The NCAR Mass Storage Service (MSS) is a collection of hardware and software dedicated to providing archival storage services adequate for handling vast quantities of data. This page briefly describes the various ways you can use to interact with the MSS, and where you can find detailed documentation.
The authoritative documentation for the MSS can be found at these links:
By default, the DCS executables are installed in /usr/local/dcs-4.0/bin. Your system administrator may have also made links in another directory, such as /usr/local/bin. The DCS man pages are installed in /usr/local/dcs-4.0/man. Your system administrator may have also made links in another directory, such as /usr/local/man.
You can use one of these methods to copy files between your local system and the MSS. NOTE: The msread and mswrite commands have been depreciated and will be removed at some time in the future. Use the DCS 4.0 msrcp command instead.
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
| msrcp | Copy files between your system and the MSS. Also has options to help synchronization of MSS and local directories. |
| An FTP Client | Copy files between your system and the MSS. For those systems that either do not or can not run the DCS Client software. |
| msread | (Depreciated) Copy an MSS file to a local file. |
| mswrite | (Depreciated) Copy a local file to the MSS. |
Use the msmv command.
These commands let you retrieve information about MSS files and directories.
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
| msallinfo | Display MSS object information (formats the output of msrawinfo). |
| msdu | Display MSS usage information. |
| msfind | Find MSS files and apply DCS commands to them. |
| msls | Display MSS file and directory information. |
| msrawinfo | Return raw MSS object information to be parsed by a script. |
MSS files have associated metadata attributes. These commands let you change them.
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
| mschproj | Change an MSS file's charging project number. |
| mscomment | Change an MSS file's comment. |
| msclass | Change an MSS file's class of service. |
| msfind | Find MSS files and apply DCS commands to them. |
| mspasswd | Change an MSS file's read and/or write passwords. |
MSS files are retained for a limited amount of time (set by each file's retention period), after which they will be scheduled for deletion. See the MSS File Life Cycles section of the DCS 4.0 User Reference for details.
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
| msfind | Find MSS files and apply DCS commands to them. |
| msrecover | Recover MSS files from the MSS trash. |
| msretention | Set the retention period for MSS files. |
| msrm | Remove MSS files (places them into the MSS trash). |
| mstouch | Update the last reference time for MSS files. |
The following DCS commands, in conjunction with your local shell interpreter, provide a way to keep track of an MSS working directory. Unlike the other DCS commands, you must first run some setup commands on your local system. See the mscdsetup documentation for details.
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
| mscd | Change the current MSS working directory. |
| mscdsetup | Auxiliary command to allow use of mscd and mspwd. |
| mspwd | Display the current MSS working directory. |
You can find information about and manage queued and active DCS requests.
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
| dcsjlog | Return summary information about DCS requests. |
| dcsq | Display DCS queue contents. |
| dcsrm | Remove or cancel DCS requests. |
| dcswait | Wait for a DCS request to finish. |
You can call the POSIX system library routine with a DCS command line if you want, or you can use the DCS 4.0 callable interface library. See the Files section of the appropriate reference documentation for how to use this library.
| Language | Description |
|---|---|
| C, C++ | Use the DCS 4.0 C/C++ Library. |
| Fortran 90/95 | Use the DCS 4.0 Fortran Library. |