How to properly install ViroBLAST Standalone for Mac OS X 10.11

Question

[cllezark]

I am a newcomer to the world of server-usage, database design, php, and SQL; I have used NCBI's BLAST enough to be more than comfortable with it, though. I'm building a database for a few species' worth of sequences, and I need to use ViroBLAST for the built-in search functionality (I have no say in the matter; this project isn't totally self directed). I'm trying to install the file according to the readme.txt but I'm stuck at the uncompress part:

  Installation of the standalone ViroBLAST server
  

After downloading the file viroblast.tar.gz, place it into document directory of HTTPD server in your computer and uncompress it by

gzip -d viroblast.tar.gz

tar -xvpf viroblast.tar
  

It is important to have the parameter "p" in tar options. It will preserve file access options stored in the distribution. Directory for the BLAST output (data) should have readable, writeable and executable permissions for everyone (777).

Everytime I enter that first command – gzip -d viroblast.tar.gz – into terminal, I get this back: gzip: can't stat: viroblast.tar.gz (viroblast.tar.gz.gz): No such file or directory There must be something that I'm doing wrong; I just don't know what. Is there anybody out there with the patience to help me install this software?

Answer 1

[GenoMax]

Try tar -zxvf viroblast.tar.gz or gunzip viroblast.tar.gz followed by tar -xvf viroblast.tar

[cllezark]

Not yet solved, but for the first time I got a different response! Trying tar -zxvf viroblast.tar.gz returned tar: Error opening archive: Failed to open 'viroblast.tar.gz' which isn't yet what I'm looking for, but it's at least different!

[GenoMax]

Have you download the source code (viroblast.tar.gz) and is it present in the same directory where you are running these commands? Error above says tar can't find that file in the local directory.

[cllezark]

I have downloaded the source code, for sure. I'm almost certain that the source code is somewhere different from where these commands are being executed. The file is stored in /Library/WebServer/Documents/viroblast-2.5.3.tar.gz , which is not nested within /~User/ (Device-name:~ User$ in the terminal window). Is that what you mean by that?

[GenoMax]

So you would want to do tar -zxvf /Library/WebServer/Documents/viroblast-2.5.3.tar.gz. That should unarchive the code in /Library/WebServer/Documents/. Check to see if OS X has already done this for you since OS X may uncompress tar files automatically.

[cllezark]

Apologies for the link, but are these perhaps the files I'm looking for? If they are, I can't find the directory that they make following uncompression.

http://postimg.org/image/4podyse7r/

[GenoMax]

Looks like the files have already been decompressed. viroblast.php viroblast.ini etc.

[cllezark]

After some creative file rearrangement, I've finally got Viroblast Activated on the server! Thank you so, so much!! For those following at home, move you uncompressed "Viroblast" folder from wherever it is in your system to the localhost/~User/directory – that's how the viroblast directory ultimately gets made.