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Requesting a Certificate

The Globus Toolkit uses authentication that requires an X.509 certificate. Therefore, in order to use the grid resources, each user must first obtain a certificate. To request a certificate from the Globus CA (CA = Certification Authority), users must run the grid-cert-requestutility as indicated below:

%cd $GLOBUS_INSTALL_PATH/tools/architecture_name/bin
%./grid-cert-request

Note: In BNL's implementation of Globus, $GLOBUS_INSTALL_PATH is set to /usr/local/globus

The grid-cert-request utility prompts for all the needed information and builds up the usercert_request.pem request form under .globus in the user home directory. Next, the user will have to e-mail this form to the the Globus CA authority:

%cd $HOME/.globus
%cat usercert_request.pem | mail ca@globus.org

Usually, the Globus CA authority will e-mail the certificate to the user no later than 48 hours after the original request had been submitted.

Maintaining Certificates

Once a certificate has been obtained, the user must install it in the appropriate location. By default, the users' certificates are installed in their home directories, in a subdirectory called ".globus", under the name usercert.pem. Due to security reasons, the user's certificate should reside only on the resource from which the Globus Toolkit services will normally be requested. Following the installation of the certificate, the user will have to email a copy of it to the local Globus administrator, as well. This step is necessary in order to have the user's global subject name mapped to a local user account on all grid resources. Without this step completed, the user will not be able to make use of any of the local grid resources. Instructions regarding the certificate installation are also provided by the Globus CA in the e-mail sent to the user.

Submitting Your Certificates to Grid Service Providers

• Brookhaven National Laboratory
• Argonne National Laboratory ATLAS Grid Testbed
• Boston University
• Lawrence Berkeley National Lab DOE Grid User Information
• University of Indiana ATLAS Grid User
• University of Michigan ATLAS Grid Homepage
• University of Oklahoma ATLAS Grid Testbed
• University of Texas at Arlington Grid Testbed