FAQs: Globus Connect and Endpoints

Globus Connect is easy-to-install, pre-configured software that turns your laptop, server, cluster or other local resource into a Globus endpoint.

There are two versions of Globus Connect, one for use with personal machines such as your laptop, and another for use with server-class machines such as campus computing clusters and lab servers.

Globus Connect Personal is used to create an endpoint on a single-user system, e.g. on a laptop or a personal desktop machine. We sometimes refer to this as a "personal endpoint". Use Globus Connect Personal to enable file transfer to and from your personal machine (laptop or desktop.) A Globus Connect Personal endpoint is intended to be used only by a single user.

Globus Connect Server is used to create an endpoint on a multi-user system, e.g. on a campus HPC cluster or a lab server. We sometimes refer to this as a "server endpoint". Globus Connect Server enables system administrators to turn shared resources such as campus clusters and lab servers into a Globus endpoint. If it is made publicly visible, a Globus Connect Server endpoint can be used by multiple Globus users.

An "endpoint" is one of the two file transfer locations – either the source or the destination – between which files can move. Once a resource (server, cluster, storage system, laptop, or other system) is defined as an endpoint, it will be available to authorized users who can transfer files to or from this endpoint.

If you wish to create an endpoint on a personal machine (laptop, personal desktop computer, etc.) please see the instructions for setting up a Globus Connect Personal endpoint here: Mac OS X, Windows, Linux.

If you are setting up an endpoint on a multi-user machine (e.g. HPC cluster, lab server, etc.) please follow the instructions in the Globus Connect Server Installation Guide.

Yes. To transfer between two Globus Connect Personal (GCP) endpoints, one of the users must create a share hosted on their GCP endpoint, then grant the other user(s) access to that share. Any user that has access to that share (via an individual permission or group permission ACL) can transfer between it and their GCP endpoint. To create a share, the GCP endpoint needs to be created by a user who is in a Globus Plus group, or it has to be an actual managed endpoint, set by a subscription manager. Your account may be upgraded to Globus Plus if your institution subscribes to a Globus subscription.

Globus Connect Personal communicates with the Globus service to receive the commands needed to perform and manage transfers. File data itself is always transferred directly between the Globus Connect Personal endpoint and the destination endpoint – data does not "flow through" Globus in any way.

In the event that you see an error like this - Message: This server version does not support timestamp preservation, follow the steps below.

The Globus OIDC server (which is an optional identity provider option for Globus Connect Server) will use the PAM login service by default, but can be configured to use a different PAM service if desired. We discuss how to configure the Globus OIDC server to use a different PAM service in our doc here.

The Globus Web App provides an interface to manage roles on the endpoint on the Endpoints page. You can see a description of the supported roles here. Once you select your endpoint, you can choose the Roles tab to grant/revoke various roles on the endpoint.

Note that your endpoint needs to be covered under a subscription as managed endpoint to be able to set roles on the endpoint.

You can also use the Transfer API to manage roles on an endpoint.

The Console provides a web interface for Administrators, Activity Managers, and Activity Monitors to monitor or manage activity on managed collections. It also allows Administrators to find and edit (managed and unmanaged) Globus Connect Server endpoints.

The Dashboard tab includes an interactive, graphical representation of activity across all of your managed collections where green represents transfers that are making progress (or queued), orange represents transfers that are paused, and red represents tasks that are being retried because of errors. The Dashboard tab also includes a list of all your managed collections. Globus Connect Server endpoints do not appear on the Dashboard tab because they do not support data access. If you have a role on a mapped collection, you can view the activity of any guest collections by selecting the funnel icon of the mapped collection.

The Activity tab can be used to view and manage active tasks across all of your managed collections. Completed tasks may also be viewed in the Activity tab on a per collection basis. Tasks are visible for ninety days after completion and event logs are visible thirty days after task completion.