Use HSI or HTAR under Cygwin in Windows

Cygwin is a package of GNU and open source tools for providing Unix-like functionality on workstations running Microsoft Windows. With Cygwin installed, you can use HSI and HTAR from your Windows workstation to access your account on Indiana University's Scholarly Data Archive (SDA).

You can download and install Cygwin for 32- or 64-bit Windows from the Cygwin Mirror Sites page; for installation help, see the Cygwin Installation page.

For use on personal workstations, IU SDA users can download and install HSI version 8.3.3 (bundled with its companion program, HTAR) from the UITS Research Technologies HSI folder in Google at IU My Drive. (You must be signed into your Google at IU account to access this folder; see Access Google at IU.) Bundles are available for 32- and 64-bit Windows, macOS, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and for 64-bit Ubuntu Linux.

Note:

To connect to the SDA with a local HSI/HTAR client, make sure you have version 8.3.3 installed.
An SDA Remote Access Exemption is required to connect to the SDA with a local HSI/HTAR client from an off-campus network location.

Note:

To run HSI/HTAR under Cygwin, you must unblock the Windows firewall for HSI data transfer; see If you get an "Error -1 on transfer" error when using HSI to transfer files from or to the IU SDA. If you can't modify the firewall rules, use the firewall -on command in HSI (this setting lets HSI work on computers that restrict incoming network connections, but it also disables parallel data transfer, which may impact performance).
Files containing PHI must be encrypted when they are stored (at rest) and when they are transferred between networked systems (in transit). To ensure that files containing PHI are encrypted when they are stored, encrypt them before transferring them to storage. To ensure that files containing PHI remain encrypted during transit, use SFTP/SCP or the IU Globus Web App. For more, see Recommended tools for encrypting data containing HIPAA-regulated PHI.

If you have questions about securing HIPAA-regulated research data at IU, email securemyresearch@iu.edu. SecureMyResearch provides self-service resources and one-on-one consulting to help IU researchers, faculty, and staff meet cybersecurity and compliance requirements for processing, storing, and sharing regulated and unregulated research data; for more, see About SecureMyResearch. To learn more about properly ensuring the safe handling of PHI on UITS systems, see the UITS IT Training video Securing HIPAA Workflows on UITS Systems. To learn about division of responsibilities for securing PHI, see Shared responsibility model for securing PHI on UITS systems.

For help with HSI commands and options, see the HSI Reference Manual. For more about using HSI and HTAR with your SDA account, see:

If you have questions or need help using HSI or HTAR with your SDA account, email the UITS Research Storage team.