# CERNBox User Forum Q&A The timetable with all material is available in [Indico](https://indico.cern.ch/event/1067354/timetable/#20211208.detailed). Please add your name and your question(s) below each contribution. --- ## CERNBox Service: Introduction and Roadmap #### CERNBox: an overview (_Hugo GONZALEZ LABRADOR_) * #### Applications ecosystem (_Giuseppe LO PRESTI_) * Priyanka Dasgupta --> There used to be the collaborate option earlier on documents and excels earlier; which also enabled 'track changes'. Now even though we can live edit- can't seem to track any changes for other users to see ( versions unfortunately still don't mark out where the changes were made). Is this a feature planned to be back? * Giuseppe: which app did allow tracking changes in Excel files? (The app portfolio is being reviewed as mentioned, will take this feedback in the review process). * Priyanka: It was microsoft word. Excel I'm not sure if the track was there. But the collaborate option was (but for that i think the functionality is the same for live edits as now ) thanks * Giuseppe: OK thanks, I confirm Excel was and remains problematic but for Word we have a technical preview where track changes work fine. #### Data safety (_Gianmaria DEL MONTE_) * #### User Feedback & Engagement (_Jakub MOSCICKI_) * #### New Features in the Web UI (_Elizaveta RAGOZINA_) * #### New Features in the Windows Desktop client (_Samuel ALFAGEME SAINZ_) * Adam Barton - Any Linux client? * Giuseppe: Unfortunately VFS is a Windows feature. Yet the new beta version of the CERNBox client for Linux is also available (I'm regularly using it). #### Roadmap for 2022 and beyond (_Diogo CASTRO_) * Valentina V. Baldassarre --> At the end of the presentation, the collaborative hub was mentioned. Have you already thought about the possibility to migrate the contents from the current collaborative platform (e.g. Readthedocs, Wikis) to the CERNbox? * Diogo: There was an evaluation of all the applications we (the IT department) provide as part of the MALT initiative. This initiative is now being reviewed so we will have to wait for the official conclusions. We're open to other integrations but we currently don't have plans for those in particular. * Valentina: Thank you Diogo for your reply, as well as your clear presentation! #### General discussion Marta (?): Raspberry PI backup use-case. * Sync client is not a backup tool. Lower level tools may be more appriate. * A presentation * Please follow up with a request to the CERNBox service to better understand the use case by the IT Storage group. Joel Closier: people confused by Windows setup of CERNBox post the DFS migration. * "My documents" - "H:\eos\user" - "home from eos client sync" * Needs more informaiton. * Will follow up offline. Chris Lee: git and cernbox sync client do not play together well. Elena Gianolio: what additional security and privacy of data is provided. * Examples: encryption in transit, data location physically secured in computer center, it's a user's responsibility to encrypt disk of their personal laptops ## Experiments #### A CMS perspective about CERNBox (_Danilo PIPARO_) * Luca: EOSUSER will support WebDAV for Grid transfers, please put us in contact with the person responsible. * Giuseppe: we're already looking after this! #### Use of CERNbox by the FASER experiment (_Jamie BOYD_) * Gallery view use-case for storing high-res images of the detector. #### My experience as an ALICE analyser (_Nicolo' JACAZIO_) * How many collaborators? * Use-case 3: 100 people * Use-case 2: 10 people #### ATLAS documentation team and CERNBox (_Adam Edward BARTON_) * Disappearing ACLs? * Root-cause to be understood. Apparently not related to moving folders or e-group sync. * I confirm disappearing permissions are still an issue, see [this incident](https://cern.service-now.com/service-portal?id=ticket&table=incident&n=INC2997922) for example * Thanks, we'll followup there * Adam: If this isn't sensitive can you add me to the watchlist so I can read the incident? * The incident was opened by Marton on a case he talked about in his talk, with a double sync between Dropbox and CERNBox. Not sure this is really related though (and to give visibility to a service ticket you would need his explicit approval). * Permissions management in the project spaces (Joel) * Improved in the new UI. --- ## Privacy #### CERNBox for storage and transfer of personal data - Data privacy considerations (_Costanza POLLINI, Gabriele THIEDE_) * The privacy assessment of the service presented in this contribution was found imprecise and not always correct. A discussion with ODP will be scheduled soon for clarification. * Sebastian L.: +1 for disk