At IU, what is Slashtmp and how do I use it?

On this page:

• Introduction
• Accessing Slashtmp
• Slashtmp main screen
• Giving a file to another user
• Allowing another user to give you a file
• Encrypting uploaded files
• Reporting problems

Introduction

Slashtmp is a service at Indiana University that allows IU graduate students, faculty, and staff to share files with IU or non-IU users via a web interface. It is particularly useful for those who want to share files that are too large to send via email. Slashtmp is intended for support of research and collaboration. Each user has 1GB of space in Slashtmp.

Note: Slashtmp is intended for the exchange of non-sensitive research data. You should never use Slashtmp as the only place to keep a copy of files you cannot afford to lose, as a place to store data that are subject to HIPAA or FDA CFR 11 regulations, or as a place to exchange institutional or financial data.

Accessing Slashtmp

Access Slashtmp by connecting to:

You will need to authenticate using your Network ID username and passphrase. A departmental username and passphrase will not work unless they're the same as your personal username and passphrase.

Slashtmp main screen

When you log in, you will see the main Slashtmp screen. This screen is divided into three parts:

• At the upper left is the "Upload one of your files" section. This is where you upload files to Slashtmp for yourself or others. The checkbox labeled Must authenticate to download allows you to restrict access to the file to any user with an IU Kerberos account. If you leave this unchecked, anyone who knows the URL for the uploaded file may access it (unless the file is encrypted).
  
  
• At the upper right is the "Allow a guest user to upload a file" area. Here you can generate a URL to give to other people so that they can upload a file to your Slashtmp area for you to download.
  
  
• At the bottom is the "File download section". Any files that you or another user have uploaded to your Slashtmp area will appear here. Also, the status line on top of this section will show how much of your 1GB quota you are currently using.

  Note: You will not see files in this section if there are currently no files in your Slashtmp area. This can happen if you have no files uploaded to your area, if you have explicitly deleted all files, or if uploaded files have been deleted automatically after being available for 90 days.

Giving a file to another user

To give a file to another IU or non-IU user, follow these steps:

1. In the "Upload one of your files" section on the top left, click the Choose File button.
   
   
2. Browse your local disk and choose a file to upload to Slashtmp.
   
   
3. After you have chosen a file to upload, you can add an optional "File Description" to make it clearer what this file is. UITS recommends that you do this.

   If you would like to encrypt the file, see the Encrypting uploaded files section below.

4. If you would like to restrict access to the file to users with an IU Kerberos account, click the checkbox labeled Must authenticate to download. If you don't check this box, anyone who knows the URL for the uploaded file may access it (unless the file is encrypted).
   
   
5. Click the Upload the file! button.

The "File download section" should now be updated and show the file you just uploaded. Note the URL for the file shown in the first line of the "URL/Link" column. You can email this URL to the other user so that he or she can use it to download the file.

After the other user has downloaded the file, you can click the Delete file button in the last column (the "Keep/Delete" column), and then click Delete Checked Files to delete the file. You may be able to use the "Last access" column to help you figure out if the other person has indeed downloaded it. The "Last access" column changes to reflect the time when the file is downloaded (by you or by another user).

Allowing another user to give you a file

To allow another IU or non-IU user to give you a file, follow these steps:

1. In the "Create upload URL" section at the top right, click the Create upload URL! button.
   
   
2. Copy the URL on the resulting page. Email it to the person who would like to upload a file to your area. The other user can go to the URL and follow the steps in the section above to upload the file.
   
   
3. Once the user has uploaded the file, you will see it in your "File download section" after you log into Slashtmp. Simply click the link below the URL in the "URL/Link" column to download it to your computer.

Encrypting uploaded files

Ordinarily, files uploaded to Slashtmp are stored in the format in which you uploaded them. This means that if you upload a text file, it will exist as a text file on the Slashtmp server, and it is possible, though highly unlikely, that someone could gain unauthorized access to Slashtmp and read that file.

For this reason, Slashtmp allows you to enter an (optional) "Encryption password" before you upload the file. The password you enter is used to encrypt your file on the Slashtmp server disk. You also must use this password when you download the file so that it is properly decrypted.

The Slashtmp server never stores your password. Your password is used only to encrypt and then to decrypt the data. If you forget your password or you mistype it during file upload, then there is no way to recover the original data. In that case, you should delete the file from the Slashtmp server and re-upload it with a known password.

Giving your uploaded files a password provides an additional level of security for the URL that is generated. Someone who learns the URL for a file that you've uploaded will still need to know your upload password in order to properly decrypt your file.

Reporting problems

To report problems with Slashtmp, send email to  ithelp@iu.edu .