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\section{Setting up the METAR weather block}
The documentation on the METAR weather block as well as the PEAR Services\_Weather module is not too extensive and user-friendly.

Here is how it works:

\subsection{Prerequisites: install Services\_Weather}
You install the PEAR Services\_Weather module as root from the command line:

\begin{verbatim}

pear install Services_Weather
\end{verbatim}

then you change to your pear directory (usually \texttt{/usr/share/php}) and look for the \texttt{data/Services\_Weather} directory\newline
It contains a file \texttt{buildMetarDB.php}.

I assume you have the command line PHP interpreter installed and it's called "php" (some distributions call it "php5").

\begin{verbatim}

php buildMetarDB.php -a -u horde_db_user -p horde_db_pass -d horde_db
php buildMetarDB.php -l -u horde_db_user -p horde_db_pass -d horde_db
\end{verbatim}

If database is not on localhost, you might add options \texttt{-h <hostname>} and \texttt{-r tcp}.

Note: I haven't yet found a way to use the METAR block if you use another database than the horde database.\newline
The horde\_db\_user is often called "horde" and the horde\_db is also often called "horde". If I knew all your passwords, I wouldn't tell you ;)

Now login to horde, go to the portal, choose METAR block and click the edit button in the upper right of the block.\newline
The rest is self-explanatory click-and-play.

--Ralf Lang

\subsection{Error message: Services\_Weather: Sourcefile nsd\_cccc not found!}
While executing the above commands:\newline
\begin{verbatim}

php buildMetarDB.php -a -u horde_db_user -p horde_db_pass -d horde_db
php buildMetarDB.php -l -u horde_db_user -p horde_db_pass -d horde_db
\end{verbatim}

You may receive the error message:\newline
\begin{verbatim}

Services_Weather: Sourcefile nsd_cccc not found!
\end{verbatim}

The reason is that the file downloaded by \texttt{buildMetarDB.php} script is empty (0 byte file size) as of August,2 2010.\newline
Fortunately, there are alternate working links to this file on this page as TXT or ZIP format instead of the 0 file size GZIP one: http://weather.noaa.gov/tg/site.shtml\footnote{http://weather.noaa.gov/tg/site.shtml}

So, you should modify line 273 in \texttt{buildMetarDB.php} file from:\newline
\begin{verbatim}

if (extension_loaded("zlib")) { 
\end{verbatim}

\newline
to:\newline
\begin{verbatim}

if (extension_loaded("zlibXXXX")) { 
\end{verbatim}

This way the file will be downloaded as TXT format which is not empty, and you metar tables will be filled with appropriate data.

-- Mathieu RV

I found that the script appeared to just silently fail downloading the files. Creates the db structures fine, but doesn't populate them, even with the change noted by Mathieu. I then went to the NOAA site mentioned above, wget the files, and once they are in the directory where buildMetarDB.php is, the script then works fine.

-- Simon W.

Rather than editting the php file, you can specify the NOAA file to use directly. So,

php buildMetarDB.php -a -u horde\_db\_user -p horde\_db\_pass -d horde\_db -f "http://weather.noaa.gov/data/nsd\_cccc.txt\footnote{http://weather.noaa.gov/data/nsd\_cccc.txt}"\newline
php buildMetarDB.php -l -u horde\_db\_user -p horde\_db\_pass -d horde\_db -f "http://weather.noaa.gov/data/nsd\_bbsss.txt\footnote{http://weather.noaa.gov/data/nsd\_bbsss.txt}"

--- Mike H.

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