General information to join as a user can be found here:  http://www.begrid.be/index.php?module=webpage&id=52

In order to get access to the BEgrid resources, following actions have to be done. The whole procedure might take about a week ...

BEgrid used the EGEE middleware, as found on  http://www.eu-egee.org/

Get a BEgrid Certificate

Authentication on BEgrid is done with Certificates. For Belgium, these are delivered by the BEgridCA (located at Belnet).

Requesting and retrieving your certificate must be done on the same browser and PC !

(Detailed instructions and screenshots are available  here)

• Go to  https://gridra.belnet.be/pub ( with IE or Firefox; Other browsers might also work)
• Choose 'Request a Certificate',
• Select the correct profile
• Complete the form and send
• A key-pair will be generated and your certificate request will be send to the Registration Authority.
• Once the RA has accepted or refused your request, you will receive a mail with an URL to retrieve your certificate.
• You can install the certificate directly in your browser with the "Integrate" button (recommended) or download it as a file.
• If you installed it in your browser, you can use the backup function of the browser to export the certificate with the key-pair.

Become member of the appropriate VO

There is one active VO on BEgrid for productive use: 'beapps'. For testing purpose the VO 'betest' is also in use.

More specific VO's (eg. with rights to use licensed software) can be created later.

• Go to  https://voms01.begrid.be:8443/vomses/ (with a browser that has your certificate installed)
• Follow the procedure asking membership. You'll soon receive an email, to confirm your request. Click on the link it contains.
• Wait up to a few days for another mail confirming your VO membership. It can still take a few hours before this membership is propagated over BEgrid

Ask for a local unix account on a 'User Interface' server

You'll need acces to a properly configured Unix server, from were to start the Grid jobs.

BELNET

For all users (any institute!), please, send an email to begrid@… to request an account to the BELNET UI, ui.begrid.be.<br> Add to this email your public SSH key. Because password logins are not accepted.

K.U.Leuven

For the K.U.Leuven, you can use the VIC Cluster login.vic.cc.kuleuven.be; if you already have an account on VIC, you can use this one!

• This can be done in parallel with the VO membership
• Send a email to Wim Obbels containing your u-number, and a short description of the type of work you plan to do on the grid.
• Wait up to a few days for a mail containing a confirmation and further instructions on how to use your account

Use your own computer

If you want to use your own desktop, laptop or server to access BEgrid, you can follow these steps to install the necessary software: How to configure a User Interface.

Install your certificate in your new Unix account

The certificate has to be copied on the User Interface server (and saved in a different format ...)

• Export the certificate from your browser, into a 'p12' - file
  • for Firefox: Select Edit/Preferences?->Advanced->Manage Certificates; Select the Certificate Click "Backup" give the requested password, then Save with file name "cert" (Will create file cert.p12)
  • for Internet Explorer Select Tools/Internet? Options Select Content Select Certificates Select Personal Select the Certificate Click "Export" On Certificate Manager Export Wizard Select Next Select 'Yes, export the private key'
• Specific procedure for MAC OS

Select Personal Information Exchange PKCS#12 (.PFX) give the requested password, then Save with file name "cert".( will save cert.pfx, rename this to cert.p12 )

• scp the file cert.p12 on the User Interface server.
• login on the userinterface-server; The file cert.p12 should be in your homedirectory now. Execute fillowing commands (to transform the certificate and private key from the PFX-format into PEM format; they will ask for the passphrase you put on cert.p12 in order to read it, and will ask you for a new passphrase to put on the private key userkey.pem; You can take the same passphrase ... !)

 mkdir ~/.globus
 openssl pkcs12 -nocerts -in cert.p12 -out ~/.globus/userkey.pem
 openssl pkcs12 -clcerts -nokeys -in cert.p12 -out ~/.globus/usercert.pem
 chmod 400 ~/.globus/userkey.pem
 chmod 644 ~/.globus/usercert.pem