Sharing GWS data via HTTP

What is HTTP data sharing?  

Specific parts of JASMIN Group Workspaces (GWSs) can be made available via HTTP, so that:

• data can be shared with users who do not have JASMIN accounts
• common clients such as wget, curl, client libraries and web browsers can be used to access the data via a commonly-supported protocol.

In this respect, the service should be regarded as another data transfer tool. However it must be arranged in advance between the Group Workspace manager and the JASMIN Helpdesk. It involves:

1. A member of the workspace creating a public directory and placing data inside it
2. The GWS manager making a request to the JASMIN Helpdesk to request that this specific GWS is configured to be shared via HTTP.

Both these steps need to be completed in order for the GWS to be visible via HTTP. By default, GWSs are not visible by HTTP.

Once a GWS has been made available, it is publicly visible by the entire internet: please bear that in mind.

The following sections below describe how to set up restricted and unrestricted access to your “public” directory. If you require access control then see the section on password-protected access below. [Note: this is currently possible, though not recommended, only because the current webserver configuration permits this (now deprecated) means of restricting access. Future revisions of the service may remove or change the way access restrictions can be imposed].

Public access set up  

In some cases the GWS manager may want to make some files and directories available over HTTP so that users (perhaps a wider audience than just the membership of the GWS) can access the data via a web browser or other HTTP- based tools. This can be done by creating a public directory in the top- level directory of the GWS, for example:

cd /group_workspace/jasmin/foobaa/
mkdir public
chmod -Rf 755 public

You should then contact JASMIN Support and ask for this directory to be made visible via the gws-access server. The JASMIN team will configure this change and your public directory will then be visible from:

https://gws-access.jasmin.ac.uk/public/foobaa/ 

Please see the section below if you wish to control who can access the content of one or more of the sub-directories within your public directory.

Restricted access set up  

In order to restrict access to your “public” directory, and/or any sub- directories, you will need to create an “.htaccess” file within it. In turn, the “.htaccess” file must point to a “.htpasswd” file which lists the usernames and encrypted passwords that have read-access to that directory.

In order to create the “.htpasswd” file, you will need access to the “htpasswd” command. This is available on the transfer servers xfer[12].jasmin.ac.uk

You can then create the “.htpasswd” file as follows (using the example of a Group Workspace called “foobaa”):

export GWS=/group_workspaces/jasmin/foobaa/
cd $GWS
mkdir -p public
cd public
htpasswd -b -m -c $GWS/public/.htpasswd i_am_a_user i_am_a_password

Before this will work, you also need to create a “.htaccess” file which you could do as follows

cat >.htaccess <<EOL
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Password Required"
AuthUserFile /group_workspaces/jasmin/foobaa/public/.htpasswd
Require valid-user
EOL

Finally, change the permissions on these files:

chmod 644 .htaccess .htpasswd

Now, you can test that you get prompted for the username and password by visiting

https://gws-access.jasmin.ac.uk/public/foobaa/