Register the new Member Node with DataONE

A Member Node (MN) integrates itself into DataONE through a process called Node Registration. Registering the MN allows the Coordinating Nodes (CNs) to synchronize content, index the metadata and resource maps, and replicate its content to other MNs.

MNs go through a testing phase before being registered in the DataONE production environment used by the public. This document describes how to register the new MN in a test environment. When the MN is ready to be registered in the production environment, the same procedure is used.

Registering the MN in a testing environment involves the following steps:

  1. Creating a DataONE identity in the environment.

  2. Submitting a Node document. The Node document describes the MN and the level at which it will participate in the DataONE infrastructure.

  3. DataONE evaluates the submission. Upon approval, the registration is complete, and the Node is part of the DataONE infrastructure.

Perform the steps in order, as each step depends on earlier steps.

Create a DataONE identity

This step must be performed by the person who will be the contact for the new MN. The contact person is often also the administrator for the MN.

Each DataONE environment has a web-based Identity Manager where DataONE identities are created and maintained. To create a DataONE identity, you will use the Identity Manager to authenticate with a CILogon-recognized identity, and then attach your name and contact email. At this point, DataONE will validate the information manually.

To register the administrative contact’s DataONE identity in the target environment, perform the following steps:

  1. Navigate to the Identity Manager of the target environment:

    Environment

    Identity Manager URL

    Production

    https://cn.dataone.org/portal

    Staging

    https://cn-stage.test.dataone.org/portal

    Sandbox

    https://cn-sandbox.test.dataone.org/portal

    Development

    https://cn-dev.test.dataone.org/portal

  2. Follow the prompts to authenticate against your Identity Provider. If your institution is not listed, you can use a Google or ProtectNetwork account.

  3. Once authenticated and back at the DataONE portal, supply your name and email, and then press Register

  4. Record (copy to clipboard) the identity string shown in the ‘Logged in as’ field. This value is taken from the CILogon certificate issued when you authenticated against your chosen Identity Provider, and is also a DataONE subject.

  5. Paste this value into the contactSubject field of the Node document you plan to submit in the next step.

  6. DataONE requires that DataONE subjects that are to be used as contacts for MNs be verified. To verify the account, send an email to support@dataone.org. In the email, include the identity string obtained in the step above and request that the account be verified. You do not need to wait for a reply to continue to the next step.

Configure the Member Node information

Most of the values that are set up in this section are described in the Node document section in the architecture documentation.

The Node document is a set of values that describe a MN or CN, its internet location, and the services it supports.

Modify the following settings:

  • NODE_IDENTIFIER: A unique identifier for the node of the form urn:node:NODEID where NODEID is the node specific identifier. This value MUST NOT change for future implementations of the same node, whereas the baseURL may change in the future.

    NODEID is typically a short name or acronym. As the identifier must be unique, coordinate with your DataONE developer contact to establish your test and production identifiers. The conventions for these are urn:node:mnTestNODEID for the development, sandbox and staging environments and urn:node:NODEID for the production environment. For reference, see the list of current DataONE Nodes.

    E.g.: urn:node:USGSCSAS (for production) and urn:node:TestUSGSCSAS (for testing).

  • NODE_NAME: A human readable name of the Node. This name can be used as a label in many systems to represent the node, and thus should be short, but understandable.

    E.g.: USGS Core Sciences Clearinghouse

  • NODE_DESCRIPTION: Description of a Node, explaining the community it serves and other relevant information about the node, such as what content is maintained by this node and any other free style notes.

    E.g.: US Geological Survey Core Science Metadata Clearinghouse archives metadata records describing datasets largely focused on wildlife biology, ecology, environmental science, temperature, geospatial data layers documenting land cover and stewardship (ownership and management), and more.

  • NODE_BASEURL: The base URL of the node, indicating the protocol, fully qualified domain name, and path to the implementing service, excluding the version of the API.

    E.g.: https://server.example.edu/app/d1/mn

  • NODE_SUBJECT: Specify the subject for this Node (retrieved from the client certificate provided by DataONE)

  • NODE_CONTACT_SUBJECT: The appropriate person or group to contact regarding the disposition, management, and status of this Member Node. The contactSubject is an X.509 Distinguished Name for a person or group that can be used to look up current contact details (e.g., name, email address) for the contact in the DataONE Identity service. DataONE uses the contactSubject to provide notices of interest to DataONE nodes, including information such as policy changes, maintenance updates, node outage notifications, among other information useful for administering a node. Each node that is registered with DataONE must provide at least one contactSubject that has been verified with DataONE.

    The contactSubject must be the subject of the DataONE identity that was created in the previous step.

    E.g.: CN=My Name,O=Google,C=US,DC=cilogon,DC=org

  • NODE_REPLICATE: Set to true if the node is willing to be a replication target, otherwise false.

  • DATAONE_ROOT: Select the environment that matches the one that was selected in Create a DataONE identity.

    E.g.: https://cn-stage.dataone.org/cn

Submit Member Node information to DataONE

The Member Node information is submitted to DataONE in a Node document. GMN automatically generates the Node document based on the settings configured in the previous step.

After editing settings.py, check if the Node document is successfully generated:

$ su gmn
$ python /var/local/dataone/gmn_venv_py3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/d1_gmn/manage.py node view

If the Node document is successfully generated, an XML document will be displayed. For more information about this document, refer to https://releases.dataone.org/online/api-documentation-v2.0.1/apis/Types.html#Types.Node

When the Node document is successfully generated and displayed, register the MN by submitting the Node document to DataONE. The Node document is automatically submitted to DataONE over a TLS/SSL connection that has been authenticated with the client side certificate configured in Install the DataONE client side certificate.

$ python lib/python3.6/site-packages/d1_gmn/manage.py node register

  • Check for a message saying that the registration was successful.

After running the script or running an automated registration, the Member Node should email support@dataone.org to notify of the registration request.

DataONE evaluates the submission

DataONE evaluates the submitted Node document and contacts the person listed as contactSubject in the Node document by email with the outcome of the approval process. After the node has been approved, the MN is part of the infrastructure environment in which it has been registered, and the CNs in that environment will start processing the information on the node.