXXX' into the box labeled Site Id.
Press Enter or select the Load button.

To load the specific rules for a site:

Enter the Station ID into the box labeled Site Id.
Press Enter or select the Load button.

To create a new set of site-specific rules:

Modify the rules using the instructions below.
Enter the applicable Station ID into the box labeled Site Id.
Select the Save button.

To remove site-specific rules:

Enter the Station ID into the box labeled Site Id.
Select the “recipe tab” for the data source for which you want to remove the rules.
Select the Delete button.

The lower half of the Monitoring Criteria Editor allows you to view and modify each of the monitoring rules. The current set of rules is listed by color and message in a selectable list. The Rule Editor at the bottom of the menu shows details of the rule that is currently selected. To the left to the Rule Editor is a list of Available Methods. These methods are software techniques that compare the current forecast to the latest values received from the data source. Each method has its own set of arguments that configure its behavior.

To view the details of an existing rule:

Select the rule from the list.

To modify an existing rule:

Select the rule from the list.
Use the Rule Editor to make the necessary changes. See Appendix B, Monitoring Rules for a description of editor options.
Select Replace.
Select Save to write changes to the configuration file.

To remove a rule:

Select the rule from the list.
Select Remove.
Select Save to write changes to the configuration file.

To add a new rule:

Select a method from the "Available Methods" list. Appendix B, Monitoring Rules provides detailed description. The Rule Editor will update with the appropriate fields. You can see method details by pointing the cursor to the respective button on the list.
Use the Rule Editor to modify arguments as needed. Entering Message is no longer neccessary, if left blank, AvnFPS will generate one.
Select Add.
Select Save to write changes to the configuration file.

4.2. Editing TAF Site Information

From the avnsetup main GUI, select the TAF SiteInfo button. The TAF Site Info Editor will be shown.

TAF Site Info Editor

The TAF Site Info Editor is an entry form for data specific for a particular TAF site. Most of the fields can be initialized from data residing in AWIPS files or from built-in values. You must enter data for all sites before creating a product definition (that is, a "collective").

Site Id	TAF site ID
TAF WMO	WMO header used to transmit forecast
TAF AFOS	PIL used during transmission
Taf Duration	Length, in hours, of the regularly issued TAF. Only acceptable value is 24 at this time.
Visibility	A comma separated list of visibilities (miles) defining categories used by the monitoring modules. Given the list 0 < V₁ < V₂ < ... < V_n, the category k consists of visibilities V such that V_k-1 <= V < V_k, k = 1,..., n+1 and V₀ = 0, V_n+1 = ∞.
Ceiling	A comma separated list of ceilings (feet) defining categories used by the monitoring modules. The categories are defined the same manner as above.
Radar Cutoff	A comma separated list of heights in meters defining lowest height to be used in computing LLWS using this radar. The length of the cutoff list must be equal to the number of radars listed in the 'Radar' text field below.
Profiler Cutoff	A comma separated list of heights in meters defining lowest height to be used in computing LLWS using this profiler. The length of list must be equal to the number of profilers listed in the 'Profiler' text field below.
Latitude	Site latitude, in degrees north
Longitude	Site latitude, in degrees east
Elevation	Site elevation, in meters
Runway(s)	A comma separated list of runway directions in degrees. Used to calculate cross and head wind components.
METAR	METAR site id associated with the TAF, most likely the same as TAF. If more than one site is needed, separate entries by a comma.
ETA	The closest site id found in NAM BUFR message associated with the TAF.
NGMMOS	The closest site id found in NGM MOS message associated with the TAF.
GFSMOS	The closest site id found in GFS MOS message associated with the TAF.
ETAMOS	The closest site id found in ETA MOS message associated with the TAF.
GFSLAMP	The closest site id found in GFSLAMP message associated with the TAF, usually the same as GFSMOS ID.
Radars	A comma separated list of radars associated with the TAF. Can be empty.
Profilers	A comma separated list of profilers associated with the TAF. Can be empty.

To create data for a new TAF site:

Enter the Station ID into the box labeled Site Id.
Select the Update button. Many of the fields will be filled in. The headers are read from AWIPS file afos2awips.txt. Latidude, longitude and elevation (in meters) come from metarStationInfo.txt. Other values are built-in defaults.
Modify displayed entries as needed. The METAR text field must be filled in, all others fields in the 'Alternate ids' are optional. A simple validation test is performed when you type. The program will not allow you to enter obviously incorrect values, incomplete values are indicated by a pink background.
Select the Save button.
Create templates as described in the next section.

To modify TAF site data:

Enter the Station ID into the box labeled Site Id.
Press the Load button.
Modify displayed entries as needed.
Select the Save button.

