Introduction  WestGrid was a regional research computing support organization comprising support personnel in Western Canada, and ceased operations on March 31, 2022. Compute Canada was the national research computing organization providing national coordination of research computing systems, services, and support across Canada, and ceased operations on March 31, 2022. Western Canadian operations continue, with the University of Alberta and other AB, SK, and MB institutions belonging to Prairies DRI. Many researchers may refer to WestGrid with respect to HPC resources, although the resources now are properly referred to as Digital Research Alliance of Canada resources, briefly "the Alliance", as that organization assumes operation of Advanced Research Computing, Research Data Management, and Research Software services nationally on April 1, 2022. This article will provide links for information and support resources pertaining to Westgrid. Applicability  This article was written for users unfamiliar with or needing assistance accessing national Advanced Research Computing services.    Details Researchers referencing "WestGrid" or "Compute Canada" should be encouraged to contact Alliance support staff directly by sending an e-mail to support@tech.alliancecan.ca or accounts@tech.alliancecan.ca to get started.  Any support questions should be sent to:  support@tech.alliancecan.ca Keywords: NDRIO, Alliance, Large data set, SuperComputer, Computing, Data, Research, cluster, Compute Canada, WestGrid

Introduction This article outlines the procedure for mapping an SMB network share to your device. Permissions to the Research Data Storage are restricted, so access to the share first requires a service request be submitted here. Applicability This article is intended for use by all authorized users of the Research Data Storage server. Procedures Important: If you are working from off-campus or not plugged into the university network, you may need to connect to the University VPN. Some areas of the University are not fully managed by IST and still require you to use the VPN to properly access. Please follow these instructions if you do not have the appropriate VPN client installed. Connecting in Windows Connecting in MacOS Connecting in Linux (GUI) Connecting via CLI / Terminal (Linux & MacOS) Connecting in Windows 1. Open up File Explorer 2. Right click on Network and then select Map network drive... 3. Fill in the Map Network Drive Choose the drive letter that you would like associated with your share (ex. R: drive) Ensure that you don't map a drive letter that is used regularly on your computer In the Folder field, type the address of your SMB share (ex. \\smb.research-filer.ualberta.ca\your-drive) Check the box next to Connect using different credentials Optional: Check the box next to Reconnect at sign-in Selecting Reconnect at sign-in will attempt to reconnect the drive every time you boot the device, which may cause problems on devices that are not always plugged into the University network (i.e. laptops that are regularly taken home) If your device needs to use the VPN to access, it is better to de-select the reconnect option Select the Finish button 4. Sign in with your CCID credentials For Username, use your CCID in this format: AD\CCID (use your CCID here) For Password, use your CCID password Optional: check the box next to Remember my credentials This will make Windows remember the username and password used to connect to the share. It is better to de-select unless you are the only user using this computer Select OK Connecting in MacOS 1. Open up Finder application 2. While in your Finder application, click Go in the top menu bar and select Connect to Server... 3. Input the address for your server In the Server Address field, type the address of the Research Data Storage drive (example: smb://smb.research-filer.ualberta.ca/) The address for an SMB share must have smb:// at the front before the URL provided - see the image below for an example Note: The slash direction in MacOS is different from Windows, and matters - ensure that your slashes for network paths are all in the "/" direction Click Connect In the window that pops up, click Connect 4. Log in with CCID Select Registered User For Name, use your CCID in the AD format (AD\yourccid) Note: The slash direction matters here, and usernames use a different slash from network path - make sure you use AD\yourccid with a "\" direction slash For Password, use your CCID password (the same password you use to access your UofA Gmail account) Optional: Check "Remember this password in my keychain" if you would like the computer to remember your credentials 5. You should now be connected to the Research Data Storage drive on your mac, which will now appear as a location in the Finder sidebar Connecting in Linux (GUI) Each distro of Linux may have a slightly different way to connect and map your network drive via Graphical User Interface. You may need to modify these instructions slightly based on your distro or version of Linux. It has been tested and working on the following distros: Ubuntu Mint Arch 1. Open up your chosen File Explorer application 2. In the top bar where your current working directory is found, click and type out your server address with your drive name: smb://smb.research-filer.ualberta.ca/yourDriveName Note: The slash direction in Linux is different from Windows, and matters - ensure that your slashes for network paths are all in the "/" direction 3. Add your CCID credentials in the popup menu Select "Registered User". You will need to include the following credentials: Username: your CCID Domain: use "AD" as the domain, as shown in the below picture