Setting up your account and workspace

Learn how to sign up for an account and access the MAAP.

Warning

At this time, access to MAAP is limited to members of teams who are already using the system. Your access request will not be processed if you do not have a sponsor who is already using MAAP.

Signing up for an Earthdata Login account

The MAAP offers accounts for NASA users through Earthdata Login. Before accessing the MAAP as a NASA user, you will need to create an Earthdata Login account. Anyone can register for an Earthdata Login profile here: https://urs.earthdata.nasa.gov/users/new.

Important

If you do not yet have an Earthdata Login account, create and verify it first — before starting MAAP sign-up. When you register a new Earthdata Login account, the process ends on Earthdata Login’s own account-verification step (including confirming your email address) and does not automatically send you back to MAAP. This is expected behavior, not an error.

If you began at the MAAP sign-up page and were sent to Earthdata Login to register, you will reach this stopping point after registering. Once your Earthdata Login account is active, return to the MAAP sign-up page at https://maap-project.org/signup and select **Get started with Earthdata Login** again — this time you will continue into MAAP registration.

Signing up for a new MAAP account

MAAP uses your Earthdata Login account to sign in — there is no separate MAAP registration form. Signing in for the first time creates your MAAP account automatically.

1. Navigate to the MAAP Signup page at https://maap-project.org/signup.

2. Select the Get started with Earthdata Login button and enter your Earthdata Login credentials.

3. On your first sign-in, a MAAP account is created for you and placed in a pending state. You will be taken to a sign-up page confirming that your request has been received and is awaiting review:

A MAAP administrator will then review your request. Access is only granted to users in NASA-Affiliated research, ESA Biomass users and other projects directly related to MAAP. Until your account is approved, signing in to the Hub will return you to this pending page.

Note

Once your MAAP account is approved, you will receive an email notification at the address associated with your Earthdata Login account to let you know that your access is enabled. To check on the status of a pending account, contact the MAAP team at support@maap-project.org.

Logging in

1. Navigate to https://hub.maap-project.org/ in Chrome or Firefox. You should be redirected to a sign-in page:

2. Click the Sign in with Earthdata Login button. You will be redirected to Earthdata Login to enter your credentials:

3. Enter your Earthdata Login credentials and click “Log in”. After a brief page that says “Redirecting”, you will arrive at the MAAP Hub launch page:

Note

If your MAAP account has not been approved yet, signing in will take you to the pending sign-up page described in “Signing up for a new MAAP account” above, rather than the Hub launch page.

Creating a workspace

Workspaces are effectively a JupyterLab “computer in the cloud”. To get started with Jupyter you need to create a workspace.

Overview of our images:

• Pangeo image: Built from Pangeo notebook image: https://github.com/pangeo-data/pangeo-docker-images/blob/master/pangeo-notebook/environment.yml

• isce3 image: Built from Pangeo base notebook with these packages installed: https://github.com/MAAP-Project/maap-workspaces/blob/main/base_images/2i2c/isce3/environment.yml

• R image: A couple Python packages: https://github.com/MAAP-Project/maap-workspaces/blob/main/base_images/2i2c/r/environment.yml and these R packages installed with CRAN or R universe: https://github.com/MAAP-Project/maap-workspaces/blob/main/base_images/2i2c/r/scripts/install_cran_packages_r.sh

1. Select an image to launch. If you are not sure what image you want, we recommend you start with the “Modified Pangeo Notebook” image. You can configure your resource allocation here. You need at least 14.8GB RAM to use conda

2. After choosing your image, you will see a loading screen – wait for it to finish loading.

3. Once the workspace has loaded, you should see a Jupyter interface that looks like this

Access the Hub Control panel from an active workspace by File -> Hub Control Panel. From here you can launch a new workspace

More information about JupyterHub: https://jupyterhub.readthedocs.io/en/stable/tutorial/index.html#getting-started

Jupyter Interface overview

When you first log in you may see a notification in the bottom right about a guided tour. Feel free to view the tour, which will give you a quick overview of the Jupyter user interface. You can also find the MAAP Tour in the Help menu at any time.

In addition to typical JupyterLab menu bar and sidebar configuration:

MAAP Jupyter Menus

• Git: Open repo in terminal, init, or clone repo.

• Jobs: Users may submit jobs through the submit tab and view their jobs through the view tab.

• Help: The help menu has several customized extensions and references to the MAAP documentation.

MAAP Jupyter Sidebar

• File Browser

• Running Terminals & Kernels

• Git Repo Interface (if this folder is a Git repo)

• Collaborators

• Table of Contents

• Extension Manager

MAAP Blue Sidebar

• Workspaces: See workspaces, share them, as well as configure settings

• Stacks: See available platforms for workspaces & required memory

• Administration: Control the configuration & policies for your installation.

• Organizations: allow groups of developers to collaborate with private & shared workspaces. Resources & permissions are controlled & allocated within the organization by admin.

• Profile (bottom, labeled with your name): See account info, logout

MAAP Storage Options

My root folder (fast cloud storage)

• Your Jupyter home directory (~) is mounted to /home/jovyan. Files in here persist across sessions and exist across your workspaces.

  • Use this for code-related items, smaller data storage (such as Jupyter Notebooks, Python/ R/ Markdown files, etc.)

  • Git is more likely to behave predictably here compared to other storage

  • This is also the place to make persistent conda environments (covered in another section), but make sure to not make a conda env inside a git-tracked folder, or if you do add it to the .gitignore. If git is tracking an env, it could cause your workspace to crash.

• Uses local (to Jupyter) file system; generally faster and more reliable for “normal” file operations, but expensive

Large file storage: my-private-bucket

~/my-private-bucket is an S3 bucket with persistent storage, but accessible only to you and others in a shared workspace.

• Use for large data storage

• It will be slower than the root folder to copy and move files, which is why it is not ideal for storing smaller files that need to be read or written quickly (e.g. Jupyter Notebooks)

Sharing files: my-public-bucket and shared-buckets

~/my-public-bucket is an S3 bucket with persistent storage. It is the same as ~/shared-buckets/<my_username>/ — anything you put in here will be accessible to other users via ~/shared-buckets/<my_username> as a read-only file. Likewise, to find shared files from another user, look in ~/shared-buckets/<their_username>.

• Use for large data storage for files that you want to share across workspaces

• Public and shared buckets are not recommended for Jupyter Notebooks

Mounting your MAAP workspace on your local computer

If you prefer to work on your local computer, or to drag-and-drop copy files from your computer to/from MAAP, you access the workspace via SSH. The process for doing this is in the system guide.