AFW/NCCS Acceptable Use Policies
Computer Use
Computers, software, and communications systems supported by the NCCS are to be used for work associated with and within the scope of the approved project. The use of NCCS resources for personal or non-work-related activities is prohibited. All computers, networks, E-mail, and storage systems are property of the United States Government. Any misuse or unauthorized access is prohibited, and is subject to criminal and civil penalties. NCCS systems are provided to our users without any warranty. NCCS will not be held liable in the event of any system failure or data loss or corruption for any reason including, but not limited to: negligence, malicious action, accidental loss, software errors, hardware failures, network losses, or inadequate configuration of any computing resource or ancillary system.
User Accountability
Users are accountable for their actions and may be held accountable to applicable administrative or legal sanctions.
Monitoring and Privacy
Users are advised that there is no expectation of privacy of your activities on any system that is owned by, leased or operated by UT-Battelle (“The Company”) on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”) and other government agencies. The Company retains the right to monitor all activities on these systems, to access any computer files or electronic mail messages, and to disclose all or part of information gained to authorized individuals or investigative agencies, all without prior notice to, or consent from, any user, sender, or addressee. This access to information or a system by an authorized individual or investigative agency is in effect during the period of your access to information on a DOE operated computer and for a period of three years thereafter. NCCS personnel and users are required to address, safeguard against, and report misuse, abuse and criminal activities. Misuse of NCCS resources can lead to temporary or permanent disabling of accounts, loss of DOE allocations, and administrative or legal actions. Users who have not accessed a NCCS computing resource in at least 12 months will be have their two-factor token disabled. They will need to reapply to regain access to their account. Additionally, all users must reapply annually.
Foreign National Access
Applicants who appear on a restricted foreign country listing in section 15 CFR 740.7 License Exceptions for Computers may be denied access based on US Foreign Policy. The countries cited are Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria.
Denial of Service
Users may not deliberately interfere with other users accessing system resources.
Data Use
Prohibited Data
The HPC11 computer systems are operated in support of Air Force Weather and only contain data related to scientific research and do not contain personally identifiable information (data that falls under the Privacy Act of 1974 5U.S.C. 552a). Use of these resources to store, manipulate, or remotely access any national security information is strictly prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to: classified information, unclassified controlled nuclear information (UCNI), naval nuclear propulsion information (NNPI), the design or development of nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons or any weapons of mass destruction. Authors/generators/owners of information are responsible for its correct categorization as sensitive or non-sensitive. Owners of sensitive information are responsible for its secure handling, transmission, processing, storage, and disposal on these systems. Principal investigators, users, or project delegates that use these resources, or are responsible for overseeing projects that use these resources, are strictly responsible for knowing whether their project generates any of these prohibited data types or information that falls under Export Control. For questions, contact help@nccs.gov.
Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability
The NCCS systems provide protections to maintain the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of user data. Measures include the availability of file permissions, access control lists, and parity and CRC checks on data paths and files. It is the user’s responsibility to set access controls appropriately for the data. In the event of system failure or malicious actions, the NCCS makes no guarantee against loss of data or that a user’s data can be accessed, changed, or deleted by another individual. It is the user’s responsibility to insure the appropriate level of backup and integrity checks on critical data and programs.
Administrator Access to Data
NCCS resources are federal computer systems, and as such, users should have no explicit or implicit expectation of privacy. NCCS employees and authorized vendor personnel with “root” privileges have access to all data on NCCS systems. Such employees can also login to NCCS systems as other users. As a general rule, NCCS employees will not discuss your data with any unauthorized entities nor grant access to data files to any person other than the UNIX “owner” of the data file, except in the following situations:
When the owner of the data requests a change of ownership for any reason, e.g., the owner is leaving the project and grants the PI ownership of the data.
In situations of suspected abuse/misuse computational resources, criminal activity, or cyber-security violations.
Note that the above applies even to project PIs. In general, the NCCS will not overwrite existing UNIX permissions on data files owned by project members for the purpose of granting access to the project PI. Project PIs should work closely with project members throughout the duration of the project to ensure UNIX permissions are set appropriately.