Password: your password for your CCID 4. You should now see the network location in your file explorer Connecting via CLI / Terminal (Linux & MacOS) Note: You may need to install the cifs tool, if it isn't included with your distro already 1. Open up your preferred CLI / Terminal software 2. Run the following commands with the following info inserted yourDriveNameHere = your group's Drive name yourUsername = your CCID sudo mkdir /mnt/yourDriveNameHere sudo mount -t cifs -o username=yourUsername,domain=AD //smb.research-filer.ualberta.ca/yourDriveName /mnt/yourDriveName 3. After running the command, you may be prompted for your root password first, then for your CCID password 4. You should now have a mapped folder in your /mnt/ directory which will reflect your network drive Note: By default, this command will not allow the mapping to persist between restarts

Introduction This article outlines the procedure for connecting to the Research Terminal Server to be able to find and access the folder permissions in your Research Data Storage drive. Applicability This article is intended for use by administrative users of the Research Data Storage server. The access to perform these security adjustments needs to be requested and set up prior to attempting to perform these steps, or you will not be able to adjust permissions on the server. This access can be requested using the Research Data Storage (Add/Remove User) catalogue request, but will need to be validated with the folder owner before priveleges can be granted. Procedure **Please note that the final portions of these instructions are highly technical. It is strongly recommended that you do some research into folder permissions and understand any settings you may change. Changes made to folders can be difficult to reverse, so please make sure you are confident before you hit Apply** If you are working from off-campus or not plugged into the university network, you will need to connect to the University VPN. Please follow these instructions if you do not have the appropriate VPN client installed. 1. Open up a Remote Desktop session from your device 2. Under Computer, use the network address research-ts.ad.ualberta.ca For User name, use your AD account (CCID) with the format "AD\ccid" Accept the certificate information, if applicable 3. Open the File Explorer and map your Research Network drive, per the instructions found here, if not mapped already If you follow the instructions from here, you do not need to select the Connect using different credentials in step 3, as you are already logging in with the AD credentials. You can also choose to Reconnect at sign-in, since the device is a constant University-connected device. 4. Open your shared drive and right click on the folder you want to adjust permissions for, selecting Properties from the right click menu 5. From the Properties menu, you can select the Security tab to see the current security settings on the folder you've selected Note: Double check in the title bar that you are looking at the properties for the correct folder and haven't accidentally selected a different folder 6. You can adjust simple settings by selecting the Edit... button in the properties page. More in depth settings can be adjusted in the Advanced button menu Edit... (The simpler settings) Tips and Suggestions to consider: You can simply Add... users to a folder and grant them access. You are able to add multiple users at a time by separating the users with a semicolon, followed by a space between usernames ex. ( rjjohnso; kazakov; curtis5 ) When adding a user, make use of the Check Names button so you can ensure you've found the correct account. Someone with a short, simple account name may trigger the system to ask you to verify the user account you're attempting to add The best policy is to give users the "least permissions" needed, so that users don't accidentally have too much power over a folder. The maximum recommended access to give a non-admin user is Modify. Giving Full Control access allows for users to potentially modify these security settings themselves and remove you as an admin for your own folder. When you Add... a user to the folder, you need to use their CCID. Click Check Names It is important to understand that by default, permissions changes made on a folder will trickle down to each level underneath If you change settings for "R:\Research Project #1\" the settings will apply to any subfolders inside this folder If further lockdowns are required in your subfolders, you may need to make use of the advanced tab Advanced Tips and Suggestions to consider: Access Based Enumeration is enabled across all drives by default. If permissions are changed on a folder to restrict a user's access, the user will not be able to see any folders that they do not have access to The Advanced tab allows for a lot high customization such as restricting the permissions to only be for the selected folder and not any folders underneath, requiring additional configuration on subfolder levels If required, you can "Disable Inheritance" so that the subfolders are free from being modified by accident when changes are made at a higher folder level ie.) If you "break inheritance" at R:\Research Project #1\ then changes made to the root folder (\\smb.research-filer.ualberta.ca\ist-test) won't trickle down to the Research Project #1 subfolder. When Inheritance is disabled, you will be asked if you want to convert the existing permissions to local permissions on this object. If you choose to do this, the existing permissions will continue to exist, but can be removed if required, but if you choose not to you will need to rebuild permissions from scratch