Getting an account

For our NIIT collaborators, it's a 2 step process.

1. You have to be registered as a SLAC user. To do this go to https://www-sslonly.slac.stanford.edu/slacuserinfo/SLACformI.asp
   • You are NOT a SLAC employee, use your home institution as your employer.
   • Your work type is computing. SLAC will not be paying you. You will be using SLAC computing resources.
   • Your Activity Status is User (NOT Associate).
   • The experiment is Computing. Les Cottrell is your sponsor. Your SLAC group department is SCCS
   • You will spend < 10% time at SLAC.
   • Please be careful to use the recommended  date format dd-mon-yyyy.
   • this will get you a SLAC ID. It may take a couple work days.
2. Once you have a SLAC ID then you will be able to apply for a SLAC computer account.For this you will need to go to http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/comp/slacwide/account/account.html Fill out these forms, sign them, and FAX to the attention of Les Cottrell at +1-650-926-3329, or scan and email to cottrell@slac.stanford.edu.
3. Once you have an account you will need to know the userid and password. We will get these to you. You will need to change the password. This is done by ssh'ing to flora.slac.stanford.edu (a cluster of Solaris interactive hosts) and issuing the password (not passwd) command. Please let us know when you have changed the password. The resetting of UNIX passwords will take up to 1 hour to take effect. The password must be >= 8 characters and include characters from three of the following sets: upper case, lower case, digits, and special characters. To ensure any email sent to your SLAC account goes to the right place, enter a .forward file (Google Unix .forward). We will be requesting the Unix group to enable you to logon to iepm-bw, iepm-resp and pinger but that will take some delay. You will probably need some privileges to access/write to various places. This will become more apparent as you get going. You may find Access priviledges of some use, however it is meant for iepm admins rather than iepm users.
4. Please refer to Use of SLAC Information Resource. More detailed policy and security information can be located here Under no circumstances should you attempt to log on to another user's account unless you have been given permission to use the account by your Group Leader or Account Czar. If you have questions then post to the maggie mailing list.
5. Kindly fill this form to get IEPM Wiki write access. The group name is "IEPM": https://jira.slac.stanford.edu/signup/

Hosts to Use 

The following hosts are for general interactive use:

flora: is a cluster of interactive Solaris hosts
iris: is a cluster of interactive Linux hosts

See Network Test Hosts for special hosts used for network testing. This is also where iepm-bw and pinger cron jobs are run from (both of these hosts are Linux).  For general cron jobs one uses suncron for Solaris and lnxcron for Linux.

Wiki Access

IEPM keeps a wiki based on confluence. It is accessible at https://confluence.slac.stanford.edu/display/IEPM/Home.

Most pages are world-readable, however, in order to edit pages you must subscribe for an account at https://jira.slac.stanford.edu/signup/. You should select the group IEPM. Once your request has been authorized, you will be sent your log in details for editing of the IEPM wiki pages.

Unix/NFS group iepm

File used to keep track of NFS network group privs. It use the ypgroup Unix databases

To see who is in a group use the command*

netgroup <group_name>, e.g.
36cottrell@pinger:~>netgroup u-network-management
u-network-management
   (-,antony,)
   (-,cal,)
   (-,cottrell,)
   (-,cxg,)
   (-,jerrodw,)
   (-,kmartell,)

The u-iepm group is the one to enable users to logon to the special iepm hosts. It can only be updated by unix-admin.

The groups below are Unix groups (not netgroup) which was made available over the network by NIS (formerly YP). Les can manage unix groups via the ypgroup command.

ypmatch <group_name> group
ypmatch <group_name> netgroup, e.g.
35cottrell@pinger:~>ypmatch u-network-management netgroup
(-,antony,)     (-,cal,)        (-,cottrell,)   (-,cxg,)        (-,jerrodw,)    (-,kmartell,)

or

ypgroup exam -group iepm
Group 'iepm':
GID:     2087
Comment:
Last modified at Aug  2 15:20:42 2006 by jonl
Owners:  cal
Members: akbar, cal, cottrell, cxg, fawad, hasan, iepm,
jerrodw, jiri, maheshkc, rich, ytl

To add someone to a group use (Les can execute this command):

ypgroup adduser -group iepm -user pinger

# Please keep unix-admin & security notified when changes are needed, e.g. people changing function or moving etc.

#Note that people with privileges need to change their passwords at least every 9 months.

