Integrating Box with HCC

Warning

NU no longer has an active arrangement with Box.com and has migrated to Microsoft 365 services. Please visit our page on using rclone for file transfer or using OneDrive with Globus (UNL only) for instructions on how to access your NU Microsoft 365 storage from HCC resources.

The instructions below remain as a reference for use with personal or other institutional Box accounts.

Step-by-step guide for Lftp¶

Login to your institution or personal Box account.
Since we are going to be using ftps protocol to access your Box.com storage, you need to create an External Password. In the Box.com interface, you can create it at Account Settings > Account > Authentication > Create Password.
After logging into the cluster of your choice, load the lftp module by entering the command below at the prompt:
Load the lftp module
```
module load lftp
```
Connect to Box using your full email as the username and external password you created:
Connect to Box
```
lftp -u <username> ftps://ftp.box.com
Password: <password>
```
Info

Be sure to use your fully qualified username; that is, include the domain. For example, hhusker2@example.edu.
Test the connection by running the ls command. You should see a listing of your Box files. Assuming it works, add a bookmark named "box" to use when connecting later. Optionally run set bmk:save-passwords yes first if you want lftp to remember the password:
Add lftp bookmark
```
lftp demo2@example.edu@ftp.box.com:/> set bmk:save-passwords yes
lftp demo2@example.edu@ftp.box.com:/> bookmark add box
```
Exit lftp by typing quit. To reconnect later, use bookmark name:
Connect using bookmark name
```
lftp box
```

To upload or download files, use get and put commands. For example:

Transferring files

[demo2@login.swan ~]$ lftp box
lftp demo2@example.edu@ftp.box.com:/> put myfile.txt
lftp demo2@example.edu@ftp.box.com:/> get my_other_file.txt

To download directories, use the mirror command. To upload directories, use the mirror command with the -R option. For example, to download a directory named my_box-dir to your current directory:
Download a directory from Box
```
[demo2@login.swan ~]$ lftp box
lftp demo2@example.edu@ftp.box.com:/> mirror my_box_dir
```
To upload a directory named my_hcc_dir to Box, use mirror with the -R option:
Upload a directory to Box
```
[demo2@login.swan ~]$ lftp box
lftp demo2@example.edu@ftp.box.com:/> mirror -R my_hcc_dir
```
Lftp also supports using scripts to transfer files. This can be used to automatically download or upload files during jobs. For example, create a file called "transfer.sh" with the following lines:
transfer.sh
```
open box
get some_input_file.tar.gz
put my_output_file.tar.gz
```
To run this script, do:
Run transfer.sh
```
module load lftp
lftp -f transfer.sh
```