Initial Setup and Validation

This chapter provides guidance on the initial setup and validation of the user into the SDC system.

Accessing Secure Data Commons Portal

Users can access the SDC web portal by navigating to https://portal.sdc.dot.gov/

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• Select Register/Login from the top menu and click on “Login to SDC” as shown below.

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Note : The Access Request Form links on the right will take you to an online form in which you can provide the support team with contact info, a rationale for your access request, your preferred workstation type, and signoff for the SDC data use agreements. After reviewing your form the SDC team will create your Login credentials to access the Platform

• Log in to the Web Portal, based on the email address that's associated with your SDC account.

Users with a DOT email address (@dot.gov)	Users without a DOT email address (@dot.gov)

Users with a DOT email address (@dot.gov)

Users without a DOT email address (@dot.gov)

After clicking on Login to SDC , you will see below window pop up, please click on the blue ribbon “ DOT-PIV” Open Your DOT email will appear or you may have to enter it below , click “Next” and you will be logged in with your DOT email. (because when you are logged into your government laptop with your PIV badge inserted and connected to VPN or from your Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), your credentials are already in your browser hence you are automatically logged in). Open You are now logged in and will see the SDC landing page.

After clicking on Login to SDC, please enter your username and password as sent via an email by the SDC team in the highlighted box. (sdc-support@dot.gov) Open You will be now prompted to change your password . Enter new password and click on “Send" Open You will be directed to set up a MFA (multi-factor authentication) you can set that up on your mobile device or via chrome extension. Please enter the code from your authenticator app on step 3 as shown in the screenshot above and click “Sign in”. Open You are now logged in and will see the Landing page.

SDC Portal Landing Page

Upon successfully logging in, you will be redirected to the landing page, which provides an
overview of Secure Data Commons and the different actions you can perform from the web
portal:

1. Request access to curated and published datasets

2. Access to workstations with programming tools

3. Bring your own datasets / algorithms

4. Publish your datasets / algorithms

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Request Access to Datasets

Users can request access to the datasets that are available within the SDC platform as published /
enabled by the SDC team or published by other users.

Once you are logged in, go to Datasets in the left menu. You will be able to see all available datasets in the SDC platform. To access a dataset, click on Request.

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Complete the SDC Data Access Request form that appears. Once completed, click on “Submit Request”.

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The request will be sent to the support team and access to the requested dataset will be given upon validation and approval of the information in the form.

Upload User Data to S3 Bucket through Portal

Users who want to share data with other users from their project team can upload their own data
to their assigned team/individual buckets through the portal.

• Click on My Resources from the left panel.

• Click on Upload Files under “My Data”

• A pop-up window appears prompting you to choose one or more files for upload to the
  assigned bucket. (The assigned bucket name will be displayed on the upload pop-up
  window.)

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• The uploaded file will now appear in your My Data queue.

• Files that are uploaded from the web portal will be saved in the folder on your SDC workstation in your Team bucket which you can access from CyberDuck or AWS command line username/uploaded_files

• To make these files available to members of the project team, users then need to move
  files from username/uploaded_files to the project team S3 bucket using command-line
  tools (see AWS S3 CLI Commands for an overview).

• Users would be able to access only the files that are under the uploaded_files and export_requests folders.

Download User Data from S3 Bucket through Portal

Users can download their data from their assigned team/individual buckets through the portal.

1. Click on My Resources from the left panel.

2. All the available files under username/uploaded_files in the assigned bucket will be
   displayed along with the assigned bucket name under My Data.

3. Select the checkbox for the file you want to download.

4. Click on Download Files box.

5. Users should go through the export request workflow to download files that are uploaded
   under export_requests folder. Export requests workflow can be found in this guide.

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Notes:

• Not all the files are downloaded directly. Files with extensions such as .txt, .png, or .pdf
  will be opened in a separate tab from where they can be downloaded. All other files with
  extensions like .csv, .zip, etc. can be downloaded directly.

• Files are downloaded individually.

• The Filename box allows searches for partial filenames. This can be used to download all
  the contents of a sub-folder in an S3 bucket by searching for the sub-folder name and
  then clicking the box next to Filename to select all objects.

• Files must be copied to and from S3 buckets using the SDC workstation.

  • NOTE: Files stored in S3 buckets are not visible through Windows Explorer but can be copied to your SDC workstation.

  • For example: To copy the file shown above in Figure 13 that is hosted in an S3
    bucket to your SDC workstation, use the command:

    aws s3 cp s3://prod-sdc-cveval-911061262852-us-east-1- bucket/duser/uploaded_files/dot_sdc_historical_2017_ra w_and_curated_counts.zip dot_sdc_historical_2017_raw_and_curated_counts.zip