Getting ATLAS Computing Accounts
Getting account at CERN
The basic instructions for a new ATLAS member for ATLAS/CERN is at:
http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/register.html
Note: Many E-mail addresses below contains
the insertion of NOSPAM in the address to avoid auto web page snifers to snatch
that address for spams. You need to remove the NOSPAM in actual usage.
The steps for getting a CERN computing account:
- Complete the ATLAS Registration
Form
Some items in the form in case they are unclear what to fill:
- If you are not sure if you should be listed in ATLAS
authorlist, please check with Su Dong or Charlie Young.
- CERN address should be CERN hostel Meyrin, if you are
starting with short trips to CERN.
- Signup to some of the relevant mailing list at the bottom
could be useful, and they generally have rather low traffic carrying
only major announcements.
- The new procedure (since Dec/07) for computing account is simply to E-mail
Kate Richardson of the ATLAS secretariat to request computing account.
Please also notify Su Dong or Charlie to send the verification at the same
time. Some specific info you could already give at the request:
- Your primary E-mail address (this is important - some service systems will only take requests from this
E-mail so that e.g. if primary is address is at SLAC, it may not accept
E-mails from CERN nodes)
- Your preferred userID. The default userID will be of the form JSmith
for John Smith which could be useful for anyone not knowing your ID to
get it right in a first guess. Setting it to the same as SLAC ID has the
advantage of easy ssh/cvs/klog when operating from SLAC.
- Request for all 3 of the following:
- AFS/PLUS: The is the AFS and UNIX account.
- NICE/MAILSERV: Windows account and mail account. This is
still necessary for some administrative purposes and access for nodes
in the experiment and meeting rooms etc.
- AIS/EDMS: Administrative Information Service for access, online store etc.
- Follow the instructions
to E-mail Atlas.Secretariat@cernNOSPAM.ch your request and FAX the filled
forms and copy of your passport to ATLAS Secretariat, Bldg. 40-4-D01,
FAX= + 41 22 767 8350. The user registration form needs to be signed by a
team leader (Su Dong or Charlie for SLAC) and accompanied by an employment
verification letter (to be issued by the SLAC international office for SLAC
employees). You must carry the form and letter with you for the first trip
to CERN to get your CERN badge at the user office in person as the first
thing when you arrive at CERN.
- You should receive two separate E-mails after a few days, one
informing you the account establishment and another containing the
initial password (same for all 3 platforms).
Some possibly useful info on CERN account setup not obvious from
normal instructions:
- Access to CERN computers:
- UNIX (PLUS) login: ssh lxplus.cern.ch
- Windows (NICE) login: Web
Windows Terminal Server
"Remote Desktop Web connection" on top center of WTS Tools section. You need to
do a trivial one click registration first through the "Register here to
use the Service" link just below at first login.
- At the creation of your accounts, all passwords are set to the
same initial strings. However, there are really 5 separate passwords
for the 3 platforms: AFS/PLUS (2 passwords), NICE/MAIL, AIS/EDH (2
passwords: AIS/EDH login share the same AIS password, but there is a
separate EDH authorization password). To avoid
confusion, it is probably wise to change all passwords to the same
together as sometimes you encounter a web form prompt for password, it
may not even be clear it is the NICE or AIS password. The change of
passwords for NICE/MAIL and AIS can be done following the IT
security/password page. The passwords for the UNIX side can be
changed from the UNIX command line after login to lxplus. However, note
that there are TWO separate passwords here also, one for the UNIX
account and one for AFS. For the AFS password, you need to use the
kpassword command.
- There is still an anomaly regarding the AIS/EDH password. The
AIS/EDH login password can be changed from the AIS login password page, with EDH login sharing the same password. However, there is a separate EDH authorization password which you will encounter when make an EDH request e.g. purchasing from online store. This can be changed at
this page after logging in to AIS/EDH, but it is unclear whether
you can initialize that yourself for the first time. May have to request
ais.support for resetting it to get it initialized.
- The UNIX account setup default shell is zsh. In case you want to
change it, you have to go to the account database through the web page http://cra.cern.ch (need your AIS
password to access). There is a small box for PLUS shell to modify
the default UNIX shell.
- The default disk allocation on UNIX is tiny which you need to
request to atlas-support@cernNOSPAM.ch
and ask for expanded quota and
scratch space.
- For E-mails to some of the main services and mailing lists like
atlas-support@cernNOSPAM.ch, you can only send them from your default
primary E-mail ID, as registered at the AIS when creating the computing
accounts. For example, if you registered your CERN computing account
with default E-mail at SLAC, they won't be accepted if you send them
from your CERN account directly, even you think that might have more
chance to succeed.
Getting account at BNL
Follow the BNL
computing Getting Started page, which starts with the new
account request. Info on some of the items in the account request
form:
- BNL life/Guest No.: most likely you don't have one and need to
following link
on the top of the form page to apply for a guest number. This
unfortunately is a long multipage process. The temporary GR**** number
will allow you proceed with the computing account processing, and some
weeks later you will receive the proper guest ID of
Y****.
- Contact: Howard Gordon; gordon@bnlNOSPAM.gov; x3740
Getting the GRID Certificate
This is unfortunately way too complicated than it needs to be and
the instructions are very confusing. This is in part due to several
separate GRID organizations. The first step is to obtain a personal
Digital Certificate (sometimes called a PKI or X509 certificate) from
an US national GRID organization, in our case is DOE GRID. The
DOE GRID certificate service has some links leading to actual
request forms, but it is a rather disorientating page. The
Particle Physics Data GRID (PPDG) page has more precise
instructions relevant for SLAC people for actually making
request for personal GRID
certificate. Note that SLAC's affiliation is OSG/SLAC and the sponsor
is Arla LeCount as instructed in step 2. You will receive an E-mail a
few days later with a PKI assigned, for which you have to use the same
computer and the same browser as you submitted the certificate request
from to 'import the certificate' following the instructions in the
E-mail. You then have to extract the certificate for GRID use by
'export' your certificate and the pair of keys for GRID use,
following these instructions, from the browser into a file. This
file can then be moved to the Linux nodes and extracting two files into
~/.globus for actual GRID usage. There has been a recent attempt (Jul/06)
on an improved guide of the GRID usage on the US ATLAS page.
There is unfortunate one more step after the GRID certificate to join the ATLAS
VO to gain access to ATLAS dataset. For which you can follow the US
ATLAS instruction for joining ATLAS VO, which will take a day or two
complete.
Su Dong
Last modified: Thu Feb 21 01:16:18 PST 2008