Data Sharing

To share data among multiple users within a laboratory or a research group (both ETH-/ ITET-internal only) a project account should be ordered from ISG.EE (support@ee.ethz.ch).

A project account is associated with a secure storage space (including backup) and a virtual group of project members who are granted to access the project data. The files stored under the project account are accessible by all project members by default. Access rights are handled through project group membership and the individual file/ directory permissions. Technically, all files in the project account belong to the same UNIX group (project group). The default the access permissions of new files or directories ("umask") are set in a way that allows all (and only) project group members read and write access to these files. Consequently, a user who is not a member of the project group corresponding to that project account, will not be able to access the project's files.

Organizational/ technical overview

Facts about project accounts:

• an independent UNIX account in the D-ITET/ TARDIS environment
• main attributes:
  • expiry date
  • quota
  • person in charge

• project account specific project group (itet-isg-<projectname>)

• data access via project group membership

• A D-ITET/ TARDIS user account is required to work with project accounts

Project owner

Each project is owned by a personal D-ITET/ TARDIS account. The owner, as person in charge, is our contact person.

Project group

Each project account has its own project group, i.e. itet-isg-<projectname>. A user who wants to access the project's data must have set his/ her user account as a member in the project group. The project's owner determines who is permitted to become a project member of that group. Only valid D-ITET/ TARDIS accounts can become a member of a project account. To share data with people from other ETH organizations, a D-ITET guest account must be ordered first by the technical contact (IT coordinator) of the D-ITET institute involved.

Data access

By default, the project data can be accessed in read/ write manner by all project group members via NFS and Samba (in parallel). Since access to data in the project account is permitted via project group membership of regular user accounts, the password of the project account itself is not required to be known to the project members. If needed for maintenance purposes, the project account's password can be handed over to the project owner. That password must not be shared with the project members or anybody else.

Project share overview: itet-stor

The itet-stor share provides an overview of all project accounts you are allowed to access and also is a comfortable entrance point to the (often various) project directories. The itet-stor share's information is built on a regular user account basis, i.e. it shows all project (and some other) storage resources a regular user is allowed to access. Thus, you must access the itet-stor share with your username in the path, e.g. \\itet-stor\zdavis, but not with the name of a project account (the latter won't work, e.g. \\itet-stor\<projectname> does not exist).

Space usage and quota

The data usage and quota of a project can be checked by any project member on the website https://quotaview.ee.ethz.ch/ or on the Linux command line of an ISG.EE managed client with the following command:

quotack --project=<projectname>

Ordering a project account

To order a new project account, send an email (Subject: New project account <projectname>) to support@ee.ethz.ch containing these specifications:

• institute
• project name
• contact name and email (in general the requester)
• expiry date (default 1 to 2 years)
• description
• quota

Registered laboratory IT deputies may also use the website https://support.ee.ethz.ch/ to make account orders. This website is only accessible from within the ETH network or when using VPN.

Project account naming convention

In general, the name of the project can be chosen freely within some restrictions

• maximum length 12 characters
• only lower case characters
• no hyphens ('-'); however underlines ('_') are allowed

The best practice is to choose a name that reflects the project's name or topic. If that doesn't work for you, a project name like <staffmember>_data is also possible. NOTE: The project account name cannot be changed once the account has been created.

Membership request

The project owner can ask for addition of new members or removal of existing members by sending a request to support@ee.ethz.ch.

• Subject: Add/ remove user to/ from project <projectname>

• Content: list of users

If a user doesn't have a valid D-ITET/ TARDIS account, a guest account can be requested by the technical contact (IT coordinator) of the laboratory/ institute.

Costs

A fee for the effectively used project storage space and for project account management work is charged annually (contract between ISG.EE and institute).

CategorySTOR

CategorySMB