Archivematica Storage Service 0.12.0 is a legacy release, and these documents are no longer being maintained.

Storage Service Administrator Instructions

The Archivematica Storage Service allows the configuration of storage spaces associated with multiple Archivematica pipelines. It allows a storage administrator to configure what storage is available to each Archivematica installation, both locally and remote.

Home page of the Storage Service

On this page:

Storage Service glossary and organization

Pipelines

A pipeline refers to a single installation of an Archivematica dashboard. One Storage Service can be used to configure multiple Archivematica pipelines.

Spaces

A space models a specific storage device. That device might be a locally- accessible disk, a network share, or a remote system accessible via a protocol like FEDORA, SWIFT, DuraCloud, or LOCKSS. The space provides the Storage Service with configuration to read and/or write data stored within itself.

Packages are not stored directly inside a space; instead, packages are stored within locations, which are organized subdivisions of a space.

Locations

A location is a subdivision of a space. Each location is assigned a specific purpose, such as AIP storage, DIP storage, transfer source or transfer backlog, in order to provide an organized way to structure content within a space.

Packages

The Storage Service is oriented to storing packages. A “package” is a bundle of one or more files transferred from an external service; for example, a package may be an AIP, a backlogged transfer, or a DIP. Each package is stored in a location.

Archivematica Configuration

When installing Archivematica, options to configure it with the Storage Service will be presented.

Configuring the Storage Service during Archivematica installation.

If you have installed the Storage Service at a different URL, you may change that here.

The top button ‘Use default transfer source & AIP storage locations’ will attempt to automatically configure default Locations for Archivematica, register a new Pipeline, and generate an error if the Storage Service is not available. Use this option if you want the Storage Service to automatically set up the configured default values.

The bottom button ‘Register this pipeline & set up transfer source and AIP storage locations’ will only attempt to register a new Pipeline with the Storage Service, and will not error if not Storage Service can be found. It will also open a link to the provided Storage Service URL, so that Locations can be configured manually. Use this option if the default values not desired, or the Storage Service is not running yet. Locations will have to be configured manually before any Transfers can be processed, or AIPs stored.

If the Storage Service is running, the URL to it should be entered, and Archivematica will attempt to register its dashboard UUID as a new Pipeline. Otherwise, the dashboard UUID is displayed, and a Pipeline for this Archivematica instance can be manually created and configured. The dashboard UUID is also available in Archivematica under Administration -> General.

Change the port in the web server configuration

The Storage Services uses nginx by default, so you can edit /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/storage and change the line that says

listen 8000;

change 8000 to whatever port you prefer to use.

Keep in mind that in a default installation of Archivematica, the dashboard is running in Apache on port 80. So it is not possible to make nginx run on port 80 on the same machine. If you install the Storage Service on its own server, you can set it to use port 80.

Make sure to adjust the dashboard UUID in the Archivematica dashboard under Administration -> General.

Pipelines

Storage Service pipelines screen.

A pipeline is an Archivematica instance registered with the Storage Service, including the server and all associated clients. Each pipeline is uniquely identified by a UUID, which can be found in the dashboard under Administration -> General Configuration. When installing Archivematica, it will attempt to register the UUID with the Storage Service, with a description of “Archivematica on <hostname>”.

Fields:

  • UUID: the unique identifier of the Archivematica pipeline.
  • Description: a description of the pipeline displayed to the user. e.g. Development site.
  • Enabled: If checked, this pipeline can access locations associate with it. If unchecked, all locations will be disabled, even if associated directly with this pipeline.
  • Default Location: If checked, the default locations configured in Administration -> Configuration will be created or associated with the new pipeline.

Spaces

Storage Service spaces screen.

A storage Space contains all the information necessary to connect to the physical storage. It is where protocol-specific information, like an NFS export path and hostname, or the username of a system accessible only via SSH, is stored. All locations must be contained in a space.

A space is usually the immediate parent of the Location folders. For example, if you had transfer source locations at /home/artefactual/archivematica- sampledata-2013-10-10-09-17-20 and /home/artefactual/maildir_transfers, the Space’s path would be /home/artefactual/

Currently supported protocols are local filesystem, NFS, pipeline local filesystem, LOCKSS, DuraCloud, Arkivum, Fedora and Swift.

