At IU, how do I use HSI to access my SDA account?

On this page:

• Introduction
• Accessing HSI
• HSI commands
• Using alternate authentication with HSI or HTAR

Introduction

The Hierarchical Storage Interface (HSI) application was created by Michael Gleicher, of Gleicher Enterprises, LLC, to conveniently access much of the functionality of HPSS. The HSI interface is similar to that of FTP. Its companion program, HTAR, can simplify aggregation of many files into one large file, which is the preferred method of storing things in HPSS.

Note: For information about other methods of accessing the SDA, see At IU, how do I access the SDA?

Accessing HSI

Following are instructions for accessing HSI on Indiana University research computing systems:

• Research Database Complex (RDC): On the RDC, HSI is installed in /usr/local/bin (so it's in the default path).
  
  
• Big Red: To use HSI on Big Red, add the +hpss keyword to your user environment:
  
  
  • To add it temporarily, at the command prompt, enter: soft add +hpss
  • To add it permanently, add +hpss to your ~/.soft file, save the file, and then enter resoft at the command prompt.
  
  
• Quarry, Mason: To use HSI on Quarry or Mason, load the HPSS module: module load hpss

  To make permanent changes to your environment, edit your ~/.modules file. For more, see In Modules, how do I save my environment with a .modules file?

To use HSI on your personal workstation, download a copy from the Research Storage HSI page.

Note: Due to a possible data corruption issue with HTAR versions 4.0 and greater, you should update the HSI/HTAR client on your personal workstation as soon as possible to the patched version made available March 28, 2013, by the UITS Research Storage team. To download the patched version and get further information about this issue, see the Research Storage HSI page. If you have questions, email Research Storage.

HSI commands

HSI commands will seem familiar to Unix and FTP users. A session might look like the following (% is the Unix shell prompt, and ? is the HSI prompt):

Using alternate authentication with HSI or HTAR

By default, HSI and HTAR will prompt for login information. HSI and HTAR refer to this as the combo authentication method. In addition, you can authenticate using a Kerberos keytab (keytab method) and existing Kerberos credentials (Kerberos method), if these methods are built into the binary you are using.

To select an authentication method for HSI, use the command-line options, a .hsirc file in your home directory, or environment variables. The command-line options and .hsirc do not work for HTAR; the only way to set the authentication method for HTAR is to use the environment variables.

To set the authentication method, use one of the following:

• Use the -A method option for HSI.
• Add authmethod = method to the .hsirc file.
• Set the HPSS_AUTH_METHOD environment variable to the appropriate method.

Replace method with the name of the method: combo, keytab, kerberos, or gsi.

If you're using the keytab method, you must also specify the keytab file. Do this in one of the following ways:

• Set the keytab filename with the -k /path/to/mykeytab option for HSI.
• Add keytab = /path/to/mykeytab to the .hsirc file.
• Set the HPSS_KEYTAB_PATH environment variable to the path to the keytab.

If you're using the keytab method, you must also specify the login name. Do this in one of the following ways (replacing username with your username):

• Set the login name with the -l username option for HSI.
• Add principal = username in the .hsirc file.
• Set the HPSS_PRINCIPAL environment variable to the username.

The following examples show how to define the environment variables for the keytab method (for either HTAR or HSI):

• If you use csh or tcsh: setenv HPSS_PRINCIPAL username setenv HPSS_AUTH_METHOD keytab setenv HPSS_KEYTAB_PATH /home/username/mykeytab
• If you use ksh or bash: export HPSS_PRINCIPAL=username export HPSS_AUTH_METHOD=keytab export HPSS_KEYTAB_PATH=/home/username/mykeytab

Replace username with your username, and mykeytab with the name of your keytab file.

The following example shows how to set these options on the command line (HSI only):

The following example shows how to set these options in your .hsirc file (HSI only):

This document is based upon work supported in part by National Science Foundation (NSF) grant 0910812 to Indiana University for "FutureGrid: An Experimental, High-Performance Grid Test-bed." FutureGrid project partners include the University of California - San Diego and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), the University of Chicago/Argonne National Labs, the University of Florida, Purdue University, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas - Austin, and the Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing at Technische Universität Dresden.