User-managed groups¶
Create and manage closed user groups in order to share private files.
Create a group¶
Groups are created an managed in the Comanage system at id.lsst.cloud (not from the terminal command line, as in some other systems).
How to create a group in Comanage:
In a browser, navigate to id.lsst.cloud and log in.
In the left menu sidebar, click on “Groups” and then “My Groups”.
At right, a list of all the groups associated with your account will appear.
In the top horizontal menu, click on “Add Group”.
Set the group properties:
The group name should be short and must start with
g_.Write a short description.
Leave the status as the default “Active”.
Leave the checkbox next to “Open” unselected, to create a closed group.
Leave the checkbox next to “Require All for Nested Memberships” unchecked; this can be changed later if nested sub-groups are created.
Click the blue “Add” button.
The next time you enter the Notebook Aspect, this group will be accessible.
Manage group membership¶
Only group owners can manage group membership.
A user can only be a member of up to 15 groups at this time. Joining additional groups will have no effect.
From the terminal command line it is possible to see all groups a user belongs to with groups <username>
(see your own username with whoami).
How to manage group membership in Comanage:
In a browser, navigate to id.lsst.cloud and log in.
In the left menu sidebar, click on “Groups” and then “My Groups”.
At right, a list of all the groups associated with your account will appear.
In the “Name” column, click on the group name you want to add members to.
From the “Group Properties” page, select the tab “Members”.
At upper right, use the “Add member” box to find and add group members.
In the “Permissions” column, make other group members “Owners” using the check boxes.
The next time these users enter the Notebook Aspect, they will be able to access files shared with the group.
Set directory permissions¶
The point of creating a closed group is to permit group members to access privately shared files.
Shared files are not managed via the Comanage webpage; use the terminal command line in the Notebook Aspect.
These instructions are not all unique to the Rubin Science Platform or JupyterLab; some are generic processes for manipulating directory permissions in Unix-like operating systems.
Instructions for creating and sharing a directory with a group:
In a browser, navigate to data.lsst.cloud and log in to the Notebook Aspect.
Open a terminal, navigate to
/home, and modify the permissions on your home directory to let others access any shared directories within it (see your own username withwhoami).cd /home chmod o+x <user-name>
Navigate to your home directory and create a new directory for sharing.
cd ~ mkdir <shared-dir-name>
Add the group to the new directory and give group members write permissions (
g+w) and add the “sticky” bit (s) so that all files created in the directory are readable by group members.chgrp <group-name> <shared-dir-name> chmod g+ws <shared-dir-name>
Review the final permissions on the new directory.
ls -lah <shared-dir-name>
The results should resemble the following.
drwxrwsr-x 2 <user-name> <group-name> 4.0K <MMM DD HH:SS> <shared-dir-name>
Files created in this directory will, by default, only be writeable by the user that created them.
Modify any file to be writeable by any group member with chmod g+w <filename>.