The HECToR Service is now closed and has been superceded by ARCHER.

FAQ: PI and Project Manager Administration

Information on administration tasks for PI's and Project Managers.

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Q. I have received an email saying that my project has been set up. What should I do next?

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

Q. How can I get an account on the service machine for myself?

A. 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 service machine account:

  • Login to SAFE.
  • Click the Request New Account button. This will display the Request New Account page.
  • Fill in your project code and your preferred login name, and click on Submit

You will get an acknowledgment screen, from which you can return to your main page. Now (as PI) you have to accept your own request for an account—see the next question.

Q. How can I get my users registered?

A. In order to get an account, a potential user needs to know two things: your project code, and your project password. These are included in the email which SAFE sends to you, as PI, when your project is set up. The project password is not the same as your personal SAFE password; it is used only by new users when getting their accounts.

  • Give the users the project code and project password, in as secure a way as you are comfortable with.
  • Each user should follow the procedure to get an account on HECToR shown above. You could, for example, send them the URL of this webpage
  • Now you have to accept (or reject) each user's request. Login to SAFE.
  • At the top of your main page, you will see a list of New Project Signup Requests, each with a Process button
  • Click the button next to the user
  • 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 pick up their password on the service machine.

Q. How can I know when someone has registered, so that I can go and approve their registration? I don't want to have to check my SAFE account every day.

A. Login to SAFE. Then:

  • Go down to the You manage the following projects panel.
  • Click on the Administer button next to the project you want to affect.
  • Click the Update button.
  • Enter your email address in the New Account Signup Notification List box.
  • Click Commit Update.

Do not forget the last step, or nothing will happen.

Q. How can I change the project password?

A. Login to SAFE. Then:

  • Find the panel headed You manage the following projects
  • Click on the Administer button next to the project whose password you want to change. This will display a page with a variety of options for managing your project.
  • Click Update
  • The basic details of your project will be displayed. Change the password in the password box.
  • Click Commit Update

Do not forget the last step, or nothing will happen.

Q. How can I designate a user as a project manager?

A. 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.

  • Make sure the user has an account in your project.
  • Login to SAFE.
  • Find the panel headed You manage the following projects
  • Click on the Administer button for the project you wish to appoint a project manager for. This will display a screen with a variety of options for managing the project.
  • Click Administer Users
  • A list of all your users will be displayed. Tick the box next to the user in question, then go to the bottom and click Make Manager
Q. How can I set up project groups within my project?

A. Project groups can be used to administer time and other resources within your project. See the discussions about the ways that projects and resources are organised.

  • Login to SAFE.
  • Find the panel headed You manage the following projects
  • Click on the Administer button for the project in question. This will display a screen with a variety of options for managing the project.
  • Click Project Group Administration
  • 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.
  • Click Create new group

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

Q. How can I add users to an existing project group?

A. Login to SAFE. Then:

  • Find the panel headed You manage the following projects
  • Click on the Administer button for the project you are working on. This will display a screen with a variety of options for managing the project.
  • Click on Administer Users
  • Select the users by clicking the boxes next to their names
  • Move to the bottom of the display and select a project group
  • Click Add to group

If the project group is using disk quotas, this operation is carried out by a human, so there may be a short delay. Otherwise, it happens at once.

A user can belong to more than one project group.

Q. How can I remove a user from a project group?

A. Login to SAFE. Then:

  • Find the panel headed You manage the following projects
  • Click on the Administer button for the project you are working on. This will display a screen with a variety of options for managing the project.
  • Click on Administer Users
  • You will see a grey button marked with X for every project group that a user belongs to. Click this button, and the user will be removed from that project group.

If the project group is using disk quotas, this operation is carried out by a human, so there may be a short delay. Otherwise, it happens at once.

Q. How can I administer time within my project?

A. 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:

  • The general group, which 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.
  • The reserve project group, which 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 create a project group for each group. 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 give time just 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.

Q. How can I move time between budgets?

A. Login to SAFE, and then:

  • Click the Administer button next to the project you are working on.
  • Click Manage Project Resources
  • Click Manage Group Time Allocations
  • Click the Move From and Move To buttons of the project groups you want to change
  • Enter the number of kAUs you wish to move in the box
  • Click the Submit Budget Allocation Changes button.

