Periodic tasks involve mainly not letting the file system grow without bounds. The directories to keep an eye on are the spool and data directories. The distribution provides a sample script that is intended to be run hourly, and it will keep these directories from overfilling.
If the gempak filter is installed, the decoders write information on a set of log files as they process the data files. These log files must be rotated regularly for similar reasons. A sample file is provided which contains entries that are suitable for addition to the newsyslog.conf, in systems where newsyslog is the tool used to rotate the log files, and another sample file suitable as a configuration file for logrotate if that is the tool used.
Both of those tasks are run automatically within nbsp by a built-in scheduler and therefore it is not necessary to setup any particular cron jobs in the default configuration. The relevant configuration file is ``scheduler.conf'', which contains the default settings as well as several commented examples and explanations.
Two simple programs are included for monitoring the health of the system. nbspmon, which is actually implemented as a filter, must be run from a terminal window. It simply writes to the screen the name and file size of each file as it is received and saved by the system. The other program, nbspstate, which must also be run from a terminal, writes continuously to the screen the state of the various queues that the nbspd program uses. The queues should not grow indefinitely. If the nbststate tool indicates the contrary, then something is overcharging and slowing down the system beyond its capacity to keep up with the incoming data rate.
By access it is meant which machines can connect to the computer. The most natural setup would have the noaaport machine not exposed to external networks. But if that is not possible, the nbspd program is linked against the tcpwrappers library and can make full use of that library's mechanism for access control, via the /etc/hosts.allow file.
While the /etc/hosts.allow file controls what remote hosts can connect to the nbsp server, the netfilter controls what products each of those allowed hosts will receive. The distribution contains a sample ``netfilter.rc'' file with the instructions and examples of the syntax rules.
The rstfilter and the gribfilter have mechanisms for transfering to a remote location, such as uploading to a web site, the images that they produce. Both are based on writing the proper set of instructions (in tcl) in the appropriate files, which the filters execute after each image is created. The files ``rstpostfilter.README'' and the README file that accompanies the GrADS example scripts in "defaults/grads" in the nbsp configuration directory contain instructions and examples.