[workspace-user] gridftp Propagation - development question

[Duncan Penfold-Brown]

Hi -

I have a brief question about the development of some Workspace features 
related to propagation using gridftp. I've noted that to successfully 
use propagation with the gridftp (or gsiftp) protocol, both the 
hypervisor node and the node submitting the workspace command (the 
services node) must have valid proxies. This seems somewhat impractical, 
as giving the hypervisor node a proxy requires the ability to login and 
execute a proxy-init command. This is inconvenient and causes some 
maintenance (and possibly security) issues, and can be slightly 
difficult to implement. The primary issue is that it is difficult for an 
end user attempting to instantiate a workspace to get to the hypervisor 
node in order to obtain a valid proxy.

I was wondering if there is any development planned in this area - for 
example, a way to share the proxy of the submit-user with the hypervisor 
node, such that the user would not have to explicitly obtain a proxy for 
the hypervisor node.

Any thoughts are appreciated, as always.

Thanks!


Duncan PB
University of Victoria