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X509 certificate

Requesting and installing a .X509 user certificate​

If you are a BSC employee (and you also have a PRACE account), you may be interested in obtaining and configuring a x.509 Grid certificate. If that is the case, you should follow this guide. First, you should obtain a certificate following the details of this guide (you must be logged in the BSC intranet):

Once you have finished requesting the certificate, you must download it in a ".p12" format. This procedure may be different depending on which browser you are using. For example, if you are using Mozilla Firefox, you should be able to do it following these steps:

  • Go to "Preferences".
  • Navigate to the "Privacy & Security" tab.
  • Scroll down until you reach the "Certificates" section. Then, click on "View Certificates..."
  • You should be able to select the certificate you generated earlier. Click on "Backup...".
  • Save the certificate as "usercert.p12". Give it a password of your choice.

Once you have obtained the copy of your certificate, you must set up your environment in your HPC account. To acomplish that, follow these steps:

  • Connect to dt02.bsc.es using your PRACE account.
  • Go to the GPFS home directory of your HPC account and create a directory named ".globus".
  • Upload the .p12 certificate you created earlier inside that directory.
  • Once you are logged in, insert the following commands (insert the password you chose when needed):
    module load prace globus
    cd ~/.globus
    openssl pkcs12 -nocerts -in usercert.p12 -out userkey.pem 
    chmod 0400 userkey.pem 
    openssl pkcs12 -clcerts -nokeys -in usercert.p12 -out usercert.pem 
    chmod 0444 usercert.pem

Once you have finished all the steps, your personal certificate should be fully installed.