Some protocols require a staging path. This is a temporary location on the Storage Service server that is used when copying material from that service service (DuraCloud, Swift, etc) to another space within the Storage Service.

Arkivum

Archivematica can use Arkivum’s A-Stor as an access protocol in version 0.7 and higher. A-Stor can expose a CIFS share to the Storage Service so that the Storage Service can copy files to an A-Stor datapool for AIP storage, for example.

Add an entry to /etc/fstab on the Storage Service, then mount the A-Stor CIFS share.

Example:

//ARK00092/astor /mnt/astor cifs
defaults,guest,file_mode=0666,dir_mode=0777,uid=archivematica,gid
=archivematica,forcegid,forceuid,rw 0 1

In this example, ARK00092 is the name of the appliance and should be resolvable through DNS or be set as an entry in /etc/hosts.

Then, choosing Arkivum as the access protocol, create a new space in the Storage Service.

Fields:

  • Size: the maximum size allowed for this space. Set to 0 or leave blank for unlimited. This field is optional.
  • Path: the local path on the Storage Service machine to the CIFS share, e.g. /mnt/astor
  • Staging Path: the absolute path to a staging area. Must be UNIX filesystem compatible, preferably on the same filesystem as the path, e.g. /mnt/astor/archivematica1/tmp
  • Host: the hostname of the Arkivum web instance or IP address with port, e.g. arkivum.example.com:8443
  • Remote user: the username on the remote machine accessible via passwordless ssh. This field is optional.
  • Remote name: the name or IP of the remote machine. This field is optional.

Dataverse

As of Storage Service version 0.9, Dataverse integration is a beta feature. It requires the use of a development branch of Archivematica (https://github.com/artefactual/archivematica/tree/dev/issue-8693-dataverse) and of the Automation Tools (https://github.com/artefactual/automation-tools/tree/dev/dataverse)

Fields:

  • Size: the maximum size allowed for this space. Set to 0 or leave blank for unlimited. This field is optional.
  • Path: the absolute path to the Space on the local filesystem.
  • Staging path: the absolute path to a staging area. Must be UNIX filesystem compatible and preferably will be located on the same filesystem as the path.
  • Host: Hostname or IP address of the Dataverse instance, e.g. test.dataverse.org
  • API key: the key generated by Dataverse for a specific user account
  • Agent name: a string that will be used in Archivematica METS file to identify this Dataverse instance as a PREMIS agent, e.g. My Institution's Dataverse Instance. This field is optional.
  • Agent type: a string that will be used in Archivematica METS file to identify the type of PREMIS agent named above, e.g. organization. This field is optional.
  • Agent identifier: a string that will be used as an identifier in the Archivematica METS file to uniquely identify the PREMIS agent named above. This field is optional.

Inside this space, at least one location should be created for the purpose of Transfer Source. This is the only type of location that will be allowed inside a Dataverse space.

Within this location, the relative path can be used to store a query string, which is used to interrogate the Dataverse Search API (for example, q=* will return all datasets).

The Storage Service will always add type=dataset to the calls that it makes to the Dataverse Search API. The automation tools will create one transfer for every dataset, which subsequently becomes one SIP and one AIP.

DuraCloud

Archivematica can use DuraCloud as an access protocol for the Storage Service in version 0.5 and higher. Typically, a Storage Service space has a one-to-one relationship with a space within DuraCloud.

Fields:

  • Size: the maximum size allowed for this space. Set to 0 or leave blank for unlimited. This field is optional.
  • Path: the absolute path to the Space on the local filesystem.
  • Staging path: the absolute path to a staging area. Must be UNIX filesystem compatible and preferably will be located on the same filesystem as the path.
  • Host: the hostname of the DuraCloud instance, e.g. example.duracloud.org.
  • User: a username with sufficient permissions to permit authentication.
  • Password: the password of the above user.
  • Duraspace: the name of the Space within DuraCloud

DSpace via SWORD2 API

DSpace locations are currently supported only for AIP Storage locations. Becasue DSpace is typically used as a public-facing system, the behaviour is different than when using other access protocols for AIP Storage: upon deposit in DSpace, the AIP will be split into an objects bitstream, which contains all original and normalized objects in the AIP, as well as a metadata bitstream, which contains all of the bag artifacts, metadata and logs that one would expect to see in an Archivematica AIP. The metadata bitstream can optionally be restricted; see below. Presently, the Storage Service and Dashboard are not capable of downloading/reconstituting the AIP- this must be done manually from the DSpace interface.

