SAFE for Project Leaders

Project Leaders can manage the resources and users associated with their projects through the Turing’s SAFE.

Getting Started

Your allocation has been set up as a project on the service. Your first steps.

Here are some of the things you should consider doing; not all of them will be needed for every project:

  1. Change your SAFE password.
  2. Get your own account on a Research Computing Service machine.
  3. Register project users.
  4. Designate a user as a project manager.
  5. Decide whether to Set up project groups within your project, in order to administer time and other resources.

Get your own account on a Research Computing Service machine

If you are not going to work on the machine yourself, you do not need to do this. You can administer your project through SAFE alone. But if you want a machine account:

  1. Login to SAFE.
  2. Go to the menu Login accounts and select Request login account button.
  3. Select the desired project from the pull down list and click Select Project.
  4. Select the desired machine from the pull down list and click Select Machine.
  5. Enter your Requested username and click on Request.

You will get an acknowledgment screen, from which you can return to your main page. Now (as a project leader) you have to accept your own request for an account, see Register project users.

Check project alerts

  1. Login to SAFE.
  2. Go to the menu Projects managed and select the project you wish to check.
  3. This will display a page with a variety of options for managing your project.
  4. Project alerts and warning are highlighted in Amber and Red.
  5. To request emails for alerts, or to change the frequency of the emails.
  6. Click Update.
  7. Beside “Frequency of Alerts” select the required frequency.
  8. If the emails should go to someone other than the PI, enter the email address(es) into the ‘Recipients for alerts’ box.
  9. Click Update to save the changes. Do not forget this step, or nothing will happen.

Managing your allocated resources

What is “period allocation”?

A period allocation contains kAUs which have been allocated for a project to use within the specified time period. Period allocations are valid for a specific resource pool (machine) and have definitive start and end dates. When the end date of the period allocation passes, any leftover kAUs will automatically expire.

View and manage your period allocation

You can view and manage your period allocation via SAFE.

  1. Login to SAFE.
  2. Go to the menu Projects managed and select the project you wish to work with.
  3. This will display a screen with a variety of options for managing the project.
  4. Click on Manage Project Resources.
  5. Click on Manage Group Time Allocations for Resource Pool (ATI).

You will then see the details of your allocation. Please check them carefully to make sure you are looking at the correct one.

  • Resource Pool (machine). “ATI” refers to the Turing’s Research Computing Service.
  • Amount of kAUs.
  • Dates It is possible to have multiple successive period allocations, but they can never overlap if they are for the same resource pool. Before carrying out any project management tasks please check the dates and make sure you are managing the correct allocation.

You can skip between the period allocations by clicking on the “>>>” (next period) and “<<<” (previous) buttons at the bottom of the page.

To manage the allocation, see:

Project management tasks for the period allocation can be carried out at any time, but the allocation will be active, i.e. usable, only between the specified dates. Thus, you can set up project groups in advance.

Set up project groups within your project

Project groups can be used to administer time and other resources within your project.

  1. Login to SAFE.

  2. Go to the menu Projects managed and select the project you wish to create the group.

  3. This will display a screen with a variety of options for managing the project.

  4. Click Project Group Administration.

  5. Click Add new sub-group.

  6. This will take you to the screen for creating new project groups.

    Fill in a suffix to your project code in the box: for example, if your project code is t01, you might chose t01-a. Project group names cannot be more than eight characters in total.

  7. If this group is to be used for guest budget users, tick “Guest Budget”.

  8. Click Create.

Single user accounts can only belong to one project group.

Delete a project group

You can only delete a project group if it has no resources or members. You must remove all its members (see Remove a user from a project group) and all its time (See Move time between budgets). Also, if it has disk quotas set (see Administer disk space), it cannot be deleted; they will have to be removed first. Then:

  1. Go to the menu Projects managed and select the project you wish to delete the sub-group from.
  2. Click on Project Group Administration.
  3. Select the project sub-group you want to delete. You will only be able to select the groups which have no time, space or members.
  4. Click Delete. This will ask for confirmation that you wish to delete the sub-group.
  5. Click Yes.

Deleting a group involves removing its various directories. The systems team has to do this, so there will be a short delay.

Administer time within your project

Time is measured in allocation units (kAUs), and is held in budgets. Every project group has its own budget. There are always at least two project groups in your project:

  • general group: This has the same code as the project itself. Every member of the project is a member of this group, so the time in its budget is available to them all.
  • reserve project group. This has a name of form t01-reserve. It has no members, so no one can use the time in its budget. This budget can be used to hold time which the PI or project manager wishes to hold in reserve for later use.

