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BioMedIT Blog

What's new in sett 5.4.0? 🚀

We are happy to announce the release of sett version 5.4.0, which brings - among others - authenticated decryption from S3 object stores to BioMedIT users.

For a full list of changes, please refer to the changelogs:

To download the new version, please go to the download page, and choose your distribution.

Highlights of the new release

Authenticated decryption from S3 in sett GUI and CLI 🔓

Decryption from an S3 object store is now available in authenticated mode!

To decrypt data directly from an S3 object store, BioMedIT users can now simply login to portal from the sett GUI app (“User Profile” tab), and enter the name of the package to decrypt and its DTR ID number.

CLI users are not left behind, as authenticated decryption is also available on the command line:

# Authenticated data decryption from portal.
 sett decrypt s3-portal --dtr DTR_ID DATA_PACKAGE_NAME.zip

Additional package details displayed in the decryption tab 🔍

When loading a package for decryption, whether from the local filesystem or a remote S3 object store, additional details about the package are now displayed:

  • Data Transfer ID
  • Timestamp
  • Custom metadata (if any)

This is in addition to the information that was already (and remains) displayed:

  • Location of package
  • Sender and recipients

Support and feedback ❤️

If you have any questions or would like to give us feedback, please feel free to contact us at biomedit@sib.swiss.

The BioMedIT Central Team

What's new in Portal 8.3.0? 🚀

We are excited to announce the release of BioMedIT Portal 8.3.0, which is packed with new features and improved usability.

You may find the full list of changes in the: CHANGELOG - Portal 8.3.0

/new and /edit pages for projects 📝

Projects have evolved a lot since the first versions of the BioMedIT Portal. They now carry so much information, that creating or editing a project from a dialog window was not enough anymore. We have introduced dedicated pages for creating and editing projects, so that information is displayed more clearly. You may find them at:

https://portal.dcc.sib.swiss/projects/new

and

https://portal.dcc.sib.swiss/projects/<project_id>/edit

Enable/disable resources and services for a project 🛠️

You can now enable or disable resources and services for a project. This will also determine whether the dedicated tabs will be rendered, ensuring your users are not presented with unnecessary information. You can change this setting from the project edit page:

https://portal.dcc.sib.swiss/projects/<project_id>/edit

MINIMAL project role becomes NO ROLE 🪪

The MINIMAL role for project has been renamed to NO ROLE. This change is to better reflect the fact that the user is part of the project, but has no role assigned. In fact, the NO ROLE is now also mutually exclusive with other roles.

Support ❤️

We thank you for your continued support and feedback. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at biomedit@sib.swiss.

The BioMedIT Central Team

What's new in sett 5.3.0? 🚀

We are happy to announce the release of sett version 5.3.0, which brings cool new features.

For a full list of changes, please refer to the changelogs:

To download the new version, please go to the download page, and choose your distribution.

Decryption from S3 in sett GUI 📂

You can now use sett GUI to stream and directly decrypt data from an S3 object store, without creating any temporary files in the local file system.

Update expiration date for OpenPGP keys 📅

You can now update the expiration date for OpenPGP keys using sett GUI or sett CLI. Both tools will also warn you, starting from three months ahead of the expiration date, when you try to use that key for signing or decryption.

Easier UserID definition for new OpenPGP keys 🗝️

When generating a new OpenPGP key in sett CLI, you can now specify the name and email separately, which makes it easier to define the UserID for the key:

sett keys generate --name "Alice Smith" --email alice.smith@example.com

.deb packages for sett CLI 📦

sett CLI is now available as a .deb package for Debian-based distributions!

Support ❤️

We thank you for your continued support and feedback. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at biomedit@sib.swiss.

The BioMedIT Central Team

What's new in Portal 8.2.0? 🚀

We are pleased to announce the release of BioMedIT Portal 8.2.0, which is packed with new features requested by the BioMedIT nodes, along with interface updates, improved usability, and enhanced performance.

You may find the full list of changes in the: CHANGELOG - Portal 8.2.0

New Features ✨

  • PGP Key Information: You can now view PGP key details directly in the user profile.
  • Data Providers: Additional tabs display the data transfers list for the specific Data Provider and the Data Provider users.
  • Nodes: Node users have been moved to a separate tab.
  • Projects: New “Additional Project Information” and “Services” tabs have been added, allowing for more relevant details to the project and tracking of which users have access to specific project services.

Improvements 🛠️

  • Navigation: Administration menu items have been bundled together.
  • Users in projects: Improved and clearer view of user roles within projects.
  • Inactive Users: The page displayed for users with “inactive” status who return to the portal has been improved to provide them clearer information.
  • Email Notifications:
    • No emails are sent for updates to users with minimal role.
    • Redundant emails for when users are added or deleted to projects have been removed.
    • Filenames are now included in data package emails.

