In RFS, what are projects?

Note: To keep pace with the growing needs of Indiana University researchers, Research File System (RFS) storage will be migrating in the near future from OpenAFS to a new technology from DataDirect Networks, Inc. (DDN), based on the General Parallel File System (GPFS). For more, see Information about upcoming changes to the Research File System at IU.

In the Research File System (RFS) at Indiana University, you can request an account in a special category designated as a project space. Projects involving collaborative research conducted for a year or longer qualify for RFS project space. Project spaces are particularly handy because ownership and administration of these are not permanently associated with an individual's username, but can be changed as needed when participants leave the research team. In this respect, project spaces differ from the personal accounts of individual users.

To request a project space, contact Research Storage. In the email, include the desired project name, the RFS accounts you wish to have administrative access, and the initial list of RFS accounts to add for normal read/write access to the group.

You can connect to your projects in RFSWeb. Scroll down to the projects folder. Click the folder to navigate into it and see your projects.

Mapping a project space to your worksatation

To map or mount your project space to your workstation if you're using the Samba interface, see At IU, how do I map or mount my RFS account to my workstation?

If you're using the OpenAFS client for Windows, map your RFS project space to a drive on your workstation:

1. Click the AFS icon on the Start menu or the Windows Taskbar at the bottom of the screen. In the AFS Client window, click the Advanced tab.
   
   
2. Select the Drive Letters tab, and click Add. From the drop-down list, choose Drive Letter. The AFS path should be set to \afs\iu.edu\home\projects\accountname .

Projects and associated groups

When a project is created in RFS, two associated groups are created to make it easier to manage access to the project space: a user group with the same name as the project, and an admin group with the project name plus "_admin". The user group is meant to contain all the users who have read and write permissions for the project space, and the admin group should contain only those who will have full access (including administer rights) and who will manage membership in the user group. For example, if the project name is "project1", the user group will also be called "project1", while the admin group will be called "project1_admin". The project space will be set up so that group project1 will have read and write access and group project1_admin will have full access.

For information on sharing data and administering RFS accounts, see At IU, how do I share my RFS data with other users using an AFS client?