Getting Started

This section is for people joining the MOAD group. It’s mostly a collection of links to other places in these and other docs in approximately the order that you need to do things to get up and running in the group.

There’s lots to learn as you join the group, but you can also help us improve things right from Day 1. You are reading these docs with eyes and brain that haven’t looked at them before, so you are uniquely qualified to see things that other people take for granted. Please help us improve our docs fixing typos, improving wording, etc. by using the Edit on GitHub link in the upper right corner of every page (on a desktop browser - sadly that feature is not available at the moment on phones and tablets). If you find something that you don’t feel confident fixing, please create an issue about it in the issue tracker on GitHub.

Here’s the Getting Started checklist:

  1. Get Your EOAS Email Address and User Id

  2. Get Set Up on GitHub

  3. Get a Digital Research Alliance of Canada Account

  4. Set Up Secure Remote Access

  5. Set Up Git

  6. Set Up bash

  7. Install Miniforge

  8. Set Up Your Analysis Repository

Get Your EOAS Email Address and User Id

Susan will take you through the form to get your EOAS email address and Linux computer user id setup during your first meeting with her when you join the group.

Get Set Up on GitHub

If you don’t already have an account on GitHub, please create one. Then, send your GitHub username to Doug at dlatornell@eoas.ubc.ca. He will add you to the UBC-MOAD GitHub organization and you will receive an invitation email from GitHub that you will have to accept in order to finalize your addition to the organization. Doug will probably also invite you to at least one of the other project-specific GitHub organizations that we have.

Get a Digital Research Alliance of Canada Account

If you are going to be using the Digital Research Alliance of Canada (formerly Compute Canada) clusters, you will need to have an eoas.ubc.ca email address, and Susan’s Alliance CCRI code before you can Create Digital Research Alliance of Canada & WestGrid Accounts.

Set Up Secure Remote Access

You will need to have:

  1. Your Compute Canada user id and password

  2. An account, user id, and password on the EOAS Ocean collection of Linux computers (which should happen at the same time as getting your eoas.ubc.ca email address)

before you can set up your ssh keys and configuration for Secure Remote Access.

Set Up Git

You will need to:

  1. Learn about Version Control with Git

  2. Install Git on your laptop

  3. Set up your Git Configuration on each of the machines you use

Set Up bash

You will need to have:

  1. A user id on the EOAS Ocean collection of Linux computers (which should happen at the same time as getting your eoas.ubc.ca email address)

  2. Completed the process of copying your public ssh key to a Waterhole workstation

before you can:

  1. Create .bash_profile

  2. Create .bashrc

on a Waterhole workstation.

Install Miniforge

You will need to:

  1. Learn about Conda Package and Environment Manager

  2. Install Miniforge on your laptop

  3. Install Miniforge in your workspace on the EOAS Ocean collection of Linux computers

Set Up Your Analysis Repository

You will need to have:

  1. Set Up Git

  2. Installed Miniconda

before you can set up your analysis repository.