Wish List - Wish List: Wish #102

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Michael McLennan

Guest accounts for tool access

We could have some or all tools that run in a “guest” account with limited privileges. This would allow people to try them without having to register. Maybe instead, they tell us their first name and current occupation (grad student, professor, etc.). Their sessions would time out quickly after the connection is lost, since there would be no way to get back to them. And there would be no access for ssh/sftp on this account.

For: attract/engage new users

Comments (3)

  1. Gerhard Klimeck

    this is related to the easier registration and the tighter feedback loop. this may be a good experiment, however it must be tightly integrated into the polling after X simulations have been run. Also there needs to be a strategy of resource committment. All high intensity simulations must be guarded closely, because of resource allocation.

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  2. George B. Adams III

    In addition to Gerhard’s comments we should note that this is a way of reducing the cost of using nanoHUB and will lead to more simulation users.

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  3. George A. Howlett

    There would be a bit of infrastructure changes to make this work.

    1) I don’t know this works with session quotas.

    The same mechanism right now that allows a single guest account to run 100 sessions does not distinguish between IP addresses.

    2) Is the data completely transitory? There’s no security mechanism to stop one session from messing with the data of another.

    3) Students should not be able to change the password. Access account information, etc.

    4) Gerhard is correct about need to manage resource allocation. The problem with group accounts is that there’s no way to keep out a bad player.

    —gah

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    1. George B. Adams III

      The problem with a group account is key, so we should make creation of a standard account more easy.

      To allow “try before you buy” we should integrate this wish with the work being done for the Instant-On NSF award where simulation run results are stored. We could simulated a demo without having any construct similar to an account by just displaying a precomputed run when a guest wants to investigate a tool.

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