Labfolder Configurations

Modified on Fri, 31 Mar, 2023 at 4:27 PM

This article describes the Labfolder-specific configurations.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Configure default user and group settings
- Control user group settings
- Change group size and type
Global control of data safeguarding

Configure default user and group settings

Control user group settings

To control user and group settings, edit the #User and group control section.

Set Default Group Size to the maximum number of seats you wish a group should have when created. The fallback in case of a missing configuration variable is 3.
Set Default Group Type Maxi to true if a new group should be created as a maxi group. MAXI groups have advanced sharing and admin options.
Set Default User Storage to the number of bytes a newly created user should have to store his data. The default is 3 GB. Users cannot upload files when the quota set in this variable has been reached and will get an error warning. Users will still be able to add text and other content.

Note: Please note that the Default Group Size needs to be increased, and the Default Group Type Maxi needs to be set to true if large groups with advanced sharing and admin options should be available.

If Default Group Size is set to a value < 1, creating new groups is impossible. This can be used to prevent the creation of groups by anyone on the server and e.g. only allow Principal Investigators to create groups during server set-up and in controlled intervals. As an IT administrator, you can also create groups yourself and ‘transfer’ them to Principal investigators later. For details, refer to the Labfolder admin manual. The default user and group settings can be used to control the size and mode of newly created groups on a running system. The settings of existing groups remain unchanged.

Change group size and type

To change the group size and group type of all existing groups, follow these steps in the Kubernetes cluster VM.

Connect to the MySQL POD as the root user.

kubectl exec -i -t -n labforward labfolder-labregister-chart-mysql-0 -c mysql -- sh -c "(bash || ash || sh)"

Log on to the MySQL database via …
```
mysql -ulabfolder -p<password>
```

Execute the SQL statement below to set the group type of the existing group to MAXI.
```
UPDATE `group` SET `type` = '2';
```

Execute the SQL statement below to set the seat number of the existing groups to <group size> you wish.
```
UPDATE `group` SET `seats` = '<group size>';
```

Global control of data safeguarding

Entries can only be hidden due to Good Laboratory practices to avoid losing historical data, whereas the projects and templates can be either hidden or terminally deleted. Group admins can prevent the terminal deletion of content in Labfolder groups (see also the section ‘Data safeguarding’ in the Labfolder admin manual).

Data safeguarding preventing the terminal deletion of data can be globally activated for the entire server by setting the variable in the section #User and group control:

When Global Prevent Content Deletion is checked, data safeguarding is globally activated and cannot be deactivated by group admins. Groups and private projects cannot be deleted when global data safeguarding is activated. The default value is false, with global safeguarding being deactivated.

Upon global activation of data safeguarding, user data is not deleted when users close their accounts.

Instead, the account is deactivated and no longer accessible to the user, but the administrator can retrieve the data at any time with the following steps:

Connect to the MySQL server and authenticate.
Run the following command.
```
USE <database-name>;
```
```
UPDATE `user` SET `email`='<email-address-you-can-access>', `status`=0
    WHERE `email` LIKE '||%||<email-address-of-deleted-account>';
```
The <email-address-you-can-access> is an email address you can access, whereas the <email-address-of-deleted-account> is the email address with which the deleted account is registered. The <database-name> is labfolder in most cases, but this depends on the initial installation.

Go to the notebook login page and follow the "reset password" link to reset the password for the inserted email address <email-address-you-can-access> specified in the previous step.
You will get an email providing a link to assign a new password.
After logging in to the account with the new credentials, you can change the email address in the settings. Please make sure to store the credentials, especially when changing the email to an invalid address.

Note: Restoring user data, as described above, is only possible when global data safeguarding is activated. When activated, however, data cannot be deleted from the database, thus leading to a continuing increase in database size.