• What does RTS2 stands for? What is its history? And future?
• Does it run? Where?
• Can I use it?
• How do I start it/restart it/stop the beast to allow me do some work on telescope?
• I cannot access database. What is wrong?
• I would like to run GRBD on host which gets hole in firewall and can accept GCN connections.

It stands for Remote Telescope System 2. As name suggest, there was Remote Telescope System, which was later renamed to RTS1. It was writen in Python, which was discovered as pretty stupid idea, as project at the Mathematical and Physical Faculty of Prague Charles Univerzity for telescope BART.

RTS2 was firstly written in pure C as my diploma thesis. After I finish degree, it was (almost completly) rewritten to C++. Rewrites enabled me to realize ideas I gather during writing C code - primary objectiv was selector and executor separation, but there were more issues (memory leaks...).

The main author (Petr Kubanek) is currently working on network extension, so the RTS2 telescopes will collaborate on new discoveries. Please write him for details (there is a paper presented in Astronomische Nachrichten on the issue, but most probably you will have to pay for it - I can send you personal copy for free).

Yes, currently it runs on those telescopes:

• BART - Ondrejov, Czech Republic
• BOOTES - Two telescopes in Huelva station, Spain, one (Bootes IR) on OSN, Bootes 2 near Malaga, Spain
• FRAM - monitoring telescope at Argentina, build by Physical Institute of the Czech Republic
• Watcher - Boyden observatory, South Africa
• BNL, NY, LSST(.org) testing lab - used as master controller for CCD tests (without telescope).
• D50 - new Ondrejov 50cm

And future plans: 1 x RT in Spain (Astrobiology), 1.23m at CAHA, new Bootes system at New Zealand. Plus there is plan to finally make from it a network - work in progress.

Yes, you can use the software, as long as you agree with it's licence (GNU licence - see COPYING).

To start RTS2 - as root issue:

That in my case leads to:

To stop it:

To restart it:

Most probably you are getting somethink like:

This means that user does not have rights to connect to the database. You must create user with

followed by adding user to "observers" group:

Please note that you have to run all the commands as database superuser. Please consult PostgreSQL manual for details.

For that to work, you need to establish RTS2 connection between GRBD on machine which can accept GCN connections (let's call it GRBH), and RTS2 master server (let's call it CS).

Starting on CS, you will need:

• Make sure that postgresql database is accessible to user from GRBH. Insert to /etc/postgresql/{version}/main/pg_hba.conf following line:

  host all all {GRBH IP}/32 md5

• Insert to /etc/postgresql/{version}/main/postgresql.conf following line:

  listen_addresses = '*' # or only GRBH IP

• Create user account in database, set password for the account

  stars=# create user grb;
  CREATE ROLE
  stars=# alter user grb password 'grbgrb';
  ALTER ROLE
  stars=# alter group observers add user grb;
  ALTER ROLE
  

• Restart Postgresql database (and RTS2 services which depends on database - executor, ..)

Then on GRBH, you will need to:

• Make sure that you can connect to port 5432 on CS - if telnet CS 5432 works, it should work
• Create /etc/rts2 directory, copy and edit rts2.ini, create services and centrald
• /etc/rts2/rts2.ini must specify for database:

  [database]
  name = stars@{CS name}
  username = grb
  password = grbgrb
  

• Install rts2.initd script to /etc/init.d
• Make sure /etc/rts2/centrald contains reference to correct central server

  --server {CS IP/name}

• Start RTS2, it should show in monitor on CS.