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Application Overviewยค

This application extends the functionality of Coldfront to support management of the RDF Active storage service for Imperial users. It provides:

  • a high level interface to Active Directory (via LDAP).
  • a high level interface to the GPFS API.
  • a high level interface to the Microsoft graph for retrieval of user identity data.
  • additional allocation and project attributes to store additional required metadata.
  • administration views for the creation of Groups (reskinned Coldfront projects) and RDF Active Storage allocations.

Working in conjunction with overrides of various base Coldfront components this supports the following functionality:

  • Groups (a.k.a. Coldfront Projects) can be created only by admins using a dedicated view. Additional metadata is stored as project attributes (e.g. department and faculty).
  • RDF Active storage allocations can be created via a view available to application admins. Creating a storage allocation in this way:
  • Assigns a unique GID for the allocation.
  • Creates a new AD group and adds the owner of the allocation as a member.
  • Creates a new fileset in GPFS owned by the AD group.
  • Stores required additional metadata for as allocation attributes.
  • Adding/removing members to/from RDF Active storage allocations updates AD group membership.
  • Synchronisation of fileset quota usages from GPFS to Coldfront allocations.
  • Periodic auditing of the consistency of Coldfront allocation memberships and AD groups. Notifications are sent to application admins for manual resolution of discrepancies.