1.2 Getting a Computing Account

Complete:
Detailed Review status

Contents

• Getting a CERN Account
  • Register as CERN User
  • After CERN registration
  • Further information
• Getting a CMS HN account
• Getting a Local Account at your Institution
• Access to AFS and CMS Software
• Access to the Grid
• Review Status

Getting a CERN Account

You must get a CERN computer account (also called a SSO i.e. SingleSignOn account).

All CMS collaborators are eligible for a CERN Unix account (often called lxplus or afs account) and a CERN email account (often called a nice account), and are entitled to use CERN computing resources.

Currently CERN has a single account for all those services (also called SSO i.e. SingleSignOn account).

Register as CERN User

Remote computing CERN account only:

People who will NOT come to CERN and just need a CERN computing account register as "External people participating in an experiment" (PART). Fill out the CMS Registration form linked from the CMS Secretariat Newcomers site to initiate your registration. Your responsible may always fill out the PRT later (below) for CERN access, be sure to do it well before you need access to the lab.

NOTE: Without a valid passport as an ID, one cannot register as a USER. In the absence of a passport, CERN will accept US and Canadian driver's licenses in the same manner as national ID cards for the registration of External Participants.

Make sure you are registered as a USER and NOT as VISITOR or EXTERNAL. Only a USER status will give you access with all computing privileges and resources to work like grid certificate, CMS twikis (internal twikis requiring login), indico, hypernews etc.

Intend to go to CERN and need accounts:

COVID-19 NOTE: "In the context of the COVID-19 situation, PRT will be processed only by request of the CMS Secretariat. For remote access please contact your Experiment Secretariat.". Please follow the instructions to fill out the CMS Registration form & Pre-Registration Tool linked from the CMS Secretariat Newcomers site. For updates on this policy: see https://usersoffice.web.cern.ch.

Your responsible (for users, Team Leader, Group Leader of the institute and for COAS and VISC the Department Head or an authorized person on his/her behalf) has to initiate the online registration via the Pre-Registration Tool (PRT). Note that if a user NEVER intends to go to CERN do not use the PRT tool for remote computing accounts.

Make sure you are registered as a USER and NOT as VISITOR or EXTERNAL. Only a USER status will give you access with all computing privileges and resources to work like grid certificate, CMS twikis (internal twikis requiring login), indico, hypernews etc.

NOTE: Without a valid passport as an ID, one cannot register as a USER. In the absence of a passport, CERN will accept US and Canadian driver's licenses in the same manner as national ID cards for the registration of External Participants.

After CERN registration

Once you are registered in the CERN Human Resource database, your Primary CERN Account, CERN e-mail address & mailbox are created automatically. Since you are registered with CMS Experiment, you will get an email from cms.people@cernNOSPAMPLEASE.ch with instructions about next steps.

You can read some more info here.

NOTE: Information given below is useful AFTER you get registered at CERN and have a CMS computing account.

lxplus (afs)

To access Linux interactive farm use

ssh   yourloginname@lxplus.cern.ch 

Access to the Grid

See Starting on the GRID, Grid Basics to get your personal grid certificate and register it in the CMS VO. This step will be needed for many parts of CMS analysis, from running analysis jobs on the CMS computing grid to remote file access.

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NICE

To access the NICE/windows services you can go to https://winservices.cern.ch.

Mailserver

You can set up the mailserver from https://mmm.cern.ch.

Your e-mail address will be of the general form (GEM) "firstname.lastname@cern.ch" which is an alias normally pointing to your e-mail box (PEM) "loginname@mail.cern.ch". The following conventions apply:

• If a second initial (or name) is included in the e-mail address, it is separated by dots.
• If the name consists of separate parts, a dot is used between the parts, instead of a blank.

Administrative Information Services (ais, edh)

You can access the Administrative Information Services (ais) and the applications therein (such as edh: Electronic Document Handling System) with your common password. To login into edh go to https://edh.cern.ch. A separate edh signature password is needed to accept or reject edh documents. You acquire this password from ais.support@cernNOSPAMPLEASE.ch (remove SPAMNOT) and it can be changed on the edh page where "settings" and "authorisation password" are.

The edh signature password is needed also for acquiring access rights to radiation or underground areas. You may also need extra safety courses (https://sir.cern.ch) as well.

There are several courses. The lowest safety level course and computer related course are required to perform activities on the CERN site(s) and access CERN Computing system. As part of the CERN registration you will be asked to go through those courses.

Further information

Here are standard instructions for learning about and getting these items:

• CMS UNIX computing at CERN
• CMS - A Quick Guide to Computing at CERN
• Use of CERN Computing Facilities
• CERN Computer Security Information
• Register as a new member of the CMS CMS.HyperNews
• How to get access to LCG (for grid use)
• If You Need Help (IT service)

Getting a CMS HN account

You will need a CMS HyperNews account, this can only be obtained once you have a working CERN computer account by following these instructions here. Please note that when you do the ssh hypernews.cern.ch step, you have to use your CMS related CERN account (the one in "zh") and your normal CERN password. Then follow the instructions as given.

Getting a Local Account at your Institution

You may also have access to computing resources at your local institution. You should ask your local computing experts and colleagues about the use of these resources for CMS-related work. See WorkBookRemoteSiteSpecifics, to see if your institution has provided information.

Special for Fermilab

Access to AFS and CMS Software

The WorkBook instructions generally assume you're running CMS software on the CERN Public Login Linux system LXPLUS. This environment ensures that you will have direct access to the AFS file system, which holds the CMS software Releases. Additionally, all the tools you'll need to develop your software are installed and set up on LXPLUS , so you can start work almost immediately. Local systems may have different unix shells and different setups, it is impossible to provide fool-proof instructions for all environments. Again, see WorkBookRemoteSiteSpecifics, to see if your institution has provided information. If you are not familiar with using Linux, see this list of basic Linux Commands.

Review status

Reviewer/Editor and Date (copy from screen)	Comments
MargueriteTonjes - 02-Jul-2021	Modified account information to link to actively kept up to date CMS Newcomers page, moved grid certificate higher on the list so people do it next
SudhirMalik - 09-Sep-2017	Responsible
MargueriteTonjes - 01-Sep-2017	Responsible

Responsible: CMSUserSupport
Last reviewed by: Main.Sudhir Malik - 9 Sep 2017