The iRODS service allows the Grassroots Server to use the functionality provided by iRODS. Currently it has the ability to perform queries against the iCAT metadata catalogue as well as more general searches search as modification times, etc.
By default in iRods, you would need to know which keys exist to then search them for particular associated values. With this Service, each keyword within the metadata catalogue is listed for the user along with all of its possible values.
This service also has the ability for a value to be searched for across all possible keys. The results are then ranked by occurrence.
To build this service, you need the grassroots core and grassroots build config installed and configured.
The files to build the iRODS service are in the build/<platform> directory.
If you enter this directory
cd build/linux
you can then build the service by typing
make all
and then
make install
to install the service into the Grassroots system where it will be available for use immediately.