Download and Install CALDB

CALDB is the HEASARC Calibration Database. It is a software required by HEASoft. Please make sure you have installed CALDB successfully.

You can download it on CALDB install Website.

Step 1

Download the setup files.
Because I use bash shell. I'll set the $CALDB environment variables by

export CALDB=/path/to/install/CALDB

It is the directory where CALDB will be installed. Then change the working directory to $CALDB and download the file.
caldb_setup_files.tar.Z

cd $CALDB
wget http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/FTP/caldb/software/tools/caldb_setup_files.tar.Z

The tar file is about 1 GB and may takes tens of minutes to download. After the download, unzip the file to directory $CALDB/software/tools.

mkdir software
mkdir software/tools && cd software/tools
tar -zxvf ../../caldb_setup_files.tar.Z

Step 2

Setup CALDB
Open the initialization file caldbinit.sh in an editor (vim for example). Edit the definition of the $CALDB environment variable to your CALDB directory like text below.

CALDB=/path/to/install/CALDB; export CALDB
CALDBCONFIG=$CALDB/software/tools/caldb.config; export CALDBCONFIG
CALDBALIAS=$CALDB/software/tools/alias_config.fits; export CALDBALIAS

Include this line in your .bashrc file.

source $CALDB/software/tools/caldbinit.sh

Step 3

Download Calibration Data from the HEASARC
Change the directory to $CALDB. For each <mission>/<instrument> combination, download the tar files listed on Caldb Supported Missions Website.
For this tutorial, we just need to download data of NuSTAR.

We should download both the Tar file and the time correction update.

Step 4

Untar each tar file you download.

cd $CALDB
tar -zxvf goodfiles_nustar_fpm_20220328.tar.gz
tar -zxvf goodfiles_nustar_fpm_clockcor_20220328.tar.gz
rm *.tar.Z

This will create the directory $CALDB/data/nustar/fpm.
Then you have built your Calibration Database. You can check the installation by the command.

caldbinfo INST nustar fpm

You will see the result below if you install successfully.