If using DSpace as the AIP location in conjunction with the ArchivesSpace workflow in the Appraisal tab, a post Store AIP hook will send the DSpace handle to the ArchivesSpace digital object record upon AIP storage.

Fields:

  • Size: the maximum size allowed for this space. Set to 0 or leave blank for unlimited. This field is optional.
  • Path: the absolute path to the Space on the local filesystem.
  • Staging path: the absolute path to a staging area. Must be UNIX filesystem compatible and preferably will be located on the same filesystem as the path.
  • Service Document IRI: URL of the service document. E.g. http://demo.dspace.org/swordv2/servicedocument, where servicedocument is the handle to the community or collection being used for deposit.
  • User: a username for the DSpace instance with sufficient permissions to permit authentication.
  • Password: the password for the username above.
  • Restricted metadata policy: Use to restrict access to the metadata bitstream. Must be specified as a list of objects in JSON, e.g. [{"action":"READ","groupId":"5","rpType":"TYPE_CUSTOM"}]. This will override existing policies.

Fedora via SWORD2

Fedora via SWORD2 is currently supported in the Storage Service as an Access Protocol to facilitate use of the Archidora plugin, which allows ingest of material from Islandora to Archivematica. This workflow is in beta testing as of Storage Service 0.9/Archivematica 1.5/Islandora 7.x-1.6.

Fields:

  • Size: the maximum size allowed for this space. Set to 0 or leave blank for unlimited. This field is optional.
  • Path: the absolute path to the Space on the local filesystem.
  • Staging path: the absolute path to a staging area. Must be UNIX filesystem compatible and preferably will be located on the same filesystem as the path.
  • Fedora user: Fedora user name (for SWORD functionality).
  • Fedora password: Fedora password (for SWORD functionality).
  • Fedora name: Name or IP of the remote Fedora machine.

Note

  • A Location (see below) must also be created, with the purpose of FEDORA Deposits.
  • On the Archivematica dashboard, the IP of the Storage Service needs to be added to the IP whitelist for the REST API, so that transfers will be approved automatically.
  • A post-store callback can be configured, to enable Islandora to list objects that can be deleted once they have been stored by Archivematica. See the Administration section.

GPG encryption on local file system

Creating a GPG encryption space will allow users to create encrypted AIPs and transfers. Only AIP storage, Transfer backlog and Replicator locations can be created in a GPG encryption space.

Encrypted AIPs and transfers can be downloaded unencrypted via the Storage Service and Archivematica dashboard.

Before creating a GPG encryption space ensure that you have created or imported a GPG key on the Administration page.

Fields:

  • Size: the maximum size allowed for this space. Set to 0 or leave blank for unlimited. This field is optional.
  • Path: the absolute path to the Space on the local filesystem.
  • Staging path: the absolute path to a staging area. Must be UNIX filesystem compatible and preferably will be located on the same filesystem as the path.
  • Key: the encryption key to be used for the space.

Important

It is possible to encrypt uncompressed AIPs, which will be stored as tar files.

Uncompressed AIPs do not have pointer files, so if the key for the space is changed and the original key is deleted/unknown, Archivematica will have no record of the key for decryption.

Local Filesystem

Local Filesystem spaces handle storage that is available locally on the machine running the Storage Service. Typically this is the hard drive, SSD or raid array attached to the machine, but it could also encompass remote storage that has already been mounted. For remote storage that has been locally mounted, we recommend using a more specific Space if one is available.

