Getting a Personal Grid Certificate from CERN

A personal grid certificate from CERN can be obtained by following the instructions on this WorkBookStartingGrid twiki. Once one has a CERN account, a certificate can be obtained from https://ca.cern.ch/ca/. A brief outline of steps to be done that are described in WorkBookStartingGrid:

1. Read instructions on WorkBookStartingGrid twiki, take note if you need a special non-CERN certificate


2. For CERN certificates, obtain here ("New Grid User certificate"): https://ca.cern.ch/ca/
• You must create your certificate with a password, otherwise it will not work for CMS websites
• (Show me how - MacBook+Safari [β])
• Yearly renewal: "New Grid User certificate"


3. Sign the CMS VO agreement and associate your certificate: SWGuideLcgAccess twiki CMS VO instructions, these link to this page: CMS VO register (voms).
• Note that the voms page doesn't open in Chrome, in Firefox you will have to accept that the voms2.cern.ch website configuration is not secure.
• Additionally, your grid certificate must be installed in the browser you are using to access the voms2.cern.ch site
• Carefully follow the instructions in the email you receive to click on the proper link to accept joining the CMS VO (usually this happens only once ever for you)
• Renewal: Once a year you will have to re-sign the CMS VO AUP


4. You can install your certificate (new or renewal) on the cmslpc cluster following the commands on the WorkBookStartingGrid twiki
• How to transfer files to the cmslpc is described on the CMS LPC cluster computing environment setup file transfer page


5. You can use your grid certificate to write to the cmslpc EOS SE area, which is configured by default assuming your CERN username and cmslpc username are the same, and uses the grid certificate to map the association of your cmslpc account to be able to write to EOS
• If you did NOT provide the DN information (following "identity" when using voms-proxy-info) when you obtained your cmslpc computing account, you will need to put in a request to get your EOS area linked to your grid certificate.
• Follow the instructions on the EOS page to test and request that your grid certificate be linked to your cmslpc account, needs to be done once unless your name changes at CERN


6. If needed, (this is rarely handled) ensure that your certificate is properly associated with your CERN account in SiteDB. This should be correctly done by default, but in some cases, you may need to do this association.
• SiteDB can be checked with this link in a browser with your grid certificate installed
• Another way is to use crab checkusername, described on this CRAB3FAQ, be sure to setup your crab3 working environment
7. Troubleshooting:
   • ca.cern.ch/ca/Help for how to export your certificate with different browsers
   • SWGuideVOMSFAQ to troubleshoot common CMS certificate problems
   • cmsweb.cern.ch test page to test your CMS grid certificate
   • SWGuideCrabFAQ to troubleshoot CMS CRAB specific issues