Initially, all your time is in the general group’s budget. If you are happy with all your users using the same budget, you can leave things as they are.

If you wish to divide the time up between groups, you can Set up project groups within your project. In this case you will probably want to move all the time out the general group, since this can be used by everyone.

You may wish to Allocate time to a single user. This is a special case of a project group: one with only one member.

The reserve budget is provided so that if you wish you can control the use of time by your project members: you can keep most of the time in your reserve budget, and move it to the other budgets as required. We recommend that you should do this, even if you don’t need to create other project groups.

Move time between budgets

  1. Login to SAFE.
  2. Go to the menu Projects managed and select the project you wish to work with. This displays a panel with information for the project.
  3. Click Manage Project Resources.
  4. Click Manage Group Time Allocations for ATI.
  5. Click the Move From and Move To buttons of the project groups you want to change.
  6. Enter the number of kAUs you wish to move in the box.
  7. Click the Submit Budget Allocation Changes button. Do not forget this step, or nothing will happen.

Allocate time to a single user

As all the time in a project group is shared by all its members, the only way to reserve some time for a single user is to create a project group for that user alone.

  1. Create a group for the user (see Set up project groups within your project). For example, if we are in project t01 and the user is fred, you might call the new project group t01-fred.
  2. Add the user to the group (see Add users to an existing project group).
  3. Move time between budgets into the new project group so that the user has the time you want them to have.

Remember that time in the general group’s budget is accessible to all, so you will probably want to move all of the project’s time away from there.

Administer disk space

Start by reading about how to Administer time within your project as the administration of disk space is related to this, and is also done using project groups. The two project groups which exist in each project can also be used for administering space.

  • general group. This has the same code as the project itself, includes every member of the project. The disk quotas of this project group can therefore be used by them all.
  • reserve project group. This has a name of form t01-reserve, has no members, so no one can use the disk space which is in its quotas. You can use these quotas to hold space which you want to hold in reserve for later.

Homespace and workspace are administered separately. A project has an overall limit for each of these. Within that limit, every portion of space must belong to one or other of the project group quotas. Thus, to start with, all the homespace (for example) allocated to a project is either in the general homespace quota or the reserve homespace quota. Space never belongs to more than one group quota.

Note: The reserve quota is not a real quota, in fact. It has no existence on the service machine - just in the database.

Beyond the general and reserve quotas, you can also have quotas for the project groups which you create. But this is not compulsory. If you’re thinking about using project group quotas, you need to be aware that they are implemented using Unix groups, which are only just adequate for the task.

Let’s use homespace as an example—workspace is similar. Suppose you are project t01. To start with, one Unix group will be assigned to this project. The homespace directories for all users will be in directory /home/t01/t01/ - this is where the general group is held. User john, for example, will have directory /home/t01/t01/john/ as his homespace directory. (In fact, if this is the first project he joined, that’s where he will log in.) Any file created in any of the directories under /home/t01/t01/ will belong to the Unix group for project t01.

If you create a project group t01-a with no homespace quota, this will not change. But the moment you give a homespace quota to this project group, a Unix group will be assigned to it and a directory will be created for it: /home/t01/t01-a/ . If user john is a member of this project group, he will have a directory /home/t01/t01-a/john/ . Any files he creates under that directory will belong to t01-a and will be counted against its quota.

john is still a member of the general project group, so he can still create files there. If he belongs to other project groups which have quotas, he’ll have directories for these as well. He can only create files in the project groups he is a member of, since he can’t access the directories of the other groups. It’s up to him to make sure that he creates his files in the right places, so that they get charged to the right project groups.

You should also note that once you have instituted project group quotas, there’s no easy way back. Removing them and reassigning all the files to other groups is a complex job and will require special arrangement with the systems team - send a request to the Turing’s Research Computing Service helpdesk if you need to do this.

Most projects in fact use their project groups only for administering time, and allow their users to have access to all their space. You could if you wish make use of user quotas (see Create a quota for a project group, or move space between quotas) to stop individual users from taking too much space.

Note: the above points do not apply to the reserve quotas, since they don’t exist on the service machine. They’re just a book-keeping fiction, and using them is cost free. We recommend this to any project which is concerned about running out of space.

Create a quota for a project group, or move space between quotas

Start by reading about how to Administer disk space. If you are still determined to use project group quotas, this is how.

  1. Login to SAFE.
  2. Go to the menu Projects manaaged and select the project you wish to work on. This will display a panel with the project information.
  3. Click Manage Project Resources.
  4. In the Group Quotas section, click on Archive, Home or Work depending on which kind of quota you wish to create.
  5. You will now see a list of your project groups, including the general and reserve groups. Project groups which have no quota will show the note No quota set.
  6. Click the Move From and Move To buttons of the groups you want to change.
  7. Fill in the number of Gb to move in the box.
  8. Click Submit Group Allocation Changes.

