Running Sod

This section details how to get SOD to do interesting things after you've installed as described in the installation documentation.

Starting SOD

Solaris, MacOSX, Linux, etc

sod.sh -f examples/tutorial.xml

If you're on a Unix-like OS, use the sod.sh script in the bin directory. To run it, execute sod.sh with the arguments -f strategy_file . The -f option specifies the strategy file SOD uses to set up a run. Running the command sod.sh -f examples/tutorial.xml in the SOD installation directory runs the same tutorial strategy that the editor opens by default.

Windows

sod.bat -f examples\tutorial.xml

SOD runs are started with a .bat file in Windows. To execute it, open a command window and execute sod.bat with the arguments -f strategy_file . This will start SOD using the strategy file specified after the -f flag. The command sod.bat -f examples/tutorial.xml executed in the SOD installation directory runs the same tutorial strategy that the editor opens by default.

Figuring out what SOD is doing using HTML status

Both weed.xml and tutorial.xml in the SOD distribution generate HTML status pages, maps, and images of seismograms as they run. These can be used to monitor the work SOD is doing. The files are all put in the directory specified by the property Status Base Directory in the strategy file. The default is the directory status relative to wherever the SOD run is started. So, if you start a SOD run on tutorial.xml as described in the first section of this document, a status directory will be created inside of the SOD directory. This directory will contain loads of html files describing what SOD is doing. It is best to first visit status/index.html. It contains some basic information about the run (when it was started, how many waveforms have been processed, etc) and has links to all of the other pages SOD is generating. To find out more about what SOD is doing, follow those links and click on the icons to see what the data near them indicates.

Cleaning up after SOD

Generated files

SOD runs generate a ton of files, and if those files still exist for subsequent runs, it can cause problems. For example, the save seismogram to file waveform arm processor will not write over the files of a previous run. If it wants to write to a file that already exists, it'll just write that file but with an incrementing number appended to the end. So if similar SOD runs are executed in the same directory, they'll probably end up writing out files to the same place with bigger and bigger numbers appended to the end. These are less than desirable results. As such, you should either delete the data directories between subsequent runs or run SOD in different directories per run. tutorial.xml and weed.xml both generate SAC files and save them to the POND_II directory. So if you run one of these strategy files, then want to run it again with slightly different settings in the same directory, delete the POND_II directory before starting the run.

SOD's Database

SOD uses a database to store information about what events and networks it's gotten, the pairings of events and channels it has processed, and the results of various processes. If SOD suddenly stops due to events outside of its control (power outage, operating system reboot, 10.5 is on and SOD doesn't want to miss it) it can use this database to pick up where it left off and keep on truckin'. However, if you start SOD and its database is sitting there from a previous completed run, it'll just think it died unexpectedly and check its database to see what work remains. If the strategy file gets the same events and channels, SOD will declare all work finished and quit immediately. To remedy this, there is a property called Remove Database in both weed.xml and tutorial.xml that tells SOD to wipe its database before starting up. As long as this is set, SOD starts with a clean slate. However, if the unexpected has happened (nuclear holocaust, T-Rex attack, sale on attractive garnet tractors) and SOD is interrupted, unset this property so SOD will continue where it left off. You can unset it by either changing TRUE inside the removeDatabase tag to FALSE or unchecking the Remove Database option in the editor and saving the file.