4.3. Editing TAF Site Templates

The bottom part of TAF Site Editor provides tools to create and edit template files that can be used to initialize forecasts. There is a separate template for each forecast issue time. This allows to enter issue specific phrases such as AMD NOT SKED AFT ....

To create TAF templates:

Enter the Station ID into the box labeled Site Id.
Select the Make button. This will create all four templates containing Station ID, issue and valid times. For example, a 06Z template for KPIT is:
KPIT DD0520Z DD0606 =

To modify TAF template:

Enter the Station ID into the box labeled Site Id.
Select issue time from Issue menu and press the Edit to invoke a text editor. Do not press the Make button, as this will overwrite your current templates.

4.4. Editing TAF Product Definition

From the avnsetup main GUI, select TAF Products button. TAF Product Configuration Editor will be shown.

TAF Product Configuration Editor

The existing products will be displayed in the alphabetical order, with the default (if defined) on the top of the list. The Idents window displays list of all TAF sites in the product.

To add a product:

Type the product name in the text window under the Products label and press Enter. An error message will be displayed that the product cannot be loaded, this is ok, as it's being created.
Enter Site ID in the window under the Idents label. Hit Enter after each site.
Enter PIL for work TAF in the window under the Work PIL label. This TAF product collective work product will be saved under this PIL in the text database.
When finished, press Save. A new product definition file will be created.
Press the Verify button to check whether all necessary files exist. Site info and templates must exist for all Site IDs listed in the product definition.

To modify an existing product:

Select the product on the Products list.
To add a new TAF site, type the ID in the window under the Idents label and hit Enter.
To delete a site, select it on the Idents list and press the Delete button.
Press Save to update product definition file.

To delete a product:

Select the product on the Products list.
Press Delete. A confirmation dialog will be displayed. Press OK, this will delete product definition file. TAF site files (info and templates) will not be removed.

To mark a product as the default:

Select the product on the Products list,
Press the Default. This will designate the selected product as default product.

4.5. Creating Triggers

AvnFPS obtains TAFs, collaborative convective forecast products (CCFPs), and METARs from AWIPS Text Database (fxatext). As new versions of these products arrive, the metarDecoder can "trigger" another application--usually a script--to run. AvnFPS uses this triggering feature to retrieve TAF, CCFP, and METAR products for monitoring as soon as they arrive in the database. The Trigger Editor manages the configuration of the textdb triggers needed to support AvnFPS. The current version creates trigger template, to be processed by AWIPS localization script and simultaneously updates the table watchwarn in fxatext database holding Postgres trigger scripts. So you do not have to run localization after creating the template file. However the file is still neccessary, as the localization process drops the watchwarn table and recreates it from templates.

To start the Trigger Editor, select Triggers button. The Trigger Editor will be displayed.

Trigger Editor

On startup, the Trigger Editor searches AvnFPS configuration files for all TAF and METAR sites routes that have been configured by your office. (These are files stored in the directories etc/tafs and etc/mtrs). The two columns: TAF and METAR list those sites. If there is a template file, etc/triggerTemplate, its entries are used to fill the corresponding PIL boxes. If the trigger template does not have an entry for an id, the relevant box will remain blank, with a pink background. Column CCFP should always have entries as shown above. Those text products are not site-specific.

To create AvnFPS triggers:

Press the Update button. The program will try to determine missing PILs for the TAFs from the file afos2awips.txt. METAR PILs are created by from corresponding TAF PILs by replacing TAF by MTR. The existing values will not be overwriten.
Correct the entries and fill in empty fields.
Press Make when finished. Empty (pink) entries will be skipped, if you have an invalid entry, an error message will be shown.

4.6. Using Text Editor

To edit remaining configuration files: forecasters, logging.cfg, server.cfg, gui.cfg, ids.cfg, flt_cat.cfg, grp_taf.cfg use the AvnFPS text editor. It is invoked by pressing Text Edit button. Here's a snapshot of the editor with the contents of the etc/forecasters file.

Setup Editor Dialog

Press Open, you will get a file selection dialog listing content of directory etc. In this dialog, select a file to edit, then press Open.

File Selection Dialog

Press Save button when finished. If you want to create a new file, simply type its contents in the text window, and then use Save As button to save to disk.

You can also use the text editor to edit X resource configuration file. However, we suggest that you only modify the system-wide file which is used as a initial selection when a forecaster modifies his own resources through the graphical editor available in AvnWatch. Proceed as above, and in the file selection dialog, select the app-resources folder, then the file X. You may edit files for individual forecasters (those with names X.N), however any comments you put there will be stripped by the graphical editor every time the forecaster modifies the resources from AvnWatch.

	Tip
	Font and color names may be cryptic. You may want to use the graphical editor in AvnWatch first to display color codes and available fonts.


3. Starting and Stopping AvnFPS		5. Configuring IFPS to send gridded data to AvnFPS