[gradsusr] Problem accessing NCEP (NOMADS) GrADS-DODS server (from a web server)

[Joe Moore]

All,

I'm having a problem using the GrADS Data Server (GrADS-DODS) from NCEP
(NOMADS). I am using the sdfopen command to access the dataset (RTMA 2.5km).
When I run the script locally on my Ubuntu machine, everything works great!
However, when I transfered the script to my web host I get an error.

Here's the line from my script:
'sdfopen
http://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov:9090/dods/rtma2p5/rtma2p5'dapdate'/rtma2p5_anl_'currhr'z
'
(where dapdate=YYYYMMDD and currhr=HH - yes, I've double checked to make
sure the data exists.)

Here's the output:
...
Running in Batch mode
No hardcopy metafile open
All files closed; all defined objects released;
All GrADS attributes have been reinitialized
Error: nc_open failed to open file
http://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov:9090/dods/rtma2p5/rtma2p520110913/rtma2p5_anl_23z
NetCDF: I/O failure
gadsdf: Couldn't ingest SDF metadata.
...

I've tried searching the web and this (excellent) mailing list assistance
but I can't seem to figure out what's going wrong. I suspect it may have
something to do with my web host. (I use Bluehost- I know they're a somewhat
subpar host, but I'm just a student experimenting with different things!)

Here's what uname -a gives on my web server:
Linux box566.bluehost.com 2.6.32-46.1.BHsmp #1 SMP Tue Sep 6 12:18:02 MDT
2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

If there's other tests I can run to probe the issue, let me know. Also, is
this the best way to use the GrADS-DODS server? Should I just download the
grib2 locally instead?

I was planning to download the grib2 locally, but when I discovered the
GrADS-DODS server I found out that this might not be necessary. I plan to
run this script hourly, so please advise as to which method would be best.

Thanks a lot!

-Joe Moore

The script in question:
http://pastebin.com/MDQ9vk3y

My GrADS config on my web server:
Config: v2.0.a9.oga.1 little-endian readline printim grib2 netcdf hdf4-sds
hdf5 opendap-grids,stn athena geotiff shapefile
Grid Analysis and Display System (GrADS) Version 2.0.a9.oga.1
Copyright (c) 1988-2010 by Brian Doty and the
Institute for Global Environment and Society (IGES)
This program is distributed WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY
See file COPYRIGHT for more information.

Built Mon Oct  4 14:16:26 EDT 2010 for i686-pc-linux-gnu

This version of GrADS has been configured with the following options:
  o Built on a LITTLE ENDIAN machine
  o Athena Widget GUI ENABLED
  o Command line editing ENABLED
      http://tiswww.case.edu/php/chet/readline/rltop.html
  o printim command for image output ENABLED
      http://www.zlib.net
      http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/libpng.html
      http://www.libgd.org/Main_Page
  o GRIB2 interface ENABLED
      http://www.ijg.org
      http://www.ece.uvic.ca/~mdadams/jasper
      http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/codes/GRIB2
      g2clib-1.1.8
  o NetCDF interface ENABLED
      http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf
      netcdf 4.1.1 of Jul 10 2010 23:36:25 $
  o OPeNDAP gridded data interface ENABLED
  o OPeNDAP station data interface ENABLED
      http://iges.org/grads/gadoc/supplibs.html
      libgadap 2.0.oga.1
  o HDF4 and HDF5 interfaces ENABLED
      http://hdfgroup.org
      HDF 4.2r3
      HDF5 1.8.4
  o GeoTIFF and KML/TIFF output ENABLED
      http://www.libtiff.org
      http://geotiff.osgeo.org
  o KML contour output ENABLED
  o Shapefile interface ENABLED
      http://shapelib.maptools.org
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