Do not forget the last step, or nothing will happen.

Q. How can I allocate time to a single user?

A. 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.

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.

Q. How can I administer disk space?

A. Start by reading the discussion of the administration of time, 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.

  • The general group, which 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.
  • The reserve project group, which 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. [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.

Of course, 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.

That's the theory, but unfortunately there are ways for users to get round this system (by mistake and on purpose), and there's nothing we can do about this, apart from changing the group IDs of files when we notice it happening. We are at the limit of what the operating system's technology can do.

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 system team—send a request to the 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 to stop individual users from taking too much space.

[Note that 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.]

Q. How can I create a quota for a project group, or move space between quotas?

A. First, read the discussion of space administration. If you are still determined to use project group quotas, this is how.

  • Login to SAFE
  • Click the Administer button next to the project you are working on.
  • Click Manage Project Resources
  • In the Group Quotas section, click on Archive, Home or Work depending on which kind of quota you wish to create
  • 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
  • Click the Move From and Move To buttons of the groups you want to change
  • Fill in the number of Gb to move in the box
  • 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 earlier.

Quota changes are actually carried out by a human being. 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 human will reject your request, and you will get an email saying this.

The work file-system is built using the lustre file-system. Lustre is a parallel striped file-system built out of sub-units called OSTs. When quotas are applied to a lustre file-system the quota is dynamically divided over the OSTs in blocks of 100Mb. On HECToR the work file-system has 71 OSTS. This means that it is possible to be unable to write a file even when your disk use is up to 7Gb less than your quota depending on the distribution of data and quota across the OSTs.

Q. How can I set a quota for a single user?

A. 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:

  • Login to SAFE
  • Click the Administer button next to the project you are working on.
  • Click Manage Project Resources
  • In the User Quotas section, click Home or Work
  • You will see a list of users. Enter a value for each of the users whose quota you wish to change
  • Click Submit Changes

Once again, these quota changes are carried out by a human. 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.

Q. How can I see the current state of my project's time and space?

A. Login to SAFE. Then:

  • Click the Administer button next to the project you are working on.
  • 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.

Q. How can I track what my project's users and project groups are doing?

A. This can be done using the Report Generator.

  • Click Go to Report Generator
  • Select the start and end dates of the period you are interested in
  • Select Project Information. (Only PIs and project managers see this section)
  • Select the information you need.
  • Choose a report format: HTML, PDF or CSV (comma-separated values—good for input to Excel, etc.)
  • Click Generate Report
Q. How can I see how much space my project's users are occupying?

A. Use the Report Generator (see the previous question), 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.

Q. My project needs more space or time. How can I get it?

A. If you need more home or work space, contact the helpdesk. We will always receive such requests sympathetically, and it is likely that we will be able to allocate some more to your project.

If you need extra time, you should contact the research council which is funding your project. HECToR helpdesk cannot allocate time without authorisation from them.

Q. How can I delete a project group?

A. You can only delete a project group if it has no resources or members. You must remove all its members and all its time. Also, if it has disk quotas set, it cannot be deleted; they will have to be removed first. Then:

  • Go down to the You manage the following projects panel.
  • Click on the Administer button next to the project.
  • Click on Project Group Administration
  • Select the project group you want to delete. You will only be able to select the groups which have no time, space or members.
  • Click Delete Group

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

Q. Can I temporarily stop a user from using any time in my project?

A. Yes. 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.

  • Login to SAFE
  • Click the Administer button next to the project you are working on.
  • Click Administer Users
  • Select the user or users you wish to deactivate
  • Click Deactivate

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

Q. How can I remove a user (or users) from my project?

A. 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:

  • Login to SAFE
  • Find the panel headed You manage the following projects
  • Click on the Administer button for the project. This will display a screen with a variety of options for managing the project.
  • Click Administer Users
  • 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.

Q. How can I send a mailing to all users in my project
  • Login to SAFE
  • Find the panel headed You manage the following projects
  • Click on the Administer button for the project. This will display a screen with a variety of options for managing the project.
  • Scroll down to Project mailings and select View
  • Select the project which members you want to email. You will see the mailings you created in the past, and the option to compose a new one.
  • Select Compose
  • To change the mailing or content, you can use the Edit Subject and Edit buttons. Once you have changed the text select Update.
  • 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.

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