ivert setup — First-time setup

The ivert setup command prepares a machine for running IVERT. Run it once after installing.

ivert setup

It does two things:

1. Creates IVERT’s local data directories under ~/.ivert (the granule cache, the ICESat-2 database directory, and other working directories). Existing directories are left untouched.

2. Checks for NASA Earthdata Login credentials in your ~/.netrc file and offers to save them if they are not already present.

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Data directories

IVERT stores downloaded ICESat-2 photons, cached datum grids, and other working files under ~/.ivert by default. ivert setup creates these directories up front so they exist before the first download or validation. For each directory it reports whether it was created or already exists.

The directory locations are configurable via ivert options; ivert setup reads the current configuration, so it honors any custom paths you have set.

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NASA Earthdata credentials

Downloading ICESat-2 data from NSIDC requires a free NASA Earthdata Login account. IVERT (and its underlying tools) read these credentials from a machine urs.earthdata.nasa.gov entry in your ~/.netrc file.

• If credentials are already present, ivert setup reports:

  NASA Earthdata credentials are already set in your .netrc file.
  

• If they are not present, ivert setup offers to save them. If you answer yes, it prompts for your Earthdata username and password (the password is not echoed) and appends a new entry to ~/.netrc. Existing entries in the file are preserved, and the file’s permissions are set to owner-only (600).

You can run ivert setup again at any time; it will skip the credential prompt once valid credentials are in place.

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Example

# Prepare a new machine for IVERT
ivert setup