Topic: Sharing Files on Each Computer via UNIX Groups
Date Received: January 3, 2008

I and my co-workers would frequently like to share files with each other but not with the general population of users on a particular computer.

Accordingly, it would be great if a UNIX group were created on each computer for each allocation and all users of that allocation would be members of that group. Then users could turn on group file permissions to let their co-workers at their files.

In the past we've asked the help desk to do this for us, but it would be nice if it were automatic.

BC Team Feedback
Reply Date: May 05, 2008

An internal investigation by the Baseline Configuration (BC) team revealed that each of the six participating centers had a method for creating UNIX groups on each computer per allocation so that users in a group could share files without engaging others. It was observed that there was some commonality in the adopted methods, but definitely not across the six participating sites. To bring commonality across all six centers may require significant effort.

At a BC team teleconference in early April, it was recommended by the BC team to bring your request to the attention of the pIE team. The idea is as follows:

If a Principal Investigator (PI) or Alternate PI wishes to have a "UNIX Group capability established so that all users listed in that subproject could share files without engaging others," then the pIE system will notify each center with an allocation, and the center will subsequently create the group. For groups that cross subprojects but are within the same Computational Project, the PI and/or Alternate PI would be the designating authorities in pIE. For groups that cross projects, the S/AAA or Alternate S/AAA would be the designating authority in pIE.

Late April, the BC team sent a note to the pIE team requesting the automatic creation of UNIX groups on each computer per allocation. Promptly, the BC team has received a reply from pIE informing the team that the recommendation for the creation of UNIX groups will be added to the list of candidate pIE enhancements for FY09 implementation.