Fields:

  • Size: the maximum size allowed for this space. Set to 0 or leave blank for unlimited. This field is optional.
  • Path: the absolute path to the Space on the local filesystem.
  • Staging path: the absolute path to a staging area. Must be UNIX filesystem compatible and preferably will be located on the same filesystem as the path.

LOCKSS

Archivematica can store AIPs in a LOCKSS network via LOCKSS-O-Matic, which uses SWORD to communicate between the Storage Service and a Private LOCKSS Network (PLN).

Fields:

  • Size: the maximum size allowed for this space. Set to 0 or leave blank for unlimited. This field is optional.
  • Path: the absolute path to the Space on the local filesystem.
  • Staging path: the absolute path to a staging area. Must be UNIX filesystem compatible and preferably will be located on the same filesystem as the path.
  • Service document IRI: the URL of the LOCKSS-o-matic service document IRI, e.g. http://lockssomatic.example.org/api/sword/2.0/sd-iri.
  • Content Provider ID: the On-Behalf-Of value when communicating with LOCKSS-o-matic.
  • Externally available domain: the base URL for this server that LOCKSS will be able to access. Generally this is the URL for the home page of the Storage Service.
  • Keep local copy?: check this box if you wish to store a local copy of the AIPs even after they are stored in LOCKSS.

Note

When creating a Location for a LOCKSS space (see below), the Purpose of the Location must be AIP Storage.

NFS

NFS spaces are for NFS exports mounted on the Storage Service server and the Archivematica pipeline.

Fields:

  • Size: the maximum size allowed for this space. Set to 0 or leave blank for unlimited. This field is optional.
  • Path: the absolute path to where the space is mounted on the filesystem local to the Storage Service.
  • Staging path: the absolute path to a staging area. Must be UNIX filesystem compatible and preferably will be located on the same filesystem as the path.
  • Remote name: the hostname or IP address of the remote computer exporting the NFS mount.
  • Remote path: the export path on the NFS server
  • Version: the version of the filesystem, e.g. nfs or nfs4,as would be passed to the mount command.
  • Manually mounted: This is a placeholder for a feature that is not yet available.

Pipeline Local Filesystem

Pipeline Local Filesystems refer to the storage that is local to the Archivematica pipeline, but remote to the Storage Service. For this Space to work properly, passwordless SSH must be set up between the Storage Service host and the Archivematica host.

For example, the Storage Service is hosted on storage_service_host and Archivematica is running on archivematica1 . The transfer sources for Archivematica are stored locally on archivematica1, but the Storage Service needs access to them. The Space for that transfer source would be a Pipeline Local Filesystem.

Note

Passwordless SSH must be set up between the Storage Service host and the computer Archivematica is running on.

Fields:

  • Size: the maximum size allowed for this space. Set to 0 or leave blank for unlimited. This field is optional.
  • Path: the absolute path to where the space is mounted on the filesystem local to the Storage Service.
  • Staging path: the absolute path to a staging area. Must be UNIX filesystem compatible and preferably will be located on the same filesystem as the path.
  • Remote user: the username on the remote host.
  • Remote name: the hostname or IP address of the computer running Archivematica. This should be SSH accessible from the Storage Service computer.
  • Assume remote host serving files with rsync daemon: if checked, the Storage Service will use rsync daemon-style commands instead of the default rsync with remote shell.
  • Rsync password: the password for the rsync daemon

Swift

OpenStack’s Swift is available as an access protocol in Storage Service 0.7 and higher. At this time, locations within Swift have been tested as AIP Storage, DIP Storage and Transfer Backlog. Using Swift as Transfer Source is possible, but under-tested at this time.

Fields:

  • Size: the maximum size allowed for this space. Set to 0 or leave blank for unlimited. This field is optional.
  • Path: the absolute path to the Space on the local filesystem.
  • Staging path: the absolute path to a staging area. Must be UNIX filesystem compatible and preferably will be located on the same filesystem as the path.
  • Auth URL: the URL to authenticate against.
  • Auth version: the OpenStack authentication version.
  • Username: the Swift username that will be used for authentication.
  • Password: the password for the above username.
  • Container: the name of the Swift container. To list available containers in your Swift installation, run swift list from the command line.
  • Tenant: the tenant/account name, required when connecting to an auth 2.0 system.
  • Region: the region in Swift. This field is optional.

