Notes about the gsiftp filetype

DEPENDENCIES: Globus toolkit (2.4.3 or higher) (GT) should be installed. There are two different ways to install GT:

1) goto the globus toolkit web page www.globus.org and follow the download and compilation instructions;

2) goto the Virtual Data Toolkit web page http://vdt.cs.wisc.edu/ and follow the instructions (STRONGLY SUGGESTED);

Once a globus client has been installed in your system with a specific flavour it is possible to compile and install the CFITSIO libraries. Specific configuration flags must be used:

1) -with-gsiftp[[=PATH]] Enable Globus Toolkit gsiftp protocol support PATH=GLOBUS_LOCATION i.e. the location of your globus installation

2) -with-gsiftp-flavour[[=PATH] defines the specific Globus flavour ex. gcc32

Both the flags must be used and it is mandatory to set both the PATH and the flavour.

USAGE: To access files on a gridftp server it is necessary to use a gsiftp prefix:

example: gsiftp://remote_server_fqhn/directory/filename

The gridftp driver uses a local buffer on a temporary file the file is located in the /tmp directory. If you have special permissions on /tmp or you do not have a /tmp directory, it is possible to force another location setting the GSIFTP_TMPFILE environment variable (ex. export GSIFTP_TMPFILE=/your/location/yourtmpfile).

Grid FTP supports multi channel transfer. By default a single channel transmission is available. However, it is possible to modify this behavior setting the GSIFTP_STREAMS environment variable (ex. export GSIFTP_STREAMS=8).