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Atrium eLab — User Guide

Welcome. The eLab gives you a research desktop in your browser — a Linux workspace with analysis tools, running inside a secure environment — plus a governed way to bring data in and take results out (the airlock).

Your organisation will have given you the web address of your eLab (shown here as https://<your-elab-address>) and an account. Everything works from a normal web browser — nothing to install.

This guide is arranged by role. Everyone uses a desktop, so start with the first section; beyond that, read the guides for the roles your account holds.

Everyone

  • Using Your Desktop

    Sign in, start and stop CPU or GPU desktops, schedule a start, and find your files and the data and material published for you.

    Using Your Desktop

  • Tools on the Desktop

    What is installed on the full, lite and GPU desktops.

    Tools

  • Installing Packages

    Python and R packages come from your eLab's own mirror; how it works and how to ask for more.

    Packages

  • About the eLab

    What it is for, and how it is designed.

    About the eLab

By role

  • Importing & Exporting Data

    For airlock-analysts. Request data in, submit results for release, and collect approved outputs.

    The Airlock

  • Reviewing Transfer Requests

    For airlock-reviewers. Approve or reject airlock requests.

    Reviewing

  • Administering the eLab

    For elab-admins. Warm desktop capacity, schedule sessions, add credits, set the budget.

    Administration

  • Publishing Content

    For elab-data-managers. Make data and material available to users — a dataset for a research project, notebooks for a class — and keep sites in step.

    Publishing

  • Choosing Your Own Image

    For elab-image-managers. Pick the desktop image your own desktops start from.

    Your own image

Getting a role

Roles are group memberships held in the platform's configuration, not settings in the portal, so your platform operator grants and removes them. A change takes effect the next time you sign in — sign out and back in after you have been told it is done.

Each role is separate on purpose, and holding one never implies another. In particular, being an eLab administrator does not make you a data manager or an image manager: one is custodianship of everyone's content, the other a personal preference, and neither is running the eLab. Someone who needs them is added to them.

On an eLab with more than one site you may also belong to a cohort group, which decides the site your desktops run at. That is a placement rather than a role: it grants nothing. "Cohort" here is only the platform's name for that group; it has nothing to do with a study cohort.

Signing in and your account

Sign-in, multi-factor setup, and password changes are covered in the platform's Account Help guide.

Getting help

For access problems, forgotten passwords, or anything the guides don't answer, use your organisation's support route (the sign-in page links to it where configured).