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Other Users Help Pages

These pages document how to get started on the Grid if you wish to use the Grid.

Get a Grid Certificate

To use the Grid you will need a digital certificate that authenticates you to the infrastructure. These can be obtained relatively easily from the UK Certification Authority, the process is fully outlined and can be started here (External Link).

Getting your Grid certificate will be easier if you have a local Registration Authority Operator (RA). The list of RA's in the UK can be found here. If there is not one in your home institute please contact the institute closest to you. The RA just authenticates who you are and will need to take a copy of your photo ID.

Join a Virtual Organisation

Now the Grid knows who you are you need to be authorised to use its resources. Grid users are managed via the Virtual Organisation system where all users doing similar work, in similar disciplines or working on the same experiment are grouped together and have access rights (and restrictions) applied to them.

Which VO you choose to work with depends on the work you wish to do. Within the UK there are a few test VOs which can be used by individuals wishing to look at how easy it would be to "Gridify" their work and these could be a good starting point, your local Grid contact will be able to suggest a suitable one.

Finding a VO

However your project or discipline may already have a VO. For example if you are working on T2K, the ILC or on Biomedical research there are specific VOS for these communities, again your local Grid contact should be able to advise you. The current list of VOs supported by GridPP are here.

Creating a VO

Depending on the size of your project and the success you have had with one of the test VOs there is also the possibility to set up a new VO. The method for doing that is laid out here.

Using The Grid

Interacting with the Grid requires a User Interface of some description. Like VOs there are many options here and is dependant on the science you wish to do.

The MINOS project has help pages here.

Monitoring
Monitoring tools can be used to check the overall state of the Grid or particular sites, or to help track down problems if you have jobs failing. Various Grid monitoring and accounting tools are in development for different purposes, although so far they tend to be aimed at administrators rather than users.

General Monitoring

There is a Grid Service Monitoring Working Group who manage various monitoring tools information on them can be found here.

Trouble Shooting

Unfortunately it's unlikely that things will always work perfectly. Some things are covered in the documentation mentioned above, otherwise the links below may help:

User Guide

Currently the most comprehensive document for new Grid users is the gLite User Guide however it is orientated towards LCG. This is quite long, but it's worth knowing what it contains. The most up to date version can be found here:

http://edms.cern.ch/document/722398/

Reporting a problem/Support

General Grid Problems

To submit a ticket detailing an issue or problem you have had using the Grid use General Grid User Support, http://gus.fzk.de/pages/home.php

Training

General Grid Training

Grid Training is provided by NeSC. They provide courses both within the UK and across Europe as part of Enabling Grids for EsciencE's training activity, NA3.

The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory also provides more general IT/coding training aimed at the High Energy Physics community http://hepunx.rl.ac.uk/ukheptrain/

EGEE Users

EGEE Users

Enabling Grids for EsciencE (EGEE) is the multidisciplinary academic grid which has grown out of the LHC grid. They support lots of other researchers and they have an FAQ on their website at http://faq.eu-egee.org/egee-users-questions.html