Islandora FITS

Introduction

A simple module to extend islandora solution pack install processes by adding technical metadata extraction via the File Information Tool Set (FITS).

Behind the scenes, the module tries to get as much metadata as possible from your file by running:

fits.sh -i infile -xc -o outfile

The -xc command can sometimes cause problems, so if that fails, the module tries:

fits.sh -i infile -x -o outfile

Should that fail, technical metadata extraction is aborted and the error is logged in the watchdog (see Troubleshooting the Enterprise Setup).

An error my be produced and logged in the apache error.log file even if TECHMD DS extraction is successfull, as the first attempt may fail and log an error while subsequent attempts may succeed.

The most common error printed out to the error.log file that is safe to ignore is as follows:

"Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException 
	at edu.harvard.hul.ois.fits.FitsOutput.addStandardCombinedFormat(FitsOutput.java:310) 
	at edu.harvard.hul.ois.fits.Fits.outputStandardCombinedFormat(Fits.java:294) 
	at edu.harvard.hul.ois.fits.Fits.outputResults(Fits.java:275) 
	at edu.harvard.hul.ois.fits.Fits.main(Fits.java:186) 
Error: output cannot be converted to a standard schema format for this file"

Watchdog will be updated when TECHMD DS fail's to generate.

Requirements

This module requires the following modules/libraries:

• Islandora
• Tuque
• The File Information Tool Set

Clone the fits tool which can be found here. Make sure it is in a location where the apache user can get access. Navigate to the fits folder and make sure fits.sh has executable permissions so the apache user can run the script.

Installation

Install as usual, see this for further information.

Configuration

Set the path for fits.sh and create a name for the Technical metadata stream ID in Administration » Islandora » Islandora Utility Modules » FITS Tool (admin/islandora/tools/fits).

Troubleshooting/Issues

• Islandora Group
• Islandora Dev Group

FAQ

Q. Why didn't I get any technical metatadata?

A. If you run an ingest and you don't get any technical metadata, check to make sure the permissions on the fits folder and the fits.sh script are correct and the apache user can run the script.

Q. Why am I getting weird errors in the log?

A. Some images and audio files will cause problems during metadata extraction. These are not fatal errors, but appear to be formats the fits script can't understand. In these cases, you will get some error reporting in the technical metadata datastream that may help determine what happened.

Maintainers/Sponsors

Current maintainers:

• Mark Jordan

 Development

If you would like to contribute to this module, please check out CONTRIBUTING.md. In addition, we have helpful Documentation for Developers info, as well as our Developers section on the Islandora.ca site.

 License

GPLv3