Getting on to the Grid

If you are at Nikhef, grid resources, computing and storage in the Netherlands, in the LHC Computing Grid, and through the European EGEE e-Infrastructure are available for your use: just start using the Grid! To make the most of your experience, follow these simple steps. For help, you can always drop by at any room between H1.50 and H1.59!

• Remember that all the grid tools you need are installed on all Nikhef desktops and on login.nikhef.nl.
  
• Get a Grid identity: take the registration tutorial, and go get a certificate at the DutchGrid CA. If you already have a certificate from any of the EUGridPMA or IGTF accredited CAs, you can use that one.
• Import the certificate in your browser (see here how) and - if you are affiliated to ATLAS, LHCb, or Alice - register with LCG at the Registration Site. If your community is not listed there, ask the grid team or go to the list of BiG grid supported communities.
  In a day or two (depending on your experiment management) you will have access to the Grid. Please do abide by the e-Infrastructure policies as well as of course the Nikhef AUP.
• Add the Grid Software to your path and start working from any Scientic Linux 4 workstation, following our step-by-step guide.
• To start your work on the grid, also have a look at your experiment's software framework. For example, Atlas analysis requires the use of DonQuijote2 for data management, LHCb uses DIRAC, and Alice uses AliEn.
  For experiment-specific help, please turn to your group expert. For:

  Atlas

  Hurng-Chun Lee, H1.56, ext. 5083

• Access to Stoomboot is most convenient from either login.nikhef.nl or via elel22.nikhef.nl. For questions regarding the functioning of Stoomboot, ask the help desk (ext. 2200).

You can browse through the Grid documentation to tackle the complex use cases. For more information, you can contact the PDP and Grid team in H1.50 - H1.59, or by e-mail any time to grid.support@nikhef.nl. This is also the proper e-mail address for support questions and bug reports.