Many of you may have noticed that the old online portal to access your data is no longer working and your credentials are just no good anymore. Here is what is happening.

BSD mandated that the access to the data be secured and so we switched to a system where every user will now have a personal username and password. The main reason is data security – the amount of hacking that was noticed on a daily basis was just too much. There’s a few benefits that come with this new system. Firstly, the users will be able to manage their own password and will no longer lock an entire lab whenever the password is entered incorrectly too many times. Secondly, the server will now be designed so that when the main server goes down for whatever reason, the backup server will automatically take over and so there will be no disruption. The new online portal can be found here.

We are currently creating all these new accounts for all the users. If you haven’t received yours. yet, please email us. What we’ll need to create your account are your CNET ID, your email address (@uchicago.edu or equivalent), the full name of your PI and the username you’ll want to use. You will then receive an email detailing the steps to get started. The big one is that you’ll need to use a 2FA system to authenticate yourself – through Duo, Google, whatever you want. You will be challenged whenever you use the online portal. One way around this is to use a tool like FileZilla or Cyberduck, where you’ll only need to access the online portal and authenticate yourself once, and then you should be able to get to the server directly.

One last thing: these changes are affecting how you will access your data on the server, but there is no change with the data itself!

It will take some time for everyone to get set up, you can help us by setting up your 2FA system right away when you get you invitation email. Let us know if you have any questions or concerns!

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