How to access the RDSS as an External Collaborator

Introduction

The Research Data Storage Service (RDSS) is a large resilient storage system based on a technology called Spectrum Scale (previously called GPFS) and can be accessed in a variety of methods across all the major operating systems. The process of allowing external collaborators to access our service is new, so your patience for any teething problems will be much appreciated.

Instructions

Before starting you should have activated your UCL Visitor account and received a "UCL RDSS project" email that provides you with the project storage space details as well as your assigned UCL username (starts with ext_).

1.    First of all, you need to download and install the Cisco AnyConnect client to connect to the UCL VPN (Virtual Project Network). You may already have this installed with your organisation so you can ignore any parts of the instructions requiring you download and install, focusing on the setting up parts. It can take up to two hours after you activated your UCL Visitor account for the VPN login to be enabled, so please allow for this.

To download the client suitable for your system, please visit the External Visitor Management page and go to the downloads section(login with email address not ext_ username). Once you have downloaded the client, please visit the UCL VPN Webpage, then scroll to the connection guides section and open the guide suitable for your system to get you connected to the VPN. For the VPN you need to login with the UCL username (starts with ext_) that was provided in the "UCL RDSS Projects"  email and not your email address. The password is the one you set when activating your UCL External Collaborator account. The server address should be vpn.ucl.ac.uk/External
 
2.    Once you are connected to the VPN, you will then be able to access the storage in the same way as anyone at UCL. Please see the RDSS Access Guide to help you connect with your specific operating system and method you wish to connect*. The username (starts with ext_)  and project code you need will be in the "UCL RDSS Projects" email.

*ssh/sftp users logging on for the 1st time, should use the email address that was registered as the username so a home folder gets created. After that, you can use the username assigned or continue using the email address. e.g ssh joe.blogs@email.com@live.rd.ucl.ac.uk

If you need assistance with any of the above, please contact researchdata-support@ucl.ac.uk