SLAC Onboarding Procedure

Overview

The SLAC onboarding procedure involves the following steps:

  • join the SLAC HEP users organization, SLUO

    • fill out the SLAC Users Organization (SLUO) form

    • fill out the SLAC Site Access Portal form

  • As of April 15 2024, IT is again creating Active Directory (AD) and unix accounts (of the same name). The AD account is only used for annual cyber training and web access to Service Now (SLAC IT ticketing system). The AD account needs to be accessed every 60 days; notifications are sent out.

  • IT creates the accounts and sends a link to reset the passwords

  • do the SLAC Cyber training

If you are an in-kind contributor, you’ll need to be listed in SITCOMTN-050.

If you already have a SLAC unix account, you do not need to be re-onboarded.

Note that if you only have a SLAC Confluence account (eg for DESC or LSSTCam), you will still need to be onboarded as a user and there will be complications with your accounts. SLAC and Rubin confluence sites are independent installations.

  • if your existing Confluence account name is longer than 8 characters (or if for some reason your unix account name did not match your confluence one), you will need a different name. In that case, a new Confluence identity is created using your unix account name, added to DESC permissions, and your old account deleted.

  • else: you will need to login to Confluence once with the unix password, then the Confluence admins will merge the unix and Confluence identities.

  • once all this happens, Confluence will use your unix account password for authentication; if it expires, it’s the unix account password that needs changing; there is no longer a specific Confluence account/password.

Procedure Details

To obtain a SLAC SID number and SLAC account, you first need to become a SLAC User. Please follow the below steps and complete the registration form.

New users are required to complete the SLUO registration form using this form. The link also points to documentation on the process.

Notes:

  • Experiment: select Vera C. Rubin Observatory

Notes for Portal:

  • If your institution is missing, let Sierra Villarreal know, to get it added to the list

  • Emergency contact: your own personal contact - relative, friend.

  • Group: select “FPD Technology & Operations”

  • details of visit and project name: Using SLAC computing resources to collaborate on Rubin Operations. Seems optional to include your home institution.

  • Funding source: choose your majority support source

  • Time at SLAC: this is physically on site. For most people, this is <10%. Occasional visits for meetings don’t count.

  • Start date: choose today

  • Answer “yes” to will you be performing work at SLAC

  • SLAC Spokesperson/Sponsor/Supervisor: Select Sierra Villarreal (Antonia Villarreal on the Site Access Form).

  1. When the user submits the onboarding request form, the form is then sent to several approvers before a SLAC ID is granted.

    If the user is a US citizen, the completed onboarding form is first routed to the SLAC poc then to the SLAC HR team for SLAC ID duplicate check and issue the SLAC ID number.

    If the user is a non-US citizen, the completed onboarding form is first routed to the SLAC poc then to the VUE Center Coordinator and to the SLAC HR team for SLAC ID duplicate check and issue the SLAC ID number.

  2. After the SLAC SID number is issued, the VUE Center Coordinator completes the user’s SLUO registration form and sends an email to the user with instructions of the next steps.

  3. The SLAC POC submits a ticket to IT requesting a SLAC account for the new user. Be sure to tell the POC your preferred account name (and second choice).

  4. SLAC IT will send a url to the user to reset their initial

    password

  5. SLAC Cyber training must be done within 2 weeks to keep the

    account enabled.

Troubleshooting Accounts

Check that you are a member of the rubin_users group:

id <your account>

Accounts can get disabled a number of ways:

  • Every 6 months password changes (change pw - unix)

  • Every year Cyber training (link)

  • They can also be locked out if they’ve forgotten their password(s) or put in too many attempts with the wrong password. (ticket to request a reset)

The user is warned about all these events, but in case they’ve been ignored/forgotten, how to figure out which it is and how to fix it?

  • The accounts site can tell us if the account is disabled

    • if none disabled, then it’s due to password expire

  • The training site can tell us if Cyber is expired. If it has:

Cyber Training

Cyber training comes up annually. If you have an Active Directory (aka Windows) account, just follow the instructions to login with that account.

There are issues with the training system at the moment if you only have a unix account, so here is (hopefully) temporary advice on how to navigate it (note that if you got an email saying your training is coming due, the SLAC ID (SID) is embedded in the url in the email - that is the xxxxxxx in the instructions below - if your account has not been disabled, you can ssh to centos7 and issue the command:

res list user <your unix account name>

which will give your SID (along with your account status).

if none of that works, ask your SLAC Point of Contact):

You need to go to the url below; DO NOT click on forgot password. Give it your system id (SID) number.

Note: the interim training password is “SLACtraining2005!”. If it does not work, email slac-training, asking them to reset it. Then go back to the original link, enter SID and this password. Then do CS100.

https://slactraining.csod.com/

Basically, always use the SID where “user name” is requested.