Manage Your RDSS Share

This page provides instructions for setting up, managing, changing, and canceling an RDSS share.

Share Roles and Responsibilities

Each RDSS share is assigned a Share Owner and a Data Manager role when the share is created.

• Share Owner: Formal ownership and approval responsibilities, including annual billing, renewal, and user access management.

• Data Manager: Day-to-day data management and user access management.

For most research groups, the Share Owner is the Principal Investigator (PI), while the Data Manager is a senior member of the research group who handles day-to-day data management. In small research groups, the same person may serve as both Share Owner and Data Manager.

Please contact your share’s Owner or Data Manager to perform any of the tasks described on this page. If you’re unsure who holds these roles for your share, email rdss-help@northwestern.edu for assistance.

FSMResFiles

Researchers in the Feinberg School of Medicine (FSM) have access to a related service, FSMResFiles, at no cost and should not use RDSS. See Feinberg IT’s Research Data Storage website for more information.

Modifications to FSMResFiles are controlled by FSM IT. Email fsmhelp@northwestern.edu for assistance.

Requesting an RDSS Share

To request an RDSS share, review the service information and pricing

RDSS is comprised of two zones:

• resfiles: appropriate for storing non-regulated research data

• resfiles audit: intended for sensitive research data and data subject to state and federal regulations or data use agreements (DUAs); this zone creates audit logs when files are accessed, created, updated, and deleted.

Complete the RDSS share request form to request a share in your selected zone. The request form will ask for information such as:

• Requested storage quota

• Billing Chartstring (A University financial account that can be charged for the RDSS share. The Share Owner should typically provide or have access to it.)

• Prepayment period

• Share Owner

• Data Manager

Northwestern IT will:

• Create the share with your requested quota.

• Bill your chartstring for the requested prepayment period.

• Grant read/write access to the Share Owner and Data Manager.

• Create the Active Directory groups used to manage access to the share.

Once the share is created, you will receive a notification email from the Northwestern IT Ticketing system with information about your share and instructions for connecting to it.

See the RDSS user documentation for detailed instructions.

Managing Access/User Permissions

The Share Owner and Data Manager can manage access to an RDSS share through two Active Directory (AD) groups:

• NU SMB <sharename> Read-Only — gives users read-only access

• NU SMB <sharename> Read-Write — gives users read-write access

Adding or removing users from these groups gives or removes access to the entire RDSS share. RDSS does not support access permissions for individual files or folders. Anyone with access to a share can access everything in the share.

To access these AD groups:

1. Log in to the Self-Service Group Management Tool using:

   • Account name: ads\<NetID>, where is your Northwestern NetID.

   • Password: your NetID password

2. Select My AD groups in the left-hand panel.

3. Find the read-only and read-write groups for each share you own or manage.

See Managing group permissions using the Self-Service Group Management tool for instructions on adding and removing users.

RDSS Access restricted to NetIDs

Only those with NetIDs can be given access to RDSS shares.

You can request affiliate or guest NetIDs for external collaborators.

FSMResFiles

Share permissions on FSMResFiles are managed by FSM IT. Email fsmhelp@northwestern.edu for help managing user access to files and directories.

Making Changes to Your Share

You can request changes to the following information for your RDSS share:

• Share properties: Quota and billing Chartstring

• Share roles: Share Owner, Data Manager

To request a change, email rdss-help@northwestern.edu with your share name and the information requested below.

Share Owner Approval

If you are not the Share Owner, copy the Share Owner on your email. The Share Owner must reply to the Northwestern IT Help Ticket to approve the request.

Share Properties

• Share quota: The new quota, in terabytes (TB)

• Billing chartstring: The new chartstring

Share Owner/Data Manager

To change the Share Owner or Data Manager, provide:

• Name

• Email address

• NetID

• Requested role: Share Owner or Data Manager

Share Owner/Data Manager changes

The Share Owner and the Data Manager can manage user access to the share. If you designate someone else as the Share Owner or Data Manager, Northwestern IT grants them the permissions needed to add and remove users from the share.

Our staff will make the requested changes and follow up with an email via the Northwestern IT Help Ticket system.

Cancelling Your Share

You can request to cancel your share at any time.

To complete this process:

1. Delete all the data in the share. (Contact rdss-help@northwestern.edu if you experience trouble deleting your data.)

2. Email rdss-help@northwestern.edu with your share name, copying the primary share owner on the message if you are not the share owner.

We will delete the share and notify you when the process is complete.