Frequently Asked Questions

Account

A forgotten password cannot be recovered, but you can set a new password by following these steps. You must complete ALL the steps to save your new password for future use.

1) Go to the Portal login page, and click the "Request new password" tab:




2) Enter your portal username and complete the CAPTCHA, then click the "E-mail new password" button:




3) You should see a message informing you to expect an email:




4) You will shortly receive at your Futuregrid-registered email address an email with a link to a one-time login page.

Note that the email actually contains two links, you want to use the longer first link:




5) After opening the link in your email, you will see the Reset password page. Click the "Log in" button:




If you get an "Access Denied" message at this point, please clear all futuregrid.org cookies from your browser, close your browser, and try again. Detailed instructions for clearing specific cookies are browser-dependent and beyond the scope of this FAQ but you may find some guidance at https://kb.iu.edu/data/ajfi.html

6) You will be directed to your My account page. Enter a new password of your choosing in the "Password" and "Confirm password" fields.

Please set a "high" strength password.




7) IMPORTANT: you must scroll to the bottom of the page and click the "Submit" button:


Submit button at bottom of page



Your password is now reset and saved.

Note: You can avoid needing to remember a separate password for the Futuregrid Portal by linking an OpenID account.


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Deletion of a user can be a complex process in case a user has used FG resources. However, the following is for most project leads sufficient:
  1. To remove a user from your project you simply can edit your project page and remove the user name from the list of members or alumni's. If the user is in no other valid project he will no longer be able to use FG. 
  2. If the user realy needs to be removed from the system or from the portal, please fill out the form at http://archive.futuregrid.org/help with the username and the reason why he should be removed. 
​Naturally, if you detect that a user acts maliciously, please inform us immediately. We will disable access. Put in your subject line the prefix URGENT.

The time of approval for your portal account is typically very short if you are part of a US or international university, have published papers in academic journals or conferences and provide an e-mail that can be verified to be part of the university. The same is true for user of for profit organizations.

Undergraduate and graduate students MUST include the names of their advisor in the application form.

However, if you decide to use gmail, hotmail, or other non organizational e-mails that make it difficult for us to verify that you are the person that you claim you are and this process may be prolonged because we may have to contact you for additional information to verify your identity. One of the things we may ask you is to apply for a project to describe the work that you intend to conduct on FG. At times, this information will be sufficient. In most cases you can avoid this delay by using a university or employer based e-mail in your application.

See also: http://archive.futuregrid.org/faq/why-do-i-need-provide-email-address-my-university

When you apply for accounts to use FutureGrid resources, we do verify your identity. Providing your university email is helpful and speeds up the process. Additionally, it is often a good idea to point to publications by internationally accepted journals in your comment section. We have had to decline account requests in the past because they did not provide such information.

Please remember that we assume you have applied for an account. We also assume that you are in a valid project. If you are not, your account request will not be issued. You find in your...

if you are in an approved project.

Now the question is how long will it take for my account to be approved. Typically the approval takes up to three business days. Business days are between Mon-Fri 9-5 p.m. Account requests will not be handled over the weekend. For example, assume you are applying on Friday at 4:59 p.m., then you will get an answer back in 48 hours. If your account request is granted, the status at...

will automatically change. Hence it is easy for you to revisit this page from time to time to check on your status. In case your account is not created within three business days, please make sure you are in a valid project and have submitted your request. 

The singlt most reason for a dealay is the verification that you are you and that you have a reason to use FG. THus we advise you to uses valid e-mails, valid First and Lastname, and provide us with the address of your advisor as part of the portal account application. A link to your institutional web site is also useful. We will delete all requests without notification that do not provide enough information and look like spammers.

 

See also http://archive.futuregrid.org/how-do-i-create-fg-project-class-i-teach
  1. You must create a portal account before you can apply for a project
  2. File a FutureGrid project for your class
  3. Ask your students to sign up for a portal account
  4. Add your students as members to the project
  5. Decide what resources your students need and ask them to apply for the appropriate account while using the account menu in the portal (make sure they are checked on in your FutureGrid project).
  6. Accounts will be created if the user/student is in the members list of a valid project and the resources you checked in your project application are corresponding to the one requested by the student

One of the issues we often see with classes is that some students apply on Saturdays or Sundays, or one day before the assignments are due. Please make sure they are aware that account applications will be fulfilled typically only during working days (Mon-Fri) with 48 hours delay.

