Profile

From the profile menu option, users can check and update their account details, and manage their OpenPGP Keys and SSH Keys.

My Profile tab

The My Profile tab shows the user’s account details.

Account details:

Name: User’s name
Username: User SWITCH edu-ID identifier
Local Username: The username the user chose during their first login to Portal.
Email: Contact email currently selected from the list retrieved from the user’s SWITCH edu-ID
Affiliations: List of organizations (e.g., university, research institute) linked to users SWITCH edu-ID account
IP Address: The IP address from where the user is connecting
Flags: List of flags enabled for the user
Groups: The list of Groups the user is a member of.

Note that personal details are retrieved from the user’s SWITCH edu-ID. For any changes to their personal data or affiliated organizations, user may update their SWITCH edu-ID via this link.

For more resources about SWITCH edu-ID, refer to SWITCH edu-ID / Quick Links.

OpenPGP Keys

From the OpenPGP Keys tab, users can see the PGP Keys they have registered in the Portal, along with their status.

Each key has the following information:

Fingerprint: This is a unique identified for each PGP key. You should make sure sure that this value is matching with the fingerprint of your key.
User ID: User ID associated with the PGP key. People usually have their full name (and sometimes affiliation) in this field.
Email: Email address associated with the PGP key
Status: The approval status of your key. The list of key statuses is as follows:
- PENDING: a key approval request was submitted, but the key has not been approved yet. This is a manual process and can take from a few hours or up couple of days.
- APPROVED: key is approved for usage within the BioMedIT network. Only approved keys can be used to encrypt, sign and decrypt data packages that are transiting via the BioMedIT network.
- APPROVAL-REVOKED: approval of the key has been revoked by the BioMedIT key validation authority.
- KEY-REVOKED: key has been revoked by its owner.
- REJECTED: key is not trusted by the BioMedIT key validation authority.
- DELETED: key has been removed from the keyserver by its owner.
- UNKNOWN KEY: key has not been registered on the BioMedIT portal. If it is your own key, please register it. If it is the key of someone else, please ask them to register their key.

Registering a new PGP key

Important

The key has been created, uploaded to the Open PGP keyserver, and verified with the keyserver (i.e. the keyserver will send you an automated email to verify that you have control over the email associated with the PGP key). The standard way to generate a key pair in BioMedIT is via the Secure Encryption and Transfer Tool - sett GUI application, but PGP keys generated using other methods are also accepted (e.g. using the GnuPG command line tools).
The PGP key is using one of the email addresses associated to your SWITCH edu-ID.
You do not already have an APPROVED key registered on the Portal. Only one key per user can be used for data encryption/decryption at any one time. If you wish to register a new key and already have an approved key, please contact the DCC to request the revocation of your current key (if you still intend to use that key outside of BioMedIT) or revoke it yourself on the keyserver (if you want to permanently revoke your key for all applications).

Once the above prerequisites are met, perform the following steps to register your key and request its approval:

Connect to the BioMedIT portal and go to Profile and OpenPGP Keys tab.
Click on +OPENPGP KEY.
Add Key dialogue box will open. Enter your key’s fingerprint: please copy-paste it from your computer to avoid typing errors. Then click on the green search icon.
If your key is present on the Open PGP keyserver, the user ID and email associated with your key will be retrieved and displayed in the dialog box. Please double check that the value is correct.
If the displayed user ID and email values are correct, click on CONFIRM.

Your key is now registered and an approval request as been automatically sent to the DCC. Please note that the verification and approval of your key by the DCC is a manual process and may take a few days.

Note that your key’s approval status will be PENDING until approved by the DCC. Once approved, the status will change to APPROVED, at which point the key can be used to encrypt and decrypt data to be transferred into the BioMedIT network.

SSH Keys

From the SSH Keys tab, users can add their public SSH key for a specific project.

Registering a new SSH key

Click on +SSH KEY.
Select the project from the drop-down list
Copy the content of your public ssh key
click on SAVE