 To see which hosts use a netgroup

grep the files at /afs/slac.stanford.edu/g/scs/systems/system.info/<machine>/taylor.opts.expanded looking for the group, e.g.

6cottrell@pinger>grep u-iepm /afs/slac/g/scs/systems/system.info/i*/taylor.opts.expanded
/afs/slac/g/scs/systems/system.info/iepm-bw/taylor.opts.expanded:limit_login=u-iepm
/afs/slac/g/scs/systems/system.info/iepm-resp/taylor.opts.expanded:limit_login=u-iepm

N.b. replacing i* with * will probably result in /bin/grep: Argument list too long. Also note that as of 12/31/06 the hosts whose access is controlled by u-iepm are: iepm-bw, iepm-resp, monalisa, nettest5, and pinger

NFS file access

NFS file systems such as  /nfs/slac/g/net/pinger are exported to netgroup from netfs02, so it is available on all machines in that group. To see the full list of machines  that can access these files, you can type:

119cottrell@pinger:~>netgroup slac > ! /tmp/junk

and edit the file (/tmp/junk). The amd mountpoints are transient....they timeout when not in use.  So sometimes it will work to cd to /nfs/slac/g and you will see an entry for net/pinger, but if it has timed out you may not, even on pinger (unless something runs there that keeps it constantly available). Once the mountpoint has timed out you will have to cd to the full amd mount path which in this case is /nfs/slac/g/net/pinger to get amd to remount the space. AS a rule it is always a good idea to use the full path to the nfs space, especially in scripts.

Unix/AFS groups

To see the names of groups and privileges on a particular directory, issue the command

fs la <directory>, e.g.
fs la .

or

fs la /afs/slac/g/scs/net/pinger

jerrodw@pinger $ fs la /afs/slac/g/scs/net/pinger/
Access list for /afs/slac/g/scs/net/pinger/ is
Normal rights:
  maint-pkg-netmon rlidwk
  g-scs rlidwka
  system:slac rl
  system:administrators rlidwka
  system:authuser rl

To view members of a particular group listed from 'fs la', issue the command:

pts mem <group_name>, e.g.

jerrodw@pinger $ pts mem maint-pkg-netmon
Members of maint-pkg-netmon (id: \-4786) are:
&nbsp; <list of user_id's belonging to this group>

To add users to a particular group (only if you have privileges of course), issue the command

pts adduser \-group <group_name> \-user <user_id>

Escrow

Escrow is the shared password safe used to keep common credentials in a secure way.

To add a new user to the escrow "clique" or group for IEPM:

1. The new user should create a new key for him/herself with the PGP key generation command:

   pgp -kg
   

   When prompted, use a key strength of 1024 bits and use the suggested key name format Firstname Lastname <username@slac.stanford.edu>.

2. The new user should export his/her PGP key for use with escrow:

   escrow setupuser
   

   This will export the user's public PGP key into a separate file which can then be imported into escrow.

3. An existing escrow user should add the user's key to the clique's keyring:

   escrow adduser -c iepm ~*<newuser>*/.escrow/publickey
   

   e.g. escrow adduser -c iepm ~jaredg/.escrow/publickey The program will repeatedly prompt for confirmation that the key is trusted. It will also prompt you for the existing user's PGP passphrase.

4. An existing escrow user should add the user's key to the iepmacct list of secrets:

   escrow adduser -c iepm iepmacct *<username>*
   

   e.g. escrow adduser -c iepm iepmacct jaredg The program will prompt for the existing user's PGP passphrase.

