Personal Grid Certificate

A personal certificate is necessary for authentication and authorization in the Grid. The European Policy Management Authority for Grid Authentication in e-Science (EUGridPMA) coordinates the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) used by EGEE and some other Grid projects. A certificate for use in the EGEE Grid must issued by a Certification Authority (CA) which is member of EUGridPMA. To get a personal certificate you have to

• Generate a key pair
• Fill in an application form of one of the CAs
• Identify yourself with your identity card or passport

To ease the process of identifying yourself Registration Authorities (RAs) were established at many sites.

Germany

Germany has two EUGridPMA members running Certification Authorities: DFN-CERT and GridKa-CA. A good introduction to certificates (in German) is provided at RRZE Erlangen.

DFN-CERT

List of RAs for DFN-CERT

Each RA has its own application form. Please use the right one, otherwise your organization name OU will be wrong.

Application forms of the RAs
Forschungszentrum Jülich
Leibniz Rechenzentrum
IFM GEOMAR
Technische Universität Kaiserslautern
Universität Würzburg
RWTH Aachen
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
Universität Paderborn
DAASI
Alfred-Wegener-Institut
Universität Tübingen
Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum für Informationstechnik Berlin
Fraunhofer Gesellschaft
FH Worms
Deutscher Wetterdienst
Universität Bonn
Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
Universität Göttingen
Universität Marburg
Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung
Universität Kiel
Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum
Charite - Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Universität Stuttgart
Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe
Technische Universität Dresden
FH Nürnberg
Technische Universität Darmstadt
Freie Universität Berlin
Technische Universität Dortmund
DFN-Verein Geschäftsstelle
Universität Leipzig
European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO)
Universität Freiburg
GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung
Zentrum für Marine und Atmosphärische Wissenschaften (ZMAW)
Forschungszentrum Dresden-Rossendorf
Universität Kassel
Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)
Universität Hannover
Technische Universität Ilmenau
Universität Jena
Hochschule Biberach
Universität Heidelberg
Universität Mainz
Universität Trier
Saphor GmbH
Universität Düsseldorf
Universität Magdeburg
Telematikplattform für Medizinische Forschungsnetze (TMF)
Universität Oldenburg
OFFIS
meteocontrol GmbH
Institut für Deutsche Sprache
Universität Siegen
Technische Universität Braunschweig
Humboldt-Universität Berlin
Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
DHI-WASY GmbH
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft - Rechenzentrum Garching
Center of Maritime Technologies
Jacobs University Bremen
Universität Potsdam
Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik
Technische Universität Harburg
Universität Wuppertal
Universität Mannheim
Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik
Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik
GNS Systems GmbH
Fraunhofer FIRST
Max-Planck-Institut für Chemie
Universität Ulm
Hochschule Esslingen
Bayer Technology Services GmbH
c.a.r.u.s. HMS GmbH
Universität Hamburg
Allgemeine Grid-Services-RA in der DFN-PKI
T-Systems Solutions for Reseach GmbH
HTW Berlin
Universität Greifswald
Universität Hohenheim
Universität Konstanz
Universität Regensburg
Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum
INP Greifswald
FernUniversität Hagen

GridKa-CA

List of RAs for GridKa-CA

Application and info

More documentation of the German CAs

Switzerland

CERN certificates
There are no Registration Authorities for this CA outside CERN.

SWITCH provides services to obtain certificates, also running a Shibboleth/Grid short lived certificate service, see e.g. SWITCH certificates. A list of RAs is available here. To identify yourself it is sufficient to send a photocopy of the passport or ID card to the RA. Attending personally is not necessary to get a SWITCH certificate.

Use certificate to sign emails

The main purpose of Grid certificates is authentication in the Grid, of course. Additionally they can be used for signing emails. Only one personal certificate is needed for both purposes then, but the short period of validity may be a disadvantage. A personal Grid certificate is valid for only one year. Personal certificates which are valid for several years are available but cannot be used in the Grid. You have to decide on your own, which is the best solution for you.

How to sign email with a personal DFN-Verein Grid certificate in Mozilla Thunderbird

Software Support

AthenaFramework

Athena is a control framework of the ATLAS collaboration. Support: http://atlas-computing.web.cern.ch/atlas-computing/packages/athenaCore/athenaCoreSupport.php

Dashboard

Dashboard Grid monitoring
Support: dashboard-support@cernNOSPAMPLEASE.ch

dCache

dCache is part of gLite. Beside Direct User Support the following support addresses are existing.

german-support@dcacheNOSPAMPLEASE.org
dcache-experts-grid-support@cernNOSPAMPLEASE.de

ETICS (eInfrastructure for Testing, Integration and Configuration of Software)

ETICS is a Software engineering management system and test infrastructure.
Home, Wiki
Support: etics-support@cernNOSPAMPLEASE.ch

gLite

gLite is EGEE's Grid middleware. Support is offered by Direct User Support.

Matlab^®

Matlab^® is a commercial high-level language and interactive environment from TheMathWorks, Inc. An EGEE Virtual Organisation rendering it possible to use Matlab is na4.vo.eu-egee.org (registration page).

Documentation how to use Matlab^® inside EGEE

Matlab^® Parallel Computing Toolbox

ROOT

ROOT is an object-oriented data analysis framework. PROOF on Demand (old but frequently used name: gLitePROOF) contains enhancements to run ROOT on gLite grids.

ROOT support forum: http://root.cern.ch/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=3

Information for Beginners and Advanced Users

Links to local documentation of German and Swiss EGEE sites

SuGI (Sustainable Grid Infrastructure), the scaling training infrastructure of the German D-Grid-Initiative

For Beginners

General information for complete beginners is offered in the GridCafe.

If you are a new user and want to have an introductory hands-on experience with the Grid, you may use the GILDA testbed. The demonstration certificate that you receive through the initial registration has an expiration time of two weeks. After that, if you would like to further explore the GILDA grid environment, you can request a new certificate. Since these certificates are only valid on the GILDA testbed, this process will not affect any other certificates you have got or will acquire in the future.

A short written introduction is our guide

Working with the grid in the dech VO: from VO admission to first grid jobs

The examples in it have been tested in the dech VO, the testbed of the Germany/Switzerland region, but the principles are valid in every virtual organization of EGEE.

Of course you can also visit a Grid workshop. Announcements can be found here, workshops in the region here.