  1. You must have a portal account
  2. You must be in an active project
  3. Eucalyptus accounts are created by default based on your portal account and project affiliation. Credentials files are placed inside the .futuregrid folder in the home directory of India and Sierra. 

The details are in the tutorial:  http://archive.futuregrid.org/tutorials/eucalyptus3

  1. if you do not have a portal account, apply for a portal account at http://archive.futuregrid.org
  2. Change your ssh-keys while going to: http://archive.futuregrid.org/manage-my-portal-account
  3. Please note that a portal account does not mean you can log into any FG account. Via the portal make sure that the project you participate in has been approved.  Also make sure you are part of an approved project. You can check this by going to 

 

1. You must have a portal account
2. You must be part of an active project
3. You must upload a valid ssh key via http://archive.futuregrid.org/manage-my-portal-account

Bibliography
Early versions of LaTeX and BibTeX did not have the conference entry. It has been added and is the same as InProceedings. If you prefer InProceedings in your own personal bibliography, please feel free to replace @conference with @InProceedings
Context Broker
ssh into hotel.futuregrid.org and untar the file ~/nimbus_creds.tar.gz.  Open up hotel.conf and look for the values vws.repository.s3id=<context broker username> and vws.repository.s3key=<context broker password>
Develop

We have moved the FutureGrid source code from sourceforge (see the obsoleted section below) to github and reorganized them into separate projects. The FutureGrid project home is located at:

See individual project by choosing one of the repositories from the left side.

[Obsoleted since April 2012

The FutureGrid source code is maintained at sourceforge.net. The project home is located at:

The online viewer of the repository is at:

To check out the code, please use

svn co https://futuregrid.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/futuregrid/ futuregrid

from a *nix terminal with subversion client installed. This will check out the entire source tree.

From Windows, use other client tools like 'tortoise' for repository checkout and management.

To contribute/commit code/papers/presentations, etc., please create a sourceforge account first, and then contact Gregor or Fugang to be added as a member of the project.

See also:

]
Documentation
Editor
The FutureGrid portal supports file upload/attachment to a node/page. However the functionality is restricted to certain roles - mostly admin roles and editorial roles. Besides that, there is also restrictions on types and size limit of the uploaded files. Depending on the roles, these files may be supported: jpg, jpeg, gif, png, txt, doc, docx, xls, pdf, ppt, pptx, pps, odt, ods, odp.

The size limits various from several MiB to 1 GiB depends on roles. For example, a 'tutorial editor' is allowed to upload a file up to 8 MiB, while a 'editor' is allowed to upload one up to 64 MiB. However, if a user is in multiple roles, the least restricted rule may apply. You can upload/attach multiple files to a page as long as the size for each attachment does not exceed the limit.

If you are in roles that allow you to upload a file, and the file you're going to attach is one of the permitted types, please follow these steps to upload a file:
  1. Edit the page where you would like the attachment to appear. If you don't have permission to such a page, you can create a new page and edit the new one.
  2. Scroll down to the edit page, and find the 'File attachments' section.
  3. Expand the section if it is in collapsed status, to find the file browse box.

  1. Click the 'Browse...' button and find the file you want to upload.
  2. Click the 'Attach' button and wait for the file being uploaded. Upon completion of the upload, save the change by clicking the 'Submit' button near the bottom of the edit page.
  3. The file is uploaded to the FutureGrid portal site and is attached to the page you were editing. On the node view page, you'll find something like this near the end of the page.

  1. To upload more files, repeat these steps again and the more files would be shown up in the 'Attachment' section after uploaded.
The file uploaded typically has a URL like this: which could be referred to at any place within or outside of the portal.

You should disable the spell check in the editor. For this, you need to click in the colored ABC icon and select "disable SCAYT"

FAQ

New questions from users are 'unpublished' node so they cannot be seen yet in the FAQ section. They will be shown in the footer of the page, in a block named:

Unanswered questions

Displayed with the message saying: "If you select a question, you must answer it."

Experts (all those can answer questions) should be able to see the list, and select a question to ask.

To answer a question, you are actually editing the node. First assign the 'category' in the 'FAQ Category' box. To get current category suggestion, input any character and the list will pop up. Then in the 'Answer' window you can put your answer in, just like what I am doing.

After that, scroll down and submit the change to get the info published, (I double checked this saving, and it disappeared from the 'unanswered questions' block and shown up in the FAQ).