Do not forget the final step, or nothing will happen. The act of moving quota space to a project group which has no quota set converts that project group to one with a group quota, administered by a Unix group, as discussed in Administer disk space above.

Quota changes are carried out by the systems team. Once this has been done, you will receive an email informing you. If you ask for the quota to be reduced below the current size of the files in the project group, the systems team will reject your request, and you will get an email saying this.

Set a quota for an individual user

User disk quotas are completely separate from project group quotas. A user quota simply places a limit on the amount of space which a particular user can occupy in workspace or homespace. There’s nothing to stop you setting user quotas which add up to more (or less) than the total space. To set a quota for a user or users:

  1. Login to SAFE.
  2. Go to the menu Projects managed and select the project you wish to work on. This will display a panel with the project information.
  3. Click Manage Project Resources.
  4. In the User Quotas section, click Home or Work.
  5. You will see a list of users. Enter a value for each of the users whose quota you wish to change.
  6. Click Submit Changes.

Once again, these quota changes are carried out by the systems team. Once they have finished, you will receive an email.

As with group quotas on the work file-system you can only be absolutely sure of writing data when you are more than 7Gb below your quota limit.

Managing Project Users

Register project users

You must not apply for machine accounts on behalf of other users, or let others use accounts that belong to you. Account sharing is strictly forbidden on the Alan Turing Institute Research Computing Service. Every user must register on SAFE and then request an account for the Research Computing Service machine

In order to get an account, a potential user needs to know your project code. This is included in the email which SAFE sends to you, as PI, when your project is set up.

  1. Give the users the project code.
  2. Request that every register on SAFE and then request an account for the Research Computing Service machine.
  3. If you notice that the menu Projects managed is highlighted orange, then this indicates that there is a request for project membership. Now you have to accept (or reject) each user’s request.
  4. Login to SAFE.
  5. Go to the menu Projects managed and select project requests and you will see the details of the user who has applied.
  6. Click the button next to the user.
  7. You will see the user’s details, and at the bottom of the page buttons to accept or reject them.

If you now accept the user, they will get an account. This is the last chance to stop someone who should not be there! Take a few seconds to check the user’s details, especially their email address, to make sure that they are who they say they are. Please check their nationality as well: it’s your responsibility to make sure this is right.

When you accept a user, the systems team is automatically requested to create the account on the service machine. When this has been done, the user is emailed; allow a working day for this. The user can then login to SAFE and get their password for the service machine.

Track user sign up requests

  1. Login to SAFE.
  2. Go to the menu Projects managed and select the project you wish to affect.
  3. Click the Update button.
  4. Enter your email address in the New Account Signup Notification List box. By default, the PI is notified.
  5. Click Commit Update. Do not forget this step, or nothing will happen.

Designate a user as a project manager

A project manager can do everything in a project that a PI can do, except designate another project manager. You can designate as many project managers as you wish.

  1. Make sure the user has an account in your project.
  2. Login to SAFE.
  3. Go to the menu Projects managed and select the project you wish to appoint a project manager for. This will display a screen with a variety of options for managing the project.
  4. Click Add project manager.
  5. A drop down list will be displayed which contains all the users within the project. Select the user you wish to make a manager.
  6. Click Add.

If you later wish to remove a project manager, click Remove project manager, select the project manager and then click Remove.

Designate a user as a project sub-group manager

A project sub-group manager can only move time and disk quota between the groups they manage. They can also create new sub-groups underneath these groups. (If you manage a parent group you automatically manage all its children). Sub-group managers can also accept new people into the project and run reports on the project.

  1. Make sure the user has an account in your project.
  2. Login to SAFE.
  3. Go to the menu Projects managed and select the project you wish to appoint a project sub-group manager for.
  4. Scroll down to project groups and click on Project Group Administration.
  5. Select the project-subgroup that you wish to assign a sub-group manager for. Click on Add Manager.
  6. You will now have a drop down list of all the users who are sub-group members but not currently managers. Select the new manager from this list and click Add and then confirm the change.

To add users to the new project group, see the next question. A user can belong to more than one project group.

Add users to an existing project group

  1. Login to SAFE.
  2. Go to the menu Projects Managed and select the project you wish to are work on. This will display a screen with a variety of options for managing the project.
  3. Click on Project Group Administration.
  4. Scroll down and click on the project sub-group that you wish to add members to.
  5. Scroll down and click on Add accounts.
  6. This lists all of the active users accounts within project, select the users that you should have access to the project group clicking the boxes next to their names and click Add.

