Other ways to connect to the RDMS

So far, we have described how to access the RDMS through the RDMS web interface. The RDMS can also be accessed, however, through other clients and protocols. In this section of the Wiki, we will describe how to access and transfer data to the RDMS using first- and third-party clients that can be installed on your own machine. The reason to use other ways to connect to the RDMS is rooted in the fact that the web interface can only manage file transfers of 50 MB each. If the amount of data you want to transfer is larger than that, you will need to make use of one of the clients listed below.

Note: Only UG members with a personnel number (P-number) or student number (S-number) can log in to the RDMS directly. Please contact us if other UG accounts, for example, functional accounts (F-number), need access.

No matter how you are trying to connect to the RDMS, the system is only accessible from within the RUG network. This means that you need to be connected to the internet either on UG premises, for example, with an Eduroam connection, or by using the UG VPN connection, or by accessing the RDMS from the virtual Windows or virtual Linux environment of the UG.

In general, the RDMS is accessible via the following methods and interfaces that allow for data transfer/management.

• RDMS web interface
  Via the RDMS web interface, it is possible to transfer files directly as long as they are not bigger than 50 MB.

• WebDAV
  The WebDAV protocol is a major way to access the RDMS from all of the common OS (Windows, MacOS, Linux). There are multiple clients to use for WebDAV, for example, WinSCP, Cyberduck, or NextCloud. It is also possible to incorporate the RDMS drive directly in the file explorer of your OS.
  The general configuration for WebDAV access to the RDMS uses the following parameters:
  • Username: <username>@rug.nl or <username>@student.rug.nl (equal to your UG mail adress)
  • Server: webdav.data.rug.nl
  • We made separate pages with the instructions about configuring a WebDAV client for Windows, MacOS, and Linux.

• Command-line
  Using the command-line interface is currently only available to Linux users. To log in via the command-line, you need to have iCommands installed and create a profile in your Linux home directory. The more advanced Windows users can install WSL2, a virtualization of the Linux kernel in the Windows OS, and then use it to work via the command-line using iCommands. This option is for advanced Windows users who need to upload huge amounts of data (>100Gb). Please also take a look at the Wiki page on file sizes on the RDMS.