IRAF

Esta página está dedicada a los astrónomos que, como yo, usamos el programa IRAF para reducción y análisis de imágenes astronómicas. Es por eso que la guía de instalación de IRAF está en inglés, para ser compartida por toda la comunidad astronómica.

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Here I describe the different steps I made to install IRAF V2.14.1 in Fedora 9, 10 and 11. The user prompt is denoted by $ and the root prompt by #.

The installation requires the C shell csh. If it isn’t in your Fedora, please install it this way:

$ sudo yum install tcsh

or

$ su -c "yum install tcsh"

A – Installing IRAF

Download the packages for a RedHat/Fedora system from http://iraf.noao.edu, which are:

• as.pcix.gen.gz (26 Mb)
• ib.rhux.x86.gz (13 Mb)
• nb.rhux.x86.gz (16 Mb)

Create the directory tree structure:

$ su
# mkdir /home/iraf
# mkdir /home/iraf/iraf
# mkdir /home/iraf/iraf/local
# mkdir /home/iraf/irafbin
# mkdir /home/iraf/irafbin/bin.redhat
# mkdir /home/iraf/irafbin/noao.bin.redhat
# mkdir /home/iraf/source
# mkdir /home/iraf/extern

Make a symbolic link:

# ln -s /home/iraf /iraf

Create the IRAF user:

# /usr/sbin/useradd -c "IRAF system login" -d /iraf/iraf/local -m -s /bin/csh -u 501 iraf

Change owner and group recursively:

# cd /
# chown -R iraf iraf/
# chgrp -R iraf iraf/

Change to IRAF user:

# su iraf

Put the downloaded packages here:

$ cd /iraf/source

Unpack the downloaded files:

$ setenv iraf /iraf/iraf
$ cd $iraf
$ cat /iraf/source/as.pcix.gen.gz | zcat | tar -xpf -
$ cd $iraf/bin.redhat
$ cat /iraf/source/ib.rhux.x86.gz | zcat | tar -xpf -
$ cd $iraf/noao/bin.redhat
$ cat /iraf/source/nb.rhux.x86.gz | zcat | tar -xpf -

Run the install script (hit <Enter> to each question):

$ cd $iraf/unix/hlib
$ source irafuser.csh
$ su
# ./install
# exit

(click here to download a sample output from the install script).

And to complete the installation:

$ cd
$ source .login
$ rehash

You can verify if cl runs successfully (exit with log):

$ cl

Note: If you get the following error while trying to run cl

/iraf/iraf/bin.redhat/ecl.e: error while loading shared libraries: libtermcap.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

this can be solved in one of the following ways.  The easiest way is to get the statically linked binary from http://iraf.net/ftp/pub/fitz/ecl.e and install it in /home/iraf/irafbin/bin.redhat. For more informations about this workaround, please see my post in iraf.net.

The other workaround I found is to install libtermcap2. Please download the package from this URL:

ftp://ftp.pbone.net/mirror/ftp.rpmhelp.net/pub/releases/1.0-CURRENT/i586/RPMS/libtermcap2-2.0.8-36sls.i586.rpm

and then install it this way:

$ sudo yum localinstall --nogpgcheck libtermcap2-2.0.8-36sls.i586.rpm

or

# su -c "yum localinstall --nogpgcheck libtermcap2-2.0.8-36sls.i586.rpm"

B – Installing X11IRAF

Download the following version of x11iraf from the  site http://iraf.net/ftp/iraf/x11iraf/:

• x11iraf-v1.5DEV-bin.redhat.tar.gz (2.4 Mb)

or you can use the beta release of the new version 2.0 available here:

• x11iraf-v2.0BETA-bin.redhat.tar.gz (2.6 Mb)

where XImtool has support for 24-bit displays (see the release notes here).

Open a terminal and type:

$ su
# mkdir /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults
# mkdir /usr/local/src/x11iraf

Put the downloaded package here:

# cd /usr/local/src/x11iraf

Unpack the downloaded package and install:

# tar -xzf x11iraf-v1.5DEV-bin.redhat.tar.gz
# ./install

(click here to download a sample output from the install script).

Good luck and please send any feedback if you experienced some problems during the installation!