Using NGS

To use the UK national grid services you will need to obtain a grid certificate.

This can be achieved by filling out the forms at http://www.ngs.ac.uk/ and going (in person, with photo id) to your local (Oxford) certification office.

You will now find that not only do you need to have a certificate but a computer that you have access to needs a certificate, you or your sys admin will need to fill out more forms and go in person to be certified.

You will now need to install software to access the grid this is often globus or if you have open SUSE and globus will not run on it I can recommend GROWL. http://www.growl.org.uk/Scripts/growl-scripts.shtml

you will need to create a ./globus directory in your home directory and you'll need to set up your usercert.pem and userkey.pem files. ngs web page will advise on this

Now you have all the certificates, passwords and software you need to get started.

Go through the helpful list of scripts on the GROWL web page which will show you how to create a proxy and allow you to run jobs.

Finding the names of the machines you can use is a bit of hit and miss but: grid-compute.oesc.ox.ac.uk

appears to be working for me.

to ssh in: gsissh -p 2222 ngs.oerc.ox.ac.uk

to scp across: gsiscp -P 2222 mesh.pts ngs.oerc.ox.ac.uk