Support ❤️

We thank you for your continued support and feedback. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at biomedit@sib.swiss.

The BioMedIT Central Team

What's new in sett 5.2.0? 🚀

We are excited to announce the release of sett version 5.2.0, which brings several significant enhancements designed to improve usability and streamline the encryption and transfer of data.

For a full list of changes, please refer to the changelogs:

To download the new version, please go to the download page, and choose your distribution.

Simplified encryption and transfer GUI ✨

The “Encrypt” and “Transfer” tabs have been combined into a single tab, making the interface cleaner and easier to navigate. You can still choose to encrypt files first, and transfer them later.

BioMedIT Portal Integration 🔐

Users can now authenticate through the BioMedIT Portal, unlocking additional features:

  • When creating a package, you can now select eligible approved data transfer requests from a drop-down menu, rather than manually entering the DTR number.
  • For S3/HTTPS transfers, credentials are automatically retrieved—no need to switch back to the Portal to fetch them.

OpenPGP key expiration date 📅

It is now possible to set an expiration date when generating an OpenPGP certificate both from sett GUI and sett CLI.

Additional settings ⚙️

The “Settings” tab of sett GUI now displays more information, such as the location of your public and private key stores.

CLI for simultaneous decryption and transfer 📬

Users can now decrypt packages from an S3 object store by specifying the corresponding arguments.

Performance and other improvements 🏎️

Additionally, this version includes several bug fixes, as well as security and performance improvements.

Support ❤️

We thank you for your continued support and feedback. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at biomedit@sib.swiss.

The BioMedIT Central Team

Porting sett from Python to Rust

sett stands for “Secure Encryption and Transfer Tool” and is an application that facilitates and automates data packaging, encryption, and transfer in BioMedIT.

Over the past two years BIWG has ported sett from Python to a more modern technology stack, composed of Rust and Svelte. This port was performed because the Python implementation was showing some design limitations, which made the life of developers and users difficult. The list of limitations included:

  • A somewhat complicated installation process, requiring multiple steps and the usage of the command line;
  • A requirement on a local installation of gpg: a tool which is very problematic to handle programmatically, especially on some operating systems;
  • Python’s performances: good, but definitely a bottleneck when compared to the performance of a compiled language like Rust can provide;
  • A Python-based GUI where implementing complex behaviors and styling can be challenging.

Before diving deeper, it’s worth mentioning that the transition was carried out gradually. The Rust codebase was initially designed as a Rust library with Python bindings, which allowed BIWG to gradually replace Python core features—i.e. encryption, transfer, decryption, key management—with their Rust equivalents. These Rust-based core features have been running in production since months, nicely encapsulated in a Python-based shell. The last steps of this port were carried out more recently, when:

  • On 22nd April 2024, the first Rust-only version was released both for the GUI and the CLI;
  • On 30th June 2024, the Python version was discontinued.

sett-gui-architecture

Usability improvements

  • Simplified installation process. Both the CLI and the GUI can be downloaded as standalone executables, with no dependency on external software;
  • More modern looking GUI, with step-by-step user guidance (i.e. fields to fill are shown to the user as needed), and simplified CLI interface (i.e. less options);
  • sett no longer relies solely on the local gpg keyring but has now an internal key store, implemented using Sequoia PGP—a utility to migrate keys from the gpg keyring to the internal key store is provided by the tool;
  • Support for parallel compression and encryption;
  • Support for simultaneous encryption and transfer;
  • Support for simultaneous decryption and transfer;
  • Use of Zstandard as default compression algorithm. Faster than the previously used gzip algorithm, and multi-threaded;
  • Authentication with BioMedIT Portal, enabling an improved user experience—e.g. auto-retrieval of S3 credentials (no need to go to portal and copy/paste credentials anymore);
  • Auto-updater for the GUI application;
  • Code signing certificates, provided by:
    • Apple, for Mac binaries;
    • SSL.com, for Windows binaries.

Performance improvements

Performances are noticeably improved, according to BIWG’s investigation and as shown in the table that follows.

Legacy sett sett 5.2.0
Encryption 50 MB/s 249 MB/s
Decryption 122 MB/s 259 MB/s

Discontinued features

  • Support for Liquidfiles as a protocol for transferring data packages;
  • Support for persisted settings/configuration for the CLI;
  • Support for SSH jump host for transfer over SFTP.

What’s coming next ?

  • An interactive terminal user interface (TUI), alternative to the classical way of running sett CLI and especially useful in the authenticated mode;
  • Support for signing public keys, useful e.g. when the users don’t rely on a central trusted authority for key verification and approval;
  • More features based on authentication with BioMedIT Portal—e.g. better feedback to the users on the status of the BioMedIT network, improved data package tracing;
  • Support for simultaneous decryption and transfer from the GUI.

Fine details on the status of present and future developments are available in BIWG roadmap.