VERDI Installation Instructions

August 27, 2025 · View on GitHub

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VERDI Installation Instructions

This chapter provides instructions for installing VERDI 2.2 on a variety of computer platforms. The supporting libraries required by VERDI are included in the installation, along with a version of the OpenJDK for your convenience.

VERDI 2.2 is distributed as a zip or gzip file, as appropriate, for each of the following supported platforms:

  • 64-bit Windows 11

  • 64-bit Linux

  • Mac

If you have a different computer system, select the distribution for a computer system as close to yours as possible and proceed with the installation. Although Java is considered a write-once, run-anywhere computer language, that is not necessarily true for graphical software. Therefore, an appropriate version of some graphics libraries is included in each of the above VERDI distributions.

Installation Instructions for Linux and Mac

Follow these instructions to install VERDI:

  1. tar -xvf VERDI_2.2_<linux,mac>_.tar.gz into a location where you would like to install VERDI

  2. The run script for Linux is: verdi_2.2/verdi.sh The run script for Mac is: verdi_2.2/verdi.command

  3. Create a directory verdi under your home directory.

  4. Create an empty text file, name it verdi.alias and save it in your verdi directory. When you look at the directory listing for this verdi directory, you should see the verdi.alias file with a length of 0.

  5. Locate the file config.properties.TEMPLATE that is in your installation directory. Copy config.properties.TEMPLATE to your verdi directory and rename that file config.properties only.

  6. Add the path to the verdi run script to your .cshrc or .bash_profile so that the verdi.sh script can be found from any directory

    example .cshrc set path = ($path /proj/ie/proj/CMAS/VERDI/VERDI_2.2)

  7. Alternatively, use alias to point to full path to verdi.sh

    alias verdi.sh /proj/ie/proj/CMAS/VERDI/VERDI_2.2/verdi.sh

    VERDI should now run if you execute the verdi.sh executable script on linux, or executing the verdi.command script on mac.

Installation Instructions for Windows

To install VERDI for Windows, unzip the file to a local directory on your Windows 11 computer. NOTE: You do not need to install VERDI under a Program Files directory or in the root directory on one of your hard disk drives. Therefore, you should not need Administrator rights to install VERDI 2.2. If your system is under strict control from your Administrator, you may be able to unzip the VERDI distribution under your home directory or your documents directory; however, you may have problems if there is a space in the path to your VERDI installation directory.

If you are unable to install VERDI on your computer, please check to see whether your user account is authorized to install software. You may need to request that a user with a computer administrator account install VERDI, or provide you with an account that has permission to install software. For more information about user account types, click Start and select Control Panel and then click on the User Account icon.

After successfully installing VERDI you may need to perform the following tasks under your home directory.

  1. Locate your home directory.

Your home directory is typically under csh C: //Users//yourloginid .

So, if your login id is staff, your home directory is probably C: //Users//staff.

  1. Create a new directory verdi under your home directory (e.g., C: //Users//staff//verdi).

  2. Create an empty text file, name it verdi.alias and save it in your verdi directory. When you look at the directory listing for this verdi directory, you should see the verdi.alias file with a length of 0.

  3. A text file named config.properties.TEMPLATE was installed into your VERDI installation directory. Copy config.properties.TEMPLATE to your verdi directory and rename that file config.properties only.

Note that VERDI writes a log file (i.e., verdi.log) as-needed to your verdi directory. This log file should remain small. However, if you need technical support we may ask for your log file. It will be a text file named verdi.log located in this verdi directory.

Setting VERDI Preferences

VERDI is configured via the config.properties file that you copied to your home/verdi directory. Edit this file to specify default directories for saving files, for placing the location of configuration files, and for saving project files. Contents of config.properties.TEMPLATE:

# This file should be put in $USER_HOME/verdi/ subdirectory
# Please use double backslash for Windows platform or slash for UNIX-like platforms
# Please uncomment the following lines and modify them to suit your local settings
# Windows example settings format
# verdi.project.home=C:// Users\\yourusername\\VERDI_2.2\\project
# verdi.config.home=C:// Users\\yourusername\\VERDI_2.2\\config
# Linux example settings format

verdi.project.home=../../data/project
verdi.config.home=../../data/configs
verdi.user.home=../../data/model
verdi.dataset.home=../../data/model
verdi.script.home=../../data/scripts

# file folder used as default location of HUC datasets for areal interpolation

verdi.hucData=../../data/hucRegion/

# For VERDI to access remote big netCDF data files

verdi.remote.hosts=terrae.nesc.epa.gov,vortex.rtpnc.epa.gov,garnet01.rtpnc.epa.gov
remote.file.util=/usr/local/bin/RemoteFileUtility
verdi.remote.ssh=/usr/bin/ssh

# on local machine where VERDI is running. 

Used to hold temporary data file downloaded from a remote machine

verdi.temporary.dir=C:\\ Users\username\temp

The items in the config.properties.TEMPLATE file that is installed with VERDI are commented out. To specify default directories, uncommented these lines by removing the starting ‘#’ sign. Example settings that are provided in the default file show how to specify the paths to these locations, depending on whether the installation is for a Windows or Linux platform. Here are how the settings are used by VERDI. Note that VERDI stores the most recently used directory for each of these functions and will go to that directory when you repeat the load or save in the same session.

  • verdi.project.home: Default location from which to load and save projects
  • verdi.config.home: Default location from which to load and save plot configuration files
  • verdi.dataset.home: Default location from which to load datasets
  • verdi.script.home: Default location from which to load and save batch scripts
  • verdi.hucData: Default location where area shapefiles are located; VERDI navigates to this directory when the user selects to add a dataset in the Area pane.
  • verdi.remote.hosts: Contains a list of machines that the user can select to browse when adding a remote dataset using VERDI’s Remote File Access capability
  • verdi.remote.util: Location of the RemoteFileUtility script for Linux and Mac installations of VERDI.

Starting in VERDI version 1.4, the ui.properties file was removed and the user-configurable settings, such as the default directory locations, were moved to the config.properties file.

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