Data sharing service for CEES HPC users

Data sharing service for CEES-HPC users via NiRD and https://cees-data.webs.sigma2.no

This service allows you to share large datafiles through a website behind a username and password of your choosing.

• prepare your data file(s), preferably as one or a few compressed so-called 'tarballs'. For instructions, check out this page
• TIP: create a so-called md5checksum, see the above page
• login to NiRD with ssh login.nird.sigma2.no.
  • If you do not have access to NiRD (yet), contact Lex Nederbragt
• create a folder starting with your name on NiRD in /projects/NS9003K/www/cees-data, e.g. Vibeke_data_for_Fred_2018
• place the compressed tarball(s) with the data to be delivered in that folder
  • see this page for tips on how to move/copy your files using rsync
• also place the md5checkum of the files there
• find a suitable username (short, no spaces) and a good password, for example using an online password generator (also see 'tip' below) and write them down (e.g., in the email you will send the person who should receive the data)
• copy the .htaccess file in the /projects/NS9003K/www/cees-data/template folder to your folder
• in this .htaccess file, change the following line to create a new username

require user <new_username>

• add the password to the 'password database file' using the command below (it will be added in an encrypted form, feel free to check out the file with cat or less)

htpasswd /projects/NS9003K/www/cees-data/.htpasswd <new_username>

• set the correct permissions to your folder and files

chmod -R 755 /projects/NS9003K/www/cees-data/<your_folder>

• test the result: go to https://cees-data.webs.sigma2.no/<your_folder> and make sure it can be accessed using your chosen username & password combination
• send an email to the recipient of the data that the files can be downloaded using this information
  • website https://cees-data.webs.sigma2.no/<your_folder>
  • username <new_username>
  • password <new_password>
• all done!

TIP: generating good passwords

A very easy way to create passwords is by adding this line to your .bash_login file

alias pw="tr -dc 'A-Za-z0-9!@#$%^&*' < /dev/urandom | fold -w 12 | head -n 1"

Now you can just type pw on the commandline to get a difficult to guess password