Installation & Run

Usage and publication policy

When using CARACal please be aware of and adhere to the CARACal publication policy.

Requirements

  • Python 3.5 or higher.
  • Container technology of your choice. It can be one of the following:

Manual installation

We strongly recommend and describe an installation using a Python3 virtual environment. Only try outside a virtual environment if you know what you are doing.

Choose the name of the virtual environment ${caracal-venv}. Then:

python3 -m venv ${caracal-venv}
# OR, if the command above does not work
#virtualenv -p python3 ${caracal-venv}

source ${caracal-venv}/bin/activate
pip install -U pip setuptools wheel

# CARACal stable release
pip install -U caracal
# OR CARACal developer version
#pip install -U git+https://github.com/ska-sa/caracal.git#egg=caracal

(Ignore any error messages concerning pyregion.)

In case you are not carrying out a fresh installation, remove earlier Stimela images with:

stimela clean -ac

If using Singularity, choose a pull folder ${singularity_pull_folder}, where the Singularity images are stored and define an environment variable by adding this in the rc file of your shell (e.g. .bashrc):

export SINGULARITY_PULLFOLDER=${WORKSPACE_ROOT}/singularity_images

and run:

stimela pull -s

If using Podman (currently not fully supported):

stimela pull -p

Installation with the caratekit.sh script

Download the installation script caratekit.sh . Choose the parent directory ${workspace} and the name of the CARACal directory ${caracal_dir}.

If using Docker:

caratekit.sh -ws ${workspace} -cr -di -ct ${caracal_dir} -rp install -f -kh

If using Singularity:

caratekit.sh -ws ${workspace} -cr -si -ct ${caracal_testdir} -rp install -f -kh

Run

If you installed CARACal manually, activate the virtual environment with:

source ${caracal-venv}/bin/activate

If you installed CARACal with the caratekit.sh script, activate the virtual environment with:

source ${workspace}/${caracal_dir}/caracal_venv/bin/activate

Run CARACal with:

caracal - c ${your-configuration-file}

For more detailed installation instructions, trouble-shooting tips and a full user manual please see caracal.readthedocs.io.

Known and new issues

We encourage users who experience problems installing or running CARACal to check for known issues or open a new issue at our GitHub issues page. When opening a new issue, please include your installation type (e.g., Docker, Singularity), software version (both CARACal and Stimela), CARACal configuration file, and CARACal log files.