Data Modification/Destruction
Users are prohibited from taking actions to intentionally modify or delete information or programs they are not authorized to modify or delete.
Data Deletion
The NCCS reserves the right to remove any data at any time and/or transfer data to other users working on the same or similar project once a user account is deleted or a person no longer has a business association with the NCCS.
Software Use
All software used on NCCS computers must be appropriately acquired and used according to the appropriate software license agreement. Possession, use, or transmission of illegally obtained software is prohibited. Likewise, users shall not copy, store, or transfer copyrighted software, except as permitted by the owner of the copyright. Only export-controlled codes approved by the Export Control Office may be run by parties with sensitive data agreements.
Malicious Software
Users must not intentionally introduce or use malicious software such as computer viruses, Trojan horses, or worms.
Reconstruction of Information or Software
Users are not allowed to reconstruct information or software for which they are not authorized. This includes but is not limited to any reverse engineering of copyrighted software or firmware present on NCCS computing resources.
Data Management
Data Storage Resources
The NCCS provides an array of data storage platforms, each designed with a particular purpose in mind. Storage areas are broadly divided into two categories: those intended for user data and those intended for project data. Within each of the two categories, we provide different sub-areas, each with an intended purpose.
User Home
Home directories for each user are NFS-mounted on all NCCS systems and are intended to store long-term, frequently-accessed user data. User Home areas are backed up on a daily basis. This file system does not generally provide the input/output (I/O) performance required by most compute jobs so it is only mounted read-only on HPC11 compute nodes for convenience. No user data can be written to this area from compute jobs.
Project Home
Project Home directories are NFS-mounted on selected NCCS systems and are intended to store long-term, frequently-accessed data that is needed by all collaborating members of a project. Project Home areas are backed up on a daily basis. This file system does not generally provide the input/output (I/O) performance required by most compute jobs so it is only mounted read-only on HPC11 compute nodes for convenience. No user data can be written to this area from compute jobs.
Member Work
Project members get an individual Member Work directory for each associated project; these reside in the high performance parallel file system on large, fast disk areas intended for global (parallel) access to temporary/scratch storage. Member Work areas are not shared with other users of the system and are intended for project data that the user does not want to make available to other users. Because of the scratch nature of the file system, it is not backed up.
Project Work
Each project is granted a Project Work directory; these reside in the high-performance parallel file system on large, fast disk areas intended for global (parallel) access to temporary/scratch storage. Project Work directories can be accessed by all members of a project and are intended for sharing data within a project. Because of the scratch nature of the file system, it is not backed up.
World Work
Each project has a World Work directory that resides in the high-capacity parallel file system on large, fast disk areas intended for global (parallel) access to temporary/scratch storage. World Work areas can be accessed by all users of the system and are intended for sharing of data between projects. Because of the scratch nature of the file system, it is not backed up.
Data Retention and Quotas
Data Retention Overview
By default, there is no lifetime retention for any data on NCCS resources. The NCCS specifies a limited post-deactivation timeframe during which user and project data will be retained. When the retention timeframe expires, the NCCS retains the right to delete data. If you have data retention needs outside of the default policy, please notify the NCCS.
User Data Retention
The user data retention policy exists to reclaim storage space after a user account is deactivated, e.g., after the user’s involvement on all NCCS projects concludes. By default, the NCCS will retain data in user-centric storage areas only for a designated amount of time after the user’s account is deactivated. During this time, a user can request a temporary user account extension for data access.
Project Data Retention
The project data retention policy exists to reclaim storage space after a project ends. By default, the NCCS will retain data in project-centric storage areas only for a designated amount of time after the project end date. During this time, a project member can request a temporary user account extension for data access.
Storage Space Quotas
Each user-centric and project-centric storage area has an associated quota, which could be a hard (systematically-enforceable) quota or a soft (policy-enforceable) quota. Storage usage will be monitored continually. When a user or project exceeds a soft quota for a storage area, the user or project PI will be contacted and will be asked if at all possible to purge data from the offending area.