Terminology

This page provides a quick explanation of the vocabulary used with the software to manage /projects.

User Types

Users are split into five types. The user type determines the user’s access level for a research project both on the filesystem and our software to manage /projects. The five types in ascending order of access level:

  1. Data-custodian: the data-custodian is an email address that will receive information related to quotas and updates about the workspace; access to the cluster is not a requirement (N.B. this is an optional user type to have for a group).

  2. Guests: guests of a research group are users that can read and execute within a project directory but not write.

  3. Members: members of a research group can read, write, and execute, but they are unable to add other members to the research group through the software to manage /projects.

  4. Delegates: delegates are members elevated by the PI that can add and remove other members.

  5. PI: the PI is the owner of the research project and, therefore, they have full access.

Note

To see all the available commands for the different user types check out Commands.

TTL

At the inception of every project, we establish a ttl or “Time To Live”, which indicates how long the project is guaranteed to be supported.

This ttl can be viewed by the PI at any point (see Viewing), and, once the ttl expires, Research Computing will email the PI and data-custodian to inquire about the status and continuation of the research project on the cluster.

Important

Although a TTL exists for a research group, its purpose is not punitive or restrictive, but rather it is purely administrative – enabling us to find out if the group is still active, if PI needs to be changed as they may have left, etc.