LRZ Grid Portal: GridFTP Client's Guide

GridFTP Client at LRZ

What is GridFTP Client?

GridFTP Client is an open-source GridFTP client software for file transfers in the Grid environment. It is user-friendly, cross-platform and dCache compatible. It is currently available as a eclipse plug-in. In the future, it will also be available as a standalone application. Some features of this tool include ease of use and reliability in large (>500 GB) transfers between remote (3rd party) machines. The transfers can consist of large number of files (>20,000) distributed over many nested directories. It also supports creation of grid proxy and authentication via Globus-compliant X509 certificate. However, it has yet to support transfers from local machine to a remote machine. More information about the supported and yet to be supported features are available[here].

Preparing for GridFTP Client

Grid Certificates

Users should make sure that their grid certificates (usercert.pem and userkey.pem) are on their local machine. We strongly recommended for the users to place their grid certificates in a folder ".globus" in their respective home directory. For Linux/Unix user, the ".globus" folder should be in $HOME. For Windows user, the ".globus" folder should be in following directory: "C:\Documents and Settings\{username}".

CA certificates and signing policies for access LRZ's grid are also required. For Linux/Unix users who have installed other grid middlewares, these certificates are probably already in your "/etc/grid-security/certificates" directory. For Windows and Linux users who have not installed any grid middlewares, please create a "certificates" folder in the ".globus" folder. Download and extract the content of this file [lrzGridCerts.tar.gz] into the "certificates" folder.

Installing and Setting up GridFTP Client

To install GridFTP, Eclipse 3.2 or above must be installed. You would also need to install Jave Runtime Environment (JRE) for both Eclipse and GridFTP Client. We strongly recommend that you install JRE 1.5 or above. Once JRE and Eclipse are installed, please start Eclipse so that you can install the GridFTP Client. For Windows users, Eclipse can be started by double clicking on the eclipse.exe application file. For Linux/Unix users, eclipse can be started by typing ./eclipse in the terminal window at the directory where eclipse is installed. Please kindly make sure that Java is installed at this point. Go to menu "Help"->"Software Updates"->"Find and Install". An "Install/Update" window will appear. Select the option "Search for new features to install". Click on the "Next" button. Now select the "New Remote Site" button. Another window "New Update Site" will appear. Enter in the "Name:" textbox any name you prefer, e.g., GridFTP Client. In the "URL:" textbox, please enter "http://bi.offis.de/gridftp/updates". Click "OK". Now you will notice in the "Sites to include in search:" panel a new option "GridFTP Client". Make sure that this option is checked and the rest of the options are not. Select "Finish" button. The update manager will now search for the GridFTP client at the above url. The next window will display the "Search Results". In the "Select the features to install" panel, an option "GridFTP plugin" should be available. Check that option and click "Next>". Accept the license agreement and select "Next>" again. Finally click on the "Finish" button. Eclipse will request a restart for a complete installation. You have now installed GridFTP Client.

Starting GridFTP Client

GridFTP Client is started when you start Eclipse. To switch to the GridFTP Client perspective in Eclipse, please go to the menu "Window"->"Open Perspective"->"Other...". Select "GridFTP Client" in the "Open Perspective" window. You should see the following window.

In the "GridFTP Browser" Tab, you should see 2 panels with "Server 1" and "Server 2" header respectively. These are the two remote (3rd party) servers you wish to connect to for file transfers. Click on the "Connect" button in "Server 1" panel. The following window will appear.

In the "URL:" textbox, please enter the following information:

For HLRB2:
URL: a01.hlrb2.lrz-muenchen.de:2811

For Linux Cluster:
URL: lxgt2.lrz-muenchen.de:2811

Please kindly note that for HLRB2 users, the static IP of your local machine must be added to our firewall allowed list. Please kindly contact grid-admin@lists.lrz.de for more information.

Upon selecting "OK" in the previous window, a new warning window as follows should be displayed. Click on "OK".

The next window you will see is a "Grid Proxy Init" window. Please kindly check that all information in the "CoG Files" is correct. Typically the information is correct. If it is not, please modify and input the correct information. Please note the the "User Proxy" contains the output directory and proxy filename that is generated by "grid proxy init" command within the application. As such, you should typically not modified this value. The "CA Certificates" should point to the directory where your CA certificates and signing policies are installed. This is the compressed tar "lrzGridCerts.tar.gz" mentioned in the Grid Certificates section. Enter your password (the passphrase of your grid certificate) and click "OK".

The following window will be displayed. It provides information about your proxy certificate that was successfully generated. Click "OK"

Now repeat the above steps for panel "Server 2". In the window below, it demonstrates the connection to HLRB2 (Server 1) and "Linux Cluster" (Server 2).

There are 2 windows in each server panel. The window on top shows the file system of the server you are connected to. Your $HOME directory will be highlighted. The window below shows the folders and files in your "Current Directory" which in this case is your $HOME directory. By modifying selecting a different folder in the top window, the "Current Directory" in the bottom window will change accordingly. This applies also to the "Server 2" panel.

To transfer files, simply right click the file or folder in the bottom window of the respective panel. Select the "Transfer File" option. You can also delete files similarly. The transfer and progress of the file can be observed from the "Transfer" and "Progress" tabs at the bottom of Eclipse window respectively. An interactive demo of this tool is available [here]. A user guide of this tool is also available for download.

If you face any problems, please contact grid-admin@lists.lrz.de