==== Ingesting external data via Nbspinsert ====

**nbspinsert** is a comand-line utility (tcl script) that can be used
to //insert// an external data file in the Nbsp data stream, so that
Nbsp will pass it to the filters and server as if it had been received
from the noaaport receiver. This file outlines the instructions.

== Setup ==

1) Enable ingest from the //fifo//

In the file
   
** site/nbspd.conf **

put one of the lines below

<code>
set feedmode 4;    # fifo alone (4)
set feedmode 5;    # fifo and noaaport (4 + 1)
set feedmode 6;    # fifo and network slave (4 + 2)
</code>

2) Make the user that will execute the //nbspinsert// script
a member of the group //noaaport// (so that he can write
to the nbspd input fifo)

3) Be sure that the group of the directory

** /var/noaaport/nbsp/spool **

is the group //noaaport//, and make it writable by that group:

<code>
cd /var/noaaport/nbsp
chmod 775 spool
</code>

== Usage ==

**nbspinsert** can be used in thee ways:

<code>
nbspinsert -i [-f nbspinfifo] finfo < file
nbspinsert [-f nbspinfifo] finfo
nbspinsert [-f nbspinfifo] < file_with_finfolist
</code>

If %%[-f]%% is not given to specify the location of the //nbspd.infifo// file,
then the nbsp configuration files are read. So unless the location of
the fifo has changed from the default, that option does not have to be
used. The //finfo// stands for //file info// and it consists of the following
seven parts:

<code>
seq type cat code npchidx fname fpath
</code>

The first five are numbers and for most practical purposes
can be set to just zero. The other two (fname and fpath) are
related to the file name with the conventions used by Nbsp.
Specifically, fpath is the full path and fname is the //rootnaname//
of the tail (the file name without the extension).
To give an example, consider the following file saved in the spool
directory by Nbsp. The fpath is

<code>
/var/noaaport/nbsp/spool/tjsj/tjsj_sdus32-nvwjua.110106_17763746
</code>

and the fname is

<code>
tjsj_sdus32-nvwjua
</code>

Notice that the //fname// has three parts

<code>
<stationid>_<wmoid>-<awipsid>
</code>

The files that will be inserted must adhere to this naming convention.
Thus, for example, using the first form of invoking nbspinsert above,
would be

<code>
nbspinsert 0 0 0 0 0 \
	   tjsj_sdus32-nvwjua \
	   /var/noaaport/nbsp/spool/tjsj/tjsj_sdus32-nvwjua.110106_17763746
	   < your_data_file
</code>

where //your_data_file// is the (full) path of the file that contains
the actual data that wil be inserted.

In that first form of invoking //nbspinsert//, it will save the data in the
specified fpath, and then process the file. In the second form,
it assumes that the data has already been saved in the given fpath.
The third form is like the second one, but it takes a list of finfo
on stdin (like a filter does). In all cases, the fpath should be a
//spool file// path, that is, a path to a file in the spool directory with
the usual convention used by Nbsp.

== Maintenance - Spool cleanup ==

Since the files inserted by this means are saved in the spool directory
by the caller of this script, or by this script itself,
they do pass through the Nbsp reader and therefore they are not inserted
in the spooldb that handles the deletion of the spooled files.
Therefore the files that are inserted by this script must be
deleted from the spool by the caller of this script, or by the cleanup
scheduler. The latter is set automaticaly by the default hourly-cleanup.conf,
but the files written by this script must be writable by the
nbsp user (noaaport:noaaport) so that they can be deleted by the
default cleanup process. One way to achieve this is to
set the umask to 002 before the nbspinsert script is called, and set
the group under which nbspinsert is executed as one of the auxiliary groups
of nbspd. (See [[http://www.noaaport.net/files/nbsp-readmes/craftinsert.README|
craftinsert.README]] for an example of specific instructions
with ldm and //craftinsert//.)