5. Add user to the AFS group cottrell:iepm

   pts adduser -user kalim -group cottrell:iepm
   

Network Test hosts

Please note that we would like to see network testing, especially WAN testing, done primarily and by convention from machines set aside for that purpose
(e.g. iepm-bw, iepm-resp, pinger), the list of network machines is kept at http://www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/about/nodes.html

To find out who can logon to a specified host look at the /etc/passwd file on that host, look towards the end for things like
+@u-iepm
and use the netgroup u-iepm command to see who is in the group.
To find out what hosts u-iepm can logon to use:

#65cottrell@pinger:/afs/slac/g/scs/systems/system.info>grep u-iepm \*/passwd
#pinger/passwd:+@u-iepm
#iepm-bw/passwd:+@u-iepm
#iepm-resp/passwd:+@u-iepm
#nettest5/passwd:+@u-iepm
#iepm-raptor1/passwd:+@u-iepm
#iepm-raptor2/passwd:+@u-iepm
#...

To logon to account iepm

Account iepm (typically on iepm-bw.slac.stanford.edu) is used to work on the iepm-bw project. Password logon to this account is to first order blocked. To access this account one has to have one's ssh public keys installed in ~iepm/.ssh/.public/authorized_keys.  The first thing for the new person wishing to run unnder the account iepm is to create her/his ssh key pairs. To create the ssh key pairs use the commands:

ssh-keygen -t dsassh-keygen -t rsassh-keygen -t rsa1

 It will also ask you for a pass phrase, just enter a carriage return. If it asks where to save the keys just take the default (carriage return).  Another used can verify that the public keys are created as follows:

3cottrell@pinger:~>more ~tanzeel/.ssh/.public/identity.pub
    1024 35 146653454394770889044623166877077310614501899921965775234647207308036879
    63750413852009080539737126752412601088856837707997231429818026234620137964285189
    90916139217247252465554635868080863595598499677410533321491762163027007069491891
    43405873785518703883968259344869429208971927599722736690422112709006735867357 ta
    nzeel@iepm-bw

Someone who can already logon to account iepm will then need to copy the new person's (in the example above tanzeel) public keys into ~iepm/.ssh/.public/authorized_keys:

2iepm@iepm-bw:~>cat ~tanzeel/.ssh/identity.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
3iepm@iepm-bw:~>cat ~tanzeel/.ssh/id_dsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
4iepm@iepm-bw:~>cat ~tanzeel/.ssh/id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
5iepm@iepm-bw:~>cat ~tanzeel/.ssh/id_dsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys2

 One can then check that the new person's public ssh keys are available in the iepm account as follows:

9iepm@iepm-bw:~>tail -3 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
    1024 35 146653454394770889044623166877077310614501899921965775234647207308036879637504138520
    09080539737126752412601088856837707997231429818026234620137964285189909161392172472524655546
    35868080863595598499677410533321491762163027007069491891434058737855187038839682593448694292
    08971927599722736690422112709006735867357 tanzeel@iepm-bw
    ssh-dss AAAAB3NzaC1kc3MAAACBAIEC24o7qaGXu7BhvDEyVLfbtNCyHDqsW5N7urvW2DLKam7MMyZmnAqpQh1X7j8L
    U+DAy6eX50ToychvrwDA8pmA45Hbf61dnoSc/yfd1sM8fC1x0faWvglf/PNT5EfQzwPKEEzIeTieNRL9OTNr4ZS7WjXJ
    +i+bvc/a6bq+6Rj1AAAAFQCWTL/9FG3xCJ3nKwRg/g5cduZ9BwAAAIA8N63JWBa+xr2I4ylDaaONQNfVP9ODNMvtSBSj
    OlEK7YD4oDd/ZZPLEdW+mcHGTbEgwBB15acl+4PdpGBy5HCGsA7xXJPEPGnjNHRcsfRCdAuyQiaUKfJLfPPvdAAlKxO+
    DGJCItlsE8hyf+vbDJGxoa4nOqm2aQ6XneXhWhJuwAAAAIAXJMhOKrGAYBn72q+IbwM2c33bXLDnTTlGo7WKlzeBpLas
    jnt79E10TZEX6h0WDYuK0Ymdjy8XEoaStpF/bH+TxXclLNCAhjeWVf/FJI1neDhvhfrLHV3rOVEgH+d9Wka7Q+e2RPYY
    8WJOx/eh7vW21LwqmnfLK/h0lyxJ3/EX9w== tanzeel@iepm-bw
    ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAIEA4uzuhQTykqyFHpEayNxTz0HC951ynsxxT2ltHXzjdTbudozvtXEnCYGe
    hXVoog4wS2yhwXskRZj8mKyoa/ZtPOd2fXZgQs+zJB5SrDN7jf2aWt5A1a2VynVAFPor4Vu/Yh79dAkj3zN3ojcoelqt
    wFheKhmPRh1cxNIpNyPmelE= tanzeel@iepm-bw