To see which members have access to the project group, select project sub-group and click List Members.

If the project group is using disk quotas (see Administer disk space), this operation is carried out by the systems team, so there may be a short delay. Otherwise, it happens at once.

A user can belong to more than one project group.

Remove a user from a project group

  1. Login to SAFE.
  2. Go to the menu Projects managed and select the project you wish to work on. This will display a screen with a variety of options for managing the project.
  3. Click on Project Group Administration
  4. Scroll down and click on the group you wish to work with.
  5. Click on Set membership and you will see the list of users with a tick beside those who are members.
  6. Tick or Untick the users as required for membership.

To see the membership of a group, select project group and then click List members which shows the list of current members.

If the project group is using disk quotas (see Administer disk space), this operation is carried out by a the systems team, so there may be a short delay. Otherwise, it happens at once.

Temporarily stop a user from using any time in your project

This is called deactivating a user. A user who has been deactivated cannot use any of your budgets. This means that they cannot do any work, in effect, so we recommend that you use this facility with care.

  1. Login to SAFE.
  2. Go to the menu Projects managed and select the project you are working on.
  3. Click Administer Users.
  4. Select the user or users you wish to deactivate.
  5. Click Deactivate.

To reactivate the users, do the same, but click Activate instead.

Remove one or more users from your project

Before doing this, bear in mind that it will result in all their files in your project being deleted. Are you sure that this is what you want? If so:

  1. Login to SAFE.
  2. Go to the menu Projects managed and select the project you wish to work on. This will display a screen with a variety of options for managing the project.
  3. Click Administer Users.
  4. A list of all your users will be displayed. Tick the box next to the user (or users) in question, then go to the bottom and click Remove User from Project.

SAFE will now ask you to confirm your action. If you do, all the files and directories in your project which belong to the users will be deleted, and the users will be removed from any of your project groups, so that they will not be able to use your time. In addition, if a user does not belong to any other project, their account on the service machine will be closed.

Send a mailing to all users in your project

  1. Login to SAFE.

  2. Go to the menu Projects Managed and select the project you wish to work on. This will display a screen with a variety of options for managing the project.

  3. By Project mailings click on View

  4. You will see a list of all of the previous project mailings, and the option to compose a new one.

  5. Select Compose

  6. To change the mailing or content, you can use the Edit Subject and Edit buttons. Once you have changed the text select Update.

  7. To send the mail click Send.

    There is an option to Start Over - this will wipe the content of the email.

    The Abort option will take you out of the mailing page completely.

Tracking your Project Usage

Check the current state of your project’s time and space

  1. Login to SAFE.
  2. Go to the menu Projects managed and select the project you wish to work on.
  3. Under Project groups you can see the current state of each project group’s budgets. If it uses disk quotas, you will see these, together with how much of is in use.

If a project group’s use of a quota is getting close to the maximum, it is highlighted in pink.

The budget values displayed are updated every morning, and the values shown for disk use are updated four times a day. For this reason, these values may not all be completely up-to-date. If there is a lot of activity in your project, the numbers shown could be significantly different from the current ones.

Track what your project’s users and project groups are doing

This can be done using the Report Generator:

  1. Login to SAFE.
  2. Go to the menu Service information and select Report generator
  3. Choose a report format: HTML, PDF or CSV (comma-separated values — good for input to Excel, etc.)
  4. Select the start and end dates of the period you are interested in.
  5. Select Project Information. (Only PIs and project managers see this section).
  6. Select the information you need.
  7. Click Generate Report.

Request automatic project reports

  1. Login to SAFE.
  2. Go to the menu Projects Managed and select the project you wish to work on. This will display a screen with a variety of options for managing the project.
  3. Click on Update
  4. Enter the email addresses which the reports should be sent to in Recipients for automatic reports.
  5. Set the Frequency of Automatic Reports to the preferred frequency.
  6. Click Update to confirm the changes.

Check how much space my project’s users are occupying

Use the Report Generator (see Request automatic project reports), and select User disk use. The Report Generator displays the history of disk use—to see the current use, make sure that the reporting period includes the present moment. The disk usage values known to the database are updated four times a day, so if there is a lot of activity in your project, the numbers shown could be significantly different from the current ones.

There’s an unresolvable problem with this: if a user has an account which belongs to more than one project, the disk usage shown for that account will be the total that the account is using in all those projects combined.

Request more resources (kAUs and disk space)

If you need more homespace or workspace, contact the Turing’s Research Computing Service helpdesk. We will always receive such requests sympathetically, and it is likely that we will be able to allocate some more to your project.