Expanding GRASS - Questions - no. 2

[Andrea Giacomelli]

> realise that GRASS was designed to be used a research tool rather than a
> corporate GIS like Arc/Info, however I was wondering if and how anybody has
> compiled GRASS to run over a network where you can:
>         - Have multiple users using the same GRASS binaries?
>         - Have a user running multiple GRASS sessions at the same time and on
> the same or different database?

...I sent this to the list, just over a year ago:

So,

The idea is that GRASS will run under only one single HOME,
so if you define for different terminals you start it from a
different HOME, you can run multiple sessions, with two obvious
remarks:
1- careful about working on the same location from two sessions!
2- other programs looking at the value for HOME may get into
trouble.

I have not experienced any problems or conflicts to date, but
anything can happen...

However, I still think this thing is useful. My big nuisance is having
to check the results of some rectification: you have to quit, enter,
quit and enter all day long. This way, it works out much smoother.

I made up a very simple script; obviously you can figure out anything
more (or less) automated.
Having a directory ~/.gsessions with one subdirectory for each possible
session (I made s1 s2 and s3), I made linked copies of ~/.grassrc and
~/.grass.cshrc in each of these subdirs.
This way I start GRASS from something like this:

----------------------------------
#
if($#argv == 0) then
echo "Usage: G [1|2|3]"
echo "Where 1,2 or 3 is the session number"
exit -1
endif

setenv HOME ~/.gsessions/s$argv[1]
grass4.1
------------------------------

Enjoy, and let me know how you get along


>         - Allow multiple users to access the same database at the same time
> (though with read / write options controlled by the system administrator)?
>