encryption on endpoint devices! #### Service Médical du CERN et CERNBOX (_Walid FADEL_) * Sebastian Lopienski: Walid, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us (Computer.Security@cern.ch) or myself if there are any computer security aspects of your work (e.g. handling and sharing data) that you'd like to discuss! * Walid Fadel: Merci Sebastian, toujours un plaisir d'avoir votre support nous n'hesiterons pas. * Sebastian Lopienski: From the Computer Security point of view: - If sharing a file with a public link, password protected, then yes the link and the password should certainly be communicated via separate channels, and not both over email (even if separate emails) - Giving access to specific users is more secure (+gives more traceability) than sharing with a public link. For users without a CERN account, it's really great that CERNbox will now support lightweight accounts! (thanks CERNbox!) #### Sharing folders with confidentiality - CSC (_Joelma TOLOMEO_) * Requests (to be followed up with upstream) * Notifications / watch folders * See who accessed / delete / modified files * Trashbin recovery (already exists) #### Just an anecdote (_Patric KOPPENBURG_) * --- ## Engineering #### Cernbox use in Alice MFT project (_Charlotte RICCIO_) #### CERNBox integration in small team designing power converters (_Yves THUREL_) #### CERNBox use cases for remote calculations on terminal servers (_Marton ADY_) #### CERNBox contribution to drone mapping (_Youri ROBERT_) #### EN-MME's Early Evaluation of CERNBox to Store Group Data (_Ben POQUETTE_) --- Feedback from Marzena: different departments have different practices. In some departments CERNBox was a standard, in other they do not use online tools at all. After the new version release perhaps it would be good to do Tour du CERN and engage with the departments. --- ## Outreach, Education and Learning #### How CERN's Knowledge Transfer Communication team uses CERNbox (_Marzena LAPKA, Priyanka DASGUPTA_) * #### Indico + CERNBox: A VCHEP 2021 use-case (_Javier FERRER_) * #### Publish and preserve files from CERNBox in Open Repositories (InvenioRDM/CDS) (_Jenny Mathilde BONSAK_) * #### CERNbox EOS website for e-learning previews (_Philippe BERSET_) * Philippe Berset: * to give a better answer to Hugo's proposal: A code editor is not NEEDED for this use case, because the HTML/CSS/JS is generated by the authoring tool, which makes it hard to manually update. However, possible. A CERNBox built in code editor would still be a motivating feat to have in order to put more effort into a [home page](https://project-hr-ld-web.web.cern.ch/project-hr-ld-web/) or some other [small projects](https://project-hr-ld-web.web.cern.ch/project-hr-ld-web/quality_price_weight_calculator/). * A git-like filter that can go through the text files and detect which ones do not need to be uploaded would allow to do lower size transfer. I know I could use git, but my colleagues would prefer a familiar way of managing files. * Overall, CERNBox works great for this use case as it is. #### The ATLAS Education & Outreach Box – A comms CERNbox use case (_Sascha MEHLHASE_) * #### Using CERNBox for a CERN OpenDays's Selfie-Station (_Manuel RODRIGUEZ_) * --- ## Integrations #### Building the LCG Software Stacks and EOS (_Andre SAILER_) * #### Integration of CERNBox in the DBOD service (_Abel CABEZAS ALONSO_) * #### Measuring the quark-gluon plasmas viscosities by colliding heavy ions on lxplus (_Wilke VAN DER SCHEE_) * --- ### Open discussion * Markus Widorski: Maybe not directly linked to CERNBox but rather to EOS: We have been experiencing corrupted files and high latencies for file operations on EOS, especially when comparing to AFS. Reason why we resort still often to work only with AFS instead of EOS (and unfortunately miss the convenience to be able access via CERNBox). Do you experience similar issues with CERNBox (corrupted files, high latencies)? For now, submission to LXBATCH is still not possible from a CERNBox/EOS path ... Do you have any news on this ? * Giuseppe: higher latency with EOS vs AFS is a well known issue, though we'd need to know more details: could you share some specific info (path, timestamps) via a SNow ticket please? * Concerning corruptions: it was reported that batch jobs may produce empty files (not properly closed) in some circumstances. That's addressed in xrootd5 foreseen for rollout in 2022. There are no other reports of file integrity problems. The team is happy to look into any specific problem reports in all details. * Access from batch worker nodes is possible without restrictions. It is currently not possible to redirect stdout/stderr to EOS. --- ## Closing Remarks *