Installing IRAF 2.16
The newest version of IRAF is much easier to install than older versions. The following steps have been tested on Fedora 18 64-bit, but should work for older Fedora/RHEL (+ clones) installations.
First, we need to install some required packages. Switch to the root user for all steps below. As root:
yum install tcsh ncurses ds9 xpa
We'll be using IRAF with xgterm, so we need to
install a required library: libXmu.so.6. For Fedora 18,
this is provided in the libXmu-1.1.1-2.fc18.i686
package. Use yum whatprovides libXmu.so.6 to get the
correct package for your system. Go ahead and install that with yum:
yum install libXmu-1.1.1-2.fc18.i686
Now, we can go ahead and install IRAF. Then, make the required directories for IRAF:
mkdir -p /home/iraf/iraf/local
Link the directories to the /iraf directory.
ln -s /home/iraf /iraf
Add the IRAF user (not sure if this step is even required any more, but just in case):
useradd -c "IRAF login" -d /iraf/iraf/local -m -s /bin/csh -u 1001 iraf
Change the ownership on the /iraf directory so IRAF
can use it:
chown -R iraf:iraf /iraf
Download the IRAF 2.16 tarball and extract it in
the /iraf/iraf directory:
wget ftp://iraf.noao.edu/iraf/v216/PCIX/iraf.lnux.x86_64.tar.gz tar xvfz iraf.lnux.x86_64.tar.gz
Set the required environmental variable, and run the IRAF install script (most of the questions should be straightforward; say no to IRAF networking, and tape driver installs since no one uses that stuff any more):
export iraf='/iraf/iraf/' $iraf/unix/hlib/install
In the /iraf/iraf/ directory, make a directory
for x11iraf, then download the x11iraf tarball
there:
mkdir /iraf/iraf/x11iraf cd /iraf/iraf/x11iraf wget http://iraf.noao.edu/x11iraf/x11iraf-v2.0BETA-bin.redhat.tar.gz tar xvfz x11iraf-v2.0BETA-bin.redhat.tar.gz
Make the required app-defaults directory
for x11iraf:
mkdir /usr/lib64/X11/app-defaults
Now run the x11iraf installation script:
./install
Finally, we're going to use the new package repositories feature of IRAF 2.16 to install some useful external IRAF packages, such as rvsao, guiapps, and stsdas. To do this:
cd /iraf/iraf/extern ./config (and then wait a bit while it gets the repo info) ls (to list available packages when the config script is done) make rvsao stsdas guiapps
And now, we can test out our new IRAF installation. Switch back to a normal user and then:
mkiraf (in your home directory -> creates a login.cl file) --> choose xgterm as the terminal type ds9 & --> starts DS9 and sets up the XPA connection that IRAF will use xgterm & --> starts up xgterm which enables IRAF to show its graphics output --> in xgterm: cl --> starts up IRAF
For post-install configuration, jump to Configuring IRAF below.
Useful references
- Mohammad Akhlagi's excellent guide to IRAF installation on Fedora/RHEL/clone systems
- The IRAF README for v2.16
- The IRAF homepage
Older information for IRAF 2.14
Note that this section might be outdated. I last tested these instructions on a Fedora 15 64-bit machine with IRAF 2.14, and they worked.
The following steps are to be carried out while logged as the superuser. Much of this is discussed in detail at http://gabriel-ip.blogspot.com and http://gracca.wordpress.com/how-to-install-iraf/. These steps could probably also be easily turned into a shell-script to automate installation.
1. su - 2. yum install tcsh ncurses ds9 xpa 3. mkdir /home/iraf 4. mkdir /home/iraf/iraf 5. mkdir /home/iraf/iraf/local 6. mkdir /home/iraf/irafbin 7. mkdir /home/iraf/irafbin/bin.redhat 8. mkdir /home/iraf/irafbin/noao.bin.redhat 9. mkdir /home/iraf/source 10. mkdir /home/iraf/extern 11. ln -s /home/iraf /iraf 12. useradd -c "IRAF system login" -d /iraf/iraf/local -m -s /bin/csh -u 1001 iraf 13. cd / 14. chown -R iraf iraf/ 15. chgrp -R iraf iraf/ 16. su iraf 17. cd /iraf/source 18. wget http://iraf.noao.edu/iraf/ftp/iraf/v214/PCIX/as.pcix.gen.gz 19. wget http://iraf.noao.edu/iraf/ftp/iraf/v214/PCIX/ib.rhux.x86.gz 20. wget http://iraf.noao.edu/iraf/ftp/iraf/v214/PCIX/nb.rhux.x86.gz 21. setenv iraf /iraf/iraf 22. cd $iraf 23. tar xvfz /iraf/source/as.pcix.gen.gz 24. cd $iraf/bin.redhat 25. tar xvfz /iraf/source/ib.rhux.x86.gz 26. cd $iraf/noao/bin.redhat 27. tar xvfz /iraf/source/nb.rhux.x86.gz 28. cd $iraf/unix/hlib 29. source irafuser.csh 30. su 31. ./install 32. exit 33. cd 34. source .login 35. rehash 36. cd /home/iraf/irafbin/bin.redhat 37. wget http://iraf.net/ftp/pub/fitz/ecl.e 38. mv ecl.e ecl.e.old 39. mv ecl.e.1 ecl.e 40. chmod +x ecl.e 41. su 42. mkdir /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults 43. mkdir /usr/local/src/x11iraf 44. cd /usr/local/src/x11iraf 45. wget http://iraf.net/ftp/iraf/x11iraf/x11iraf-v1.5DEV-bin.redhat.tar.gz 46. tar xvfz x11iraf-v1.5DEV-bin.redhat.tar.gz 47. ./install 48. exit 49. change to normal user 50. mkiraf 51. xgterm & 52. ds9 & 53. cl
Configuring IRAF
You will probably want to set up the login.cl file so
that the default image format is FITS, and change the width of the FITS
viewer to a more comfortable size. Find the following section in
login.cl:
# Uncomment and edit to change the defaults #set editor = vi #set printer = lp #set pspage = "letter" #set stdimage = imt800 #set stdimcur = stdimage #set stdplot = lw #set clobber = no #set filewait = yes #set cmbuflen = 512000 #set min_lenuserarea = 64000 #set imtype = "imh" set imextn = "oif:imh fxf:fits,fit fxb:fxb plf:pl qpf:qp stf:hhh,??h"
Edit these lines and set as below:
set stdimage = imt2048 set imtype = "fits"
