HOWTO: Request a staging area on the Drop Server

Here is a checklist of the current process, from Adam Chalkley, 10 October 2020:

For those that would like to be among the first to use the new drop server (once it is ready), please provide the following:

* A short name that can identify your institution (e.g., AUB or even AUBURN for auburn)

** we'll use this when setting up login credentials on the server

* An estimate for how much content you will be uploading

** we need this in order to resize the volume accordingly

* The IP Address or IP Address *range* that you will be connecting from (e.g., the desktop performing the upload via WinSCP)

** we need this to update host-level firewall rules and on Auburn's campus border firewall

* Optional: one or more additional contact names and email addresses that we may correspond with

** while we will plan to work directly with the requestor, it may be useful to have an alternate contact

=== Obtaining IP Address(es) ===

If you know for sure that you have a fixed (aka, "Static") IP Address, you can visit this link to determine what IP Address you will need to provide us:

https://checkip.amazonaws.com/

We will need a fixed IP Address or range in order to update our campus border firewall rules to permit the access. If you are unsure whether you are working from a static IP Address, or will need to connect from multiple systems in order to upload content, please supply a range. You should be able to obtain that IP Address range from your IT team.

=== Sending in collected information ===

Finally, once you have collected all information, please submit those details to adpntpc@auburn.edu for review. Please note that this email address is associated with a mailing list with an active email archive. Please do not submit any information to this address that you consider sensitive. While we *should* be able to prune list emails upon request, it is best to err on the side of caution.

Once a request has been received, someone from the Technical Policy Committee (TPC) will reach out and we (currently just Auburn at the moment) can move forward with setting up the applicable storage, login credentials and firewall rules (on the box itself and at the campus border).

=== Dealing with potential problems ===

It should be stressed that this is a new process and will likely have some "kinks" that we have to work out. Thanks in advance for your patience. Please provide all feedback to the TPC via adpntpc@auburn.edu so that we can collaborate on a solution to any issues that arise.