and the new user should be able to logon to the iepm account using:

~tanzeel@iepm-bw.slac.stanford.edu>ssh -v iepm@iepm-bw.slac.stanford.edu if that does not work then try:
    ~tanzeel@iepm-bw.slac.stanford.edu>ssh -v -1 iepm@iepm-bw.slac.stanford.edu
and
    ~tanzeel@iepm-bw.slac.stanford.edu>ssh -v -2 iepm@iepm-bw.slac.stanford.edu

Sudo Access

The sudoers file can be found at:

/afs/slac/package/taylor/prod/base/sudoers

The following lines are in the sudoers file:

# NB: The following two aliases define collections of commands for use
# by members of the IEPM group on all machines and on the network
# trouble-shooting machine, pharlap, respectively.  In this context,
# "IEPM group" is not necessarily the same as the NIS group named
# "iepm"; changes to the commands in the two aliases, or to the users
# who should be authorized to use the commands, still need the usual
# approvals.

# Commands authorized for members of the IEPM group on all machines:
Cmnd_Alias IEPM_ALL     = NIKHEF_PING,PATHCHAR,PCHAR,PIPECHAR

# Commands authorized for members of the IEPM group on pharlap:
# The addition of PIPECHAR to this list of commands is granted for
# six months only and should be revisted May 28, 2002.
Cmnd_Alias IEPM_PHARLAP = SNOOP,TCPDUMP,NDD,PIPECHAR,KILL
#the following enables net-eng people to execute the command on
#all non-retricted, taylored systems. 
Cmnd_Alias NET_ENG      = NDD_GET,TCPDUMP,ETHTOOL

The people in the sudoers file with privileges assigned by these two Cmnd_Alias-es are: cal, cottrell, cxg.

iepm group: cottrell, warrenm, cal, dougc, cxg, grosso
Pathchar	All	sudo /afs/slac/g/scs/bin/pathchar
Pchar		All	sudo /afs/slac/package/netperf/bin/@sys/pchar
Pipechar	All	sudo /afs/slac.stanford.edu/package/netperf/bin/@sys/pipechar
NIKHEF ping	All	sudo /afs/slac/package/nikhef/@sys/ping
#Snoop and tcpdump are big security exposures, so please be careful with their use.
#Probably a good idea to notify security (email just before you start) if you are
#going to use snoop and/or tcpdump
Snoop           Pharlap	sudo snoop
Tcpdump		Pharlap	sudo /afs/slac/package/netperf/bin/@sys/tcpdump

u-network-management: warrenm, cottrell, kmartell, cal, cxg, grosso, janewei, gtb
ssh		All

maint-pkg-nikhef: cxg, warrenm, dougc

The following have /usr/sbin/ndd -set privs and sudo kill (via cmd macro IEPM_PHARLAP) on pharlap (7/19/01):

cal, cottrell, cxg

Account iepm has sudo kill with no password on pharlap (12/14/01)

cottrell also has ndd -set for evagore (11/21/01)

iepm has pipechar with no password on pharlap and antonia (11/28/01)

Mailing lists

The main mailing list is iepm-group. To get added to this list contact Les Cottrell. To see who is in the group etc. go to majordomo

The following mailing lists exists that may of interest to IEPM users:

The pinger account has a .forward file to which trscrontab errors are sent.