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 the paragraph above, we mentioned the use of clients and different protocols to access the RDMS. What we mean when we talk about a client is a piece of software that you can install in your operating system, and that allows you to perform a given set of operations. The protocol we mentioned above is the way the client talks to the RDMS, and it determines things such as transfer speed, maximum file transfer size, information shared with the system, etc. We will discuss the protocols used by the different clients directly in the wiki pages related to these clients.

The RDMS has a first-party client that runs in a Linux environment and is called iCommands. This is the most direct way to connect to the RDMS and is based on working in a command-line interface. The iCommands have been developed by iRODS (hence the first-party label) and are available for Linux systems. We have a separate section of the wiki explaining how to set up and use the iCommands.

If you are unfamiliar with a command-line interface or are working on a different operating system, please refer to the clients listed below in the third-party section.

Note: If you are a more advanced Windows user, you 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.

The RDMS web interface is the main third-party client to access the RDMS. However, since it is only possible to transfer files directly as long as they are not larger than 50 MB, you will have to use another third-party client to transfer your data to the system. Below is a list of third-party clients that we support, and that are dependent on the operating system you are using:

• On Windows
  • Cyberduck
  • WinSCP
• On MacOS
  • Cyberduck
  • Finder
• On Linux
  • iRODS Fuse lite
  • WebDAV-based clients

We also have a page on OS-independent clients that also work to connect to the RDMS, but that we do not officially support.