VIRTUAL EARTH

 Version 1.0.1

Introduction

VIRTUAL EARTH (VE) is an interactive web application to learn how the Earth's interior works. It belongs to modern class of web applications based on Open Source software: Perl, Apache web server with mod_perl and the relational MySQL database. VE also uses Generic Mapping Tool (GMT) and ImageMagick package for plotting purposes.

Currently, VE only supports the module to model thermal mantle convection with a popular thermal convection code citcom.

It may takes ~1 hour to install VE, depending how your system is setup and how familiar you are with the system. If you have a system administrator, then it should be relatively easy for him or her to install VE.

1. Hardware requirements.

We suggest that you install VE on a machine that is not heavily used for research activities. You may also take into consideration of the following factors:
Traffic level
 This is an issue, if you want to let others to access your VE site. Try to avoid community sites that are busy with frequent visitings.
CPU
 >1.2 GHz. This makes web server and citcom simulations more responsive.
Memory
 >256 Mbytes. Depending on the size of each citcom simulation and the number of the simulations running at the same time, the simulations may take quite some memory.
Disk space
 VE package itself only needs 7 Mbytes at the moment. But because the VE simulations by users store output files and pictures on the hard disk, the disk space that VE needs is really variable.

2. Operation system

It is recommended that you install VE on a computer running Linux (e.g., Redhat Linux 7.2 or higher), because VE application is built on its Open Source tools. Other Unix systems may also work with VE, if the necessary software packages are installed properly. Currently, VE has been tested under Linux/Redhat 7.2/7.3/9.0.

3. Tools required for VE application

To install the VE, your computer needs to have the following tools/packages properly installed and configured (more on this topic in section 4):
It should be pointed out that except the GMT, all the other packages or tools come with standard Redhat Linux distribution and you do not need to take extra steps to acquire them (depending on how your original Linux is installed, you may need to add these packages).

4. Download and install VE on your computer

If you feel comfortable with what you have read so far, you can download the VE by clicking this site. Attention!!!

Before you unpack the VE, be sure that you log into your computer as root. Then follow the following steps :

 1
 Unpack and untar under root permission VE-0.1.1.tar.gz package:

> gunzip -c VE-0.1.1.tar.gz | tar xvf -
> cd VE-0.1.1

Read README file in the directory VE-0.1.1.
 2

 Go to the directory src/citcom containing citcom program source code, Compile and install citcom source code:

> cd src/citcom
> make
> make install

 3
 Now let us take a look at whether your computer has properly installed the packages/tools GMT, MySQL, ImageMagick, Perl, and Apache server. You will also need to collect the information for paths to these packages/ tools and include the information in configuration file VE-0.1.1/conf/ve.conf. Go to  VE tools page for more information. This is a critical step that may also be the more time consuming step. But once you are done with this step, the rest is trivial.
 4

Double check the configuration file VE-0.1.1/conf/ve.conf for paths to different packages/tools. Presumably, after step 3, this configuration file is already updated.
 5 Return to the VE-0.1.1 directory and install static and dynamic parts of the VE application:

..> cd ..
..> ./install

Look carefully for incoming messages.
6 Installation completed. Test installation with browser command: http://host_name/VE/