Running CIAO 4.2

To use the CIAO software, you must first run a setup script. There are a few things to note about setting up the alias:

• These examples have CIAO installed in the directory /soft/ciao-4.2/. The location of the CIAO software on your system may be different.

• If you have more than one version of CIAO installed, you may wish to version the alias to distinguish between them.

The alias syntax depends on the shell (tcsh, csh, bash); see this FAQ for help in determining which shell you are using.

• csh/tcsh users should add the following to their $HOME/.cshrc file.

  alias ciao "source /soft/ciao-4.2/bin/ciao.csh"
  

• bash users should add the following to their $HOME/.bashrc file.

  alias ciao=". /soft/ciao-4.2/bin/ciao.bash"
  

• ksh users should add the following to their $HOME/.login file.

  alias ciao=". /soft/ciao-4.2/bin/ciao.ksh"
  

Then you can just type "ciao" to start the software:

unix% ciao
CIAO configuration is complete...
CIAO 4.2 Monday, November 30, 2009
  bindir      : /soft/ciao/bin

It is only necessary to do this once per terminal/window.

Restarting CIAO 4.2

The startup script will not allow you to restart CIAO in a session, instead reporting the following:

unix% ciao
ERROR: The current environment is configured for:
CIAO 4.2 Monday, November 30, 2009
  bindir      : /soft/ciao-4.2/bin
Please use the '-o' option to override the previous setup.

If you wish to restart CIAO, then you should either start CIAO in a different window or use the override option ("-o"):

unix% ciao -o
CIAO configuration is complete...
The CIAO setup for this window has changed from
CIAO 4.2 Monday, November 30, 2009
  bindir      : /soft/ciao-4.2/bin
To:
CIAO 4.2 Monday, November 30, 2009
  bindir      : /soft/ciao-4.2/bin

Switching between CIAO 3.4 and CIAO 4.2

Users have to be careful about switching between different version of CIAO because of differences in parameter files. As of CIAO 4.2, however, the local parameter file directory name is versioned, which makes it easier to run both CIAO 3.4 and CIAO 4.2 in separate terminal windows on the same machine. For example, assuming CIAO 3.4 is installed in /soft/ciao3.4 and CIAO 4.2 in /soft/ciao:

unix% alias oldciao 'source /soft/ciao3.4/bin/ciao.csh'
unix% oldciao
CIAO configuration is complete...
 CIAO version     :  CIAO 3.4 Sunday, November 19, 2006
 Proposal Toolkit version :  Cycle 9 Sunday, November 19, 2006
 bin dir          :  /soft/ciao3.4/bin

unix% echo $PFILES
/home/username/cxcds_param;/soft/ciao3.4/contrib/param:/soft/ciao3.4/param

unix% paccess dmgti
/home/username/cxcds_param/param/dmgti.par

and in a different window, using the suggested alias to start CIAO 4.2:

unix% ciao
CIAO configuration is complete...
CIAO 4.2 Monday, November 30, 2009
  bindir      : /soft/ciao/bin

unix% echo $PFILES
/home/username/cxcds_param4;/soft/ciao-4.2/contrib/param:/soft/ciao-4.2/param

unix% paccess dmgti
/home/egalle/cxcds_param4/dmgti.par

You can see that the information is being read from two separate parameter file locations.

CIAO and FTOOLS

Both CIAO and FTOOLS use parameter files to store parameter values for tools, and provide tools for manipulating these files (e.g. plist, pset, punlearn; they have the same name in both systems). The location of the parameter files is taken from the $PFILES environment variables for CIAO and FTOOLS.

We recommend that you start FTOOLS before CIAO. Here is an example of starting version 6.x of FTOOLS and CIAO 4.2:

unix% setenv HEADAS /soft/lheasoft/headas/x86_64-pc-linux; \
      source $HEADAS/headas-init.csh

unix% ciao
CIAO configuration is complete...
CIAO 4.2 Monday, November 30, 2009
  bindir      : /soft/ciao/bin

Change the HEADAS path to match your local installation. Note this syntax applies only to C Shell variants (csh, tcsh); for further details on starting FTOOLS, including other shells, refer to the Installing HEAsoft instructions.

The $PFILES variable has been set up to use both the CIAO and FTOOLS directories:

unix% echo $PFILES
/home/username/cxcds_param4:/home/username/pfiles;/soft/ciao-4.2/contrib/param:
/soft/ciao-4.2/param:/soft/lheasoft/headas/x86_64-pc-linux/syspfiles 

Caveat: Conflicts with Other Software Packages

There are some known conflicts between CIAO and other software or system libraries and tools. Be sure to read the "Other Software Packages" bug page for a list of these issues.