 

 

Forum

Please go to 

Here you will find a link to subscribe to a Forum or FAQ. Please follow the link and check on the forums you like to subscribe to.

 

FutureGrid Services
FutureGrid is not intended to run large computational jobs in production mode. FutureGrid is intended to help you developing production quality code or test out new ways of using HPC, grids, and clouds. If you have a question about whether FG is suitable for you, please let us know. We recommend that you submit your questions via http://archive.futuregrid.org/help.
Nimbus
ssh into hotel.futuregrid.org and untar the file ~/nimbus_creds.tar.gz.  Open up hotel.conf and look for the values vws.repository.s3id=<context broker username> and vws.repository.s3key=<context broker password>
OpenID

 

Simply logout of the portal and login again. Make sure you choose a login with username and password. But why bother, OpenID works great :-)

 

Passwords

A forgotten password cannot be recovered, but you can set a new password by following these steps. You must complete ALL the steps to save your new password for future use.

1) Go to the Portal login page, and click the "Request new password" tab:




2) Enter your portal username and complete the CAPTCHA, then click the "E-mail new password" button:




3) You should see a message informing you to expect an email:




4) You will shortly receive at your Futuregrid-registered email address an email with a link to a one-time login page.

Note that the email actually contains two links, you want to use the longer first link:




5) After opening the link in your email, you will see the Reset password page. Click the "Log in" button:




If you get an "Access Denied" message at this point, please clear all futuregrid.org cookies from your browser, close your browser, and try again. Detailed instructions for clearing specific cookies are browser-dependent and beyond the scope of this FAQ but you may find some guidance at https://kb.iu.edu/data/ajfi.html

6) You will be directed to your My account page. Enter a new password of your choosing in the "Password" and "Confirm password" fields.

Please set a "high" strength password.




7) IMPORTANT: you must scroll to the bottom of the page and click the "Submit" button:


Submit button at bottom of page



Your password is now reset and saved.

Note: You can avoid needing to remember a separate password for the Futuregrid Portal by linking an OpenID account.


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Portal
You must switch off the private mode, otherwise the portal gets confused if you are logged in or not.
Projects
Because project leads wish to have control over which results are uploaded, the process of reporting results is conducted by the project lead or project manager. Project members do not have this ability, and so should report your results to these individuals, so they can upload the results.

However, project members can report references. In doing so, please make sure the references are not already included.

A project lead or manager can also visit the project and chose the edit link to report results into the project. To do so:
  1. Scroll down until you find the section "Project Results". Fill out this section and report upon the achievements of this project.
  2. Also upload references that you have produced for this project. In each case, make sure that you only upload/report references directly related to this project. References can also be uploaded by project members; make sure the reference is not already uploaded. Once a reference is uploaded it can be corrected.
For more, see http://archive.futuregrid.org/manual/portal .

For help on this topic, please contact us.
Please, select the one you would like to close and follow the edit link.

If you forgot which project you like to close or you have multiple projects, you can find a list of projects you lead or manage at Once you have pressed edit, you have the option to add results.
  1. Scroll down until you find the section "Project Results". Please fill out this section and report upon the achievements of this project.
  2. Please also upload references that you have produced for this project. In each case, please make sure that you only upload/report references directly related to this project. 
  3. Please provide us feedback to FutureGrid by using our help form at http://archive.futuregrid.org/help and ask that you like to close the project.
After you have requested a project closing, it will be  by our project committee to make sure we have sufficient results from you.

Once a project is closed all members will be notified.

If you need help, please contact us.

Please visit the page:

Here you find all projects listed that you participate in. Naturally you have to make sure that your project lead or project member adds you to their project. Please inform them to add you.

 

 

 

Joining a project is controlled by the Project Lead or Project Manager. They decide if you can join the project or not and have control of the process. To join a project you must complete the following three steps:

  1. Create a portal account.
  2. Ask the Project Lead or Manager if you can join the project (make sure to give them your portal account name). 
  3. Be added as a member to the project by the Project Lead or Manager. They will be able to do that by editing the project information.

To add people into a project as members, they must first apply for an portal account. Then the project lead or project manager can add them, one by one, as members of a project by editing the project. (Hint: When you type a user's first name in a member text box, the matched users information will pop up; by clicking one of them the portal username can be inserted automatically.)