S3 (Amazon)

Amazon S3 is available as an access protocol as of Storage Service 0.12. At this time, locations within S3 have only been tested for AIP Storage.

Fields:

  • Size: the maximum size allowed for this space. Set to 0 or leave blank for unlimited. This field is optional.
  • Path: the absolute path to the Space on the local filesystem.
  • Staging path: the absolute path to a staging area. Must be UNIX filesystem compatible and preferably will be located on the same filesystem as the path.
  • S3 Endpoint URL: the URL of the S3 endpoint, e.g. https://s3.amazonaws.com.
  • Access Key ID to authenticate: the public key generated by S3.
  • Secret Access Key to authenticate with: the secret key generated by S3.
  • Region: the region that the S3 instance uses, e.g. us-east-2.

Locations

Storage Service locations screen.

A storage Location is contained within a Space, and knows its purpose in the Archivematica system. Each Location is associated with at least one pipeline; with the exception of Backlog and Currently Processing locations, for which there must be exactly one per pipeline, a pipeline can have multiple instances of any location, and a location can be associated with any number of pipelines. Currently, a Location can have one of eight purposes: Transfer Source, Transfer Backlog, AIP Storage, DIP Storage, Currently Processing, Storage Service Internal Processing, AIP Recovery or FEDORA Deposit.

Transfer source locations display in Archivematica’s Transfer tab, and any folder in a transfer source can be selected to become a Transfer. The default value is /home in a Local Filesystem. This is required to start transfers.

Transfer backlog stores transfers until such a time that the user continues processing them. The default value is /var/archivematica/sharedDirectory/www/AIPsStore/transferBacklog in a Local Filesystem. This is required to store and retrieve transfers in backlog.

AIP storage locations are where the completed AIPs are put for long-term storage. The default value is ‘/var/archivematica/sharedDirectory/www/AIPsStore’ in a Local Filesystem. This is required to store and retrieve AIPs.

Likewise, DIP storage is used for storing DIPs until such a time that they can be uploaded to an access system. The default value is /var/archivematica/sharedDirectory/www/DIPsStore in a Local Filesystem. This is required to store and retrieve DIPs. This is not required to upload DIPs to access systems.

During processing, Archivematica uses the currently processing location associated with that pipeline. Exactly one currently processing location should be associated with a given pipeline. The default value is /var/archivematica/sharedDirectory in a Local Filesystem. This is required for Archivematica to run.

Likewise, there should only be exactly one Storage Service Internal Processing location for each Storage Service installation. The default value is /var/archivematica/storage_service in a Local Filesystem. This is required for the Storage Service to run, and must be locally available to the Storage Service. It should not be associated with any pipelines.

AIP Recovery is where the AIP recovery feature looks for an AIP to recover. No more than one AIP recovery locatio should be associated with a given pipeline. The default value is /var/archivematica/storage_service/recover in a Local Filesystem. This is only required if AIP recovery is used.

FEDORA Deposit is used with the Archidora plugin to ingest material from Islandora. This is only available to the FEDORA Space, and is only required for that space.

Replicator locations can be configured to replicate the AIPs in one or more AIP storage locations. If you wish for the replicated AIPs to be encrypted, create the location in an encrypted space.

If you want the same directory on disk to have multiple purposes, multiple Locations with different purposes can be created.

Fields:

  • Purpose: the function that this location will fulfill, e.g. AIP storage.
  • Pipelines: the Archivematica instance(s) that will be able to use this location.
  • Relative Path: the path to this location, relative to the space that contains it.
  • Description: a description of the location to be displayed to the user.
  • Quota: the maximum size allowed for this space. Set to 0 or leave blank for unlimited. This field is optional.
  • Enabled: if checked, this location will be accessible to pipelines associated with it. If unchecked, it will not be available to any pipeline.
  • Set as global default location for its purpose: if checked, this location will be the default location for its purpose unless the user specifically tells Archivematica otherwise during processing.

