User Guide#

Welcome to Oak!#

A common question we're asked by new users is, "How do I use Oak?". We typically reply with, "How do you want to use it?".

The challenge with giving a more direct response is that it's a bit like asking how to use a physical storage unit. People store things in a variety of ways using a wide array of tools and processes. Oak spaces are similarly heterogeneous, so there is no one 'correct' way to access them.

Your Oak account provides access to multiple tools and protocols to fit a wide swath of use cases, leaving it up to each user to determine what constellation of services best suits their needs.

For the basics of accessing Oak storage, read on. If you're joining an established group on Oak, asking your colleagues how they use Oak can be an excellent first step to determining what tools and protocols you should use. If you still need help figuring out where to start, don't hesitate to email us at srcc-support@stanford.edu.

Accessing Oak storage#

To access Oak storage, you should be aware of the full path of your Oak space. Oak groups are the most common and always include the SUNet ID of the sponsoring PI. For the following examples, we'll use $PI_SUNET as a placeholder. That would make our group path /oak/stanford/groups/$PI_SUNET.

If you have an account on Sherlock, the environment variable $OAK should already be set accordingly:

$ cd $OAK

Disk space#

The available disk space for each Oak space will vary. Quota allocations are sold in 10TB and 250TB denominations, with a strict ratio of 1.5M inodes for every 10TB.

Tracking usage#

Each Oak space has a robust online dashboard that provides live information about available disk space and per-user usage. For more information, see our dashboard page.

Email notification for system maintenance and issues#

Please note that your email will be subscribed to the mailing list oak-announce (very low traffic for official announcements such as planned maintenance). Your group members will also be automatically subscribed. For more information, please see the following page:

Oak-announce List Information

Getting data in and out of Oak#

Oak is a stand-alone storage system accessed through "gateways."

Our Data Transfer Nodes (DTNs) and Globus below are available to all Oak users, but we can also deploy dedicated gateways (e.g., using SMB or NFS). Please see our Gateways page for more information.

Service maintenance#

The first Tuesday of each month, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., is designated for scheduled maintenance. Clients will be notified by email at oak-announce@lists.stanford.edu two weeks prior to any scheduled work that may impact system availability, including the monthly maintenance.

Support and feedback#

Your feedback is very important. Please tell us about any issues you run into and successes you have. The best way to contact us is by email to SRCC Support.

Support limitations#

Stanford Research Computing will resolve Oak-specific hardware and file-system problems. Stanford Research Computing is not able to address firewall, network, remote connectivity, or desktop issues. For those issues, you can get help at HelpSU.

SRCC Slack workspace#

Stanford Research Computing has a workspace on the Stanford Slack Grid! This allows us to communicate system-wide announcements and provides our users a platform to connect and discuss directly, ask questions, recommend best practices, or share tips with the community.

In particular, we encourage you to join these two channels:

• #oak-announce, for announcements related to Oak storage (read-only)
• #oak-users, for discussions among the community of Oak storage users

Please note that while SRCC staff will monitor these channels, they are not intended as official support channels, and the recommended way to get support is still to email us at SRCC Support.

For more details about the SRCC Slack Workspace and instructions on how to join this workspace and its channels, please see:

SRCC Users Slack Workspace.