To find out more about this topic please visit our manual at:

 

If you teach a class using FutureGrid resources we recommend you do the following:

  1. Register in the portal if you have not done so.
     
  2. Sign up for a Project.
    Sign up for a FutureGrid project and make sure you fill out the form clearly. In the broader impact section, please comment on how many students you have in the class, and if the projects created have additional broader impacts. Commenting on the number of minority students will also be much appreciated.
     
  3. Wait for the project to get approved.
    Once a project is approved, you will see it in the approved project list.
     
  4. Give your students a signup code.
    GIve your students a "secret" signup code that you have thme enter in step 5. Communicate the signup code to the FutureGrid support team via a ticket submitted through http://archive.futuregrid.org/help. Make sure you specfy your project number. Often it is also helpful to send a list of students to us s we can assist them easier during the application process. 
     
  5. Have your students sign up for a portal account.
    Make sure your students sign up for a FutureGrid portal account and that they specify their profile information precisely. This information is used later on to grant students accounts on FutureGrid. Accounts will not automatically be created just because a user has a portal account. 
     
  6. Add your students as project members to your project.
    Once a student has an account on the portal, please make sure you add the student to your project member list that you maintain as part of your project application. This is important as only people that are assigned to a valid FutureGrid project can have accounts on FutureGrid resources. Your project will have by default a project join request that makes it easy to join your project. Provide the link to the students so they join. A convenient management button provided for you to verify that the student is indeed a person that needs to be in your project. The join button can be disabled by you and you could instead also add your students by while entering their portal names.
     
  7. Have your students add their public ssh keys (if they have not done this as part of 4.) 
    It is important that your students add an ssh key to their account. Some students may not have the knowledge what this means or what this is good for. Fe recommend that you in the first class teach the why they noeed to do this and how the can do thi. In the portal users can add ssh keys when they go to the my portal section.
     
  8. Wait.
    It will take some time for the accounts to be created AFTER an ssh key is uploaded, and the student is added to your approved projects.
    Communicate to the students to wait. We only approve accounts during buisiness hours and it can take up to 24 buisiness hours. BUisiness hours are Mo-Fri 9am - 5pm EST.
     
  9. We have created some forums for the three services that you can find at http://archive.futuregrid.org/forum. These forums are read by the experts and the staff. We can create a forum for your class if you like directly on the FutureGrid portal.
     
  10. In case you need more direct support, do not hesitate to ask for help: http://archive.futuregrid.org/help
     
  11. More information about FutureGrid is added to our dynamically maintained manual at http://archive.futuregrid.org/manual.
     
  12. If you need a special class forum for your class, we can create one for you on the FutureGrid web site. However, this is a public forum and can be read by everyone. To ask for help use  http://archive.futuregrid.org/help.

     

If you are owner of a project and see this information under project lead or manager, you may not yet have signed up for a portal account. Please sign up for one, and we will change it in the project view for you.

 

Running Virtual Machines
FutureGrid is a testbed that is used by many users to test out various software and services. As a testbed we try also to deploy software updates and improvements. This requires us to dedicate one day of the week to deploy and make improvements available to the user. Often this day will aslo be used to clean our cloud infrastructure which is needed as part of upgrades. We recommend that all users save their VM on the first Monday of the month and bring it back up on the First Wednesday in case their VMs should run longer than a month.
Yes, while Nimbus is the primary IaaS provider FutureGrid supports, we also provide Eucalyptus and Open Stack (coming soon) clouds on a more experimental basis.
Yes.  FutureGrid runs Infrastructure Clouds that allow you to launch virtual machines.  You can upload your own VM or choose from one of our stock virtual machines.  Nimbus is the recommended IaaS solution to use on FutureGrid for both using cloud infrastructure and experimenting with cloud software; the FutureGrid project funds Nimbus explicitly to provide support for these activities.
Storage
FutureGrid does not have a fixed storage policy. The need for storrage is typically discussed with the help of Gregor von Laszewski (laszewski@gmail.com) and the FG Systems engeneer. As FG has at least 7 clusters each of the clusters has its own limitations.

The biggest storage is available on India, which has 3TB drives per server. However some of it is naturally devoted to the OS and other system related services. 

One of the limitations of FG is that it has a limited home file system, thus copying data in and out of the machines may become an issue, that is best discussed  with us.

The way to start this discussion is to describe you project, while pointing out your project description and explicitly include in this project the scale and needs arising for your activities. In the meanwhile the manual provides some overview about what the absolute availability of space on a per node basis is.