How to Configure a Location

For Spaces of the type “Local Filesystem,” Locations are basically directories (or more accurately, paths to directories). You can create Locations for Transfer Source, Currently Processing, or AIP and DIP Storage.

To create and configure a new Location:

  1. In the Storage Service, click on the “Spaces” tab.
  2. Under the Space that you want to add the Location to, click on the “Create Location here” link.
  3. Choose a purpose (e.g. AIP Storage) and pipeline, and enter a “Relative Path” (e.g. var/mylocation) and human-readable description. The Relative Path is relative to the Path defined in the Space you are adding the Location to. For example, for the default Space, the Path is / so your Location path would be relative to that (in the example here, the complete path would end up being /var/mylocation).

Note

If the path you are defining in your Location doesn’t exist, you must create it manually and make sure it is writable by the Archivematica user.

  1. If desired, for an AIP storage location choose the replicator location(s).
  2. Save the Location settings.
  3. The new Location will now be available as an option under the appropriate options in the Dashboard, for example as a Transfer location (which must be enabled under the Dashboard “Administration” tab) or as a destination for AIP storage.

Packages

Storage Service packages screen.

A Package is a file that Archivematica has stored in the Storage Service, commonly an Archival Information Package (AIP). Dissemination Information Packages (DIPs) which have been stored and Transfers which have been sent to backlog will also be reflected in the Packages tab.

AIPs cannot be created or deleted through the Storage Service interface, though a deletion request can be submitted through Archivematica that must be approved or rejected by the Storage Service administrator. To learn more about deleting an AIP, see Deleting an AIP. Stored DIPs cannot be deleted through either the Storage Service or Archivematica interfaces. Deletion requests for transfers are automatically generated when all of the objects from the transfer have successfully been stored in AIPs.

For more information about Fixity Status, see Fixity.

Administration

The Administration section manages the users and settings for the Storage Service.

Storage Service Administration screen.

Users

Only registered users can long into the Storage Service, and the Users page is where users can be created or modified.

The Storage Service has two types of users: administrative users, and regular users. The only distinction between the two types is for email notifications; administrators will be notified by email when special events occur, while regular users will not.

Settings

Settings control the behavior of the Storage Service. Default Locations are the created or associated with pipelines when they are created.

Pipelines are disabled upon creation? sets whether a newly created Pipeline can access its Locations. If a Pipeline is disabled, it cannot access any of its locations. By disabling newly created Pipelines, it provides some security against unwanted perusal of the files in Locations, or use by unauthorized Archivematica instances. This can be configured individually when creating a Pipeline manually through the Storage Service website.

Default Locations sets which existing locations should be associated with a newly created Pipeline, or which new Locations should be created for each new Pipeline. No matter what is configured here, a Currently Processing location is created for all Pipelines, since one is required. Multiple Transfer Source or AIP Storage Locations can be configured by holding down Ctrl when selecting them. New Locations in an existing Space can be created for Pipelines that use default locations by entering the relevant information.

Version

The version page will display the current version and specific git commit of your installation of the Storage Service.

Service Callbacks

Callbacks allow REST calls to be made by the Archivematica Storage Service after performing certain types of actions. This allows external services to be notified when internal actions have taken place.

A callback can be configured for the Islandora (Fedora) integration, as follows:

  • URI: http://{islandora-base-url}/islandora/object/<source_id>/archidora/{Islandora API key}/delete (the Islandora API key is generated on the Archidora admin screen in Islandora)
  • Event: post-store
  • Method: post
  • Expected status: 200

Encryption Keys

GPG encryption keys can be created or imported to be used in spaces to store encrypted AIPs, transfers or replicated AIPs/transfers. Keys can either be created by the Storage Service or imported.

To create a new key:

  1. Click on Create New Key
  2. Enter the name and email address you want associated with the key.

To import a key:

  1. Click on Import Existing Key
  2. Paste in your key in ASCII-armored format.

Set Language

Configure language settings for the Storage Service in this area of the Administration tab. Strings are available for translation on the localization platform (Transifex).

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Archivematica Storage Service 0.12.0

License

Archivematica documentation by Artefactual Systems Inc. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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