Welcome to the [PLN]! We look forward to your participation in this engaged and vibrant community!

This toolkit will provide you with an introduction to the core resources that are made available to our member institutions. It will also provide some brief guidelines for setting up your cache storage server for participation in the network. There are a number of tools, resources and information available to you as you begin to engage in preservation activities as part of our distributed digital preservation network.

In order to enable your access to the tools, resources and information covered in this New Member Welcome Toolkit, please provide us with a list of the names, roles, emails and phone numbers of all staff (technical and non-­technical) playing an active role in [PLN]’s preservation activities, to add to our listservs and other communication channels (see Communications and Member Responsibilities below for more info). If staff use different email accounts to access Google Drive, please provide those alternate email addresses.

[PLN]’s main forms of communication are monthly community calls, the main listserv, and listservs for committees. We also make available a broad range of documentation on our [however documentation is kept].

We host monthly community calls for all member institutions on [day and time]. These calls are an important part of the [PLN]’s work, and an excellent opportunity for members to engage in discussion on a variety of topics. Members join us on these calls every month, typically with multiple staff representatives (e.g. Voting Representative and Technical Lead).

When members identify problems that require the attention of the central staff, they should send messages to [tech support email] providing details. [PLN] central staff will prioritize and coordinate to resolve the issue in a timely manner.

We host four email lists to facilitate communication between member institutions. The Main Members list (to which all members belong) is used for myriad purposes, including disseminating the monthly community call agendas, sharing information about preservation activities, and keeping each other abreast of upcoming events and news. It is a reasonably active list, and nearly all of its posts are of interest/relevance to the whole [PLN] community. The Development list is used by our technical staff members to discuss issues as they arise, to plan new development directions, and to answer technical queries about the network. Additional committees have specific lists that are used to coordinate the work of those respective committees.

We will add you and your institutional representatives to the [PLN] lists as you initially join. To facilitate this process, please send us the names and email contacts of:

1. Institution staff members and email addresses for those who will be participating in the work of the [PLN] overall
2. Institutions staff members and email addresses for those who will be participating in the technical administration of the [PLN]’s preservation activities

[Documentation Repository] is one of our most important communications tools. It contains documentation, working documents, technical presentations, and contact information. Further details about the [Documentation Repository] can be found directly below.

As a member of the [PLN], you have access to a growing suite of tools and resources that are intended to help you manage both your collections and your cache. All of these tools and resources are accessible via the links below:

• [Technical resource list]

We will cover each of these tools in more detail below.

The [Documentation Repository] contains such resources as technical documentation, technical presentations, and contact information. Please take some time to explore the [Documentation Repository] and its contents. Note that the [Documentation Repository] is currently under active development by the [PLN] Documentation Committee.

[PLN] stores meeting minutes, committee working documents, project materials, presentations, and other documents in a set of folders on Google Drive. These materials are openly available to all current members.

[github plugin repo]

[PLN] uses a git repository hosted on Github to maintain the plugins developed within the group. Additional tools and scripts useful to plugin developers, and to web server and cache administrators, are maintained in further git repositories on the [PLN] account. Read access is open to everybody on the web; that is, anyone can review the contents of our repositories. Plugin developers must fork the main repository and then issue a pull request in order to contribute their code back into the plugin repository.

As a general rule, collections that are ingested into the network must be made available in a web-accessible location. Collections consist of smaller clusters of content that we label “Archival Units,” or AUs. It is recommended that AUs contain less than 30GB of content, but we are happy to work with members to determine how to best organize and package your content for ingest. Creating AUs within the recommended size limits will require some analysis of your collection, your website, and/or your web server structure before developing your plugin.

Plugins guide the crawl and ingest behavior of [PLN]-­LOCKSS caches as they ingest content. Use of the generic BagIt plugin is recommended as the simplest pathway to ingest content into the network. For members seeking to implement custom plugins, local developers need to adhere to testing procedures before a plugin can be deployed to the production network so that content can be preserved.

For detailed documentation on how to prepare content for ingest, please consult the [ingest documentation].

Please make use of the New Cache Checklist provided with this New Member Welcome Toolkit.

When you initially set up your cache, you will be required to provide an IP and a domain name for the new cache. The [PLN] staff will then provide you with a Kickstart mechanism that allows us to install several new systems to the same configuration. Each system has the same software packages, file system and directory structures. The only differences are localizations related to the network settings (see below).

The [PLN] staff will add your IP address to the network’s list of IP addresses, and will make sure that your new cache has access to all of the necessary [PLN] configuration files. The [PLN] staff will then add your cache to our internal monitoring systems.

Each cache communicates across the network with other caches through port 9729 using messages encrypted with [PLN] SSL keys. Please make sure that local network settings do not prevent access to this port on your caches. This network connection is encrypted through SSL with [PLN] keys, thus it is not a security issue to leave the port open “to the world.”

The cache manager needs access to port 8081 to retrieve status information. You should open this port on your cache as well.

Port 8080 is used as a proxy port to access content on the caches as needed, and that should remain open as well.

Please make sure that local network settings do not prevent access to these ports.

For detailed documentation on configuring your cache, please consult the Network Administrators section of the [Documentation Repository].

System administrators maintaining servers that host content preserved in the [PLN] network are also expected to keep firewalls around preserved content open to the other [PLN] caches. For the list of relevant IP addresses and allow lists, please consult the Web Server Admin page on the [Documentation Repository].

Once content is prepared by other member institutions for ingest, the [PLN] central staff will notify you about the collections that have been assigned for ingest by your cache.

For detailed instructions for adding Archival Units to your cache, please consult the Add AUs section on the [Documentation Repository].

You can view the status of the AUs being preserved by the networked caches through the Conspectus. Not only does the Conspectus give you a glimpse into where your AUs are being preserved, but it also communicates the overall status of the network in terms of those AUs being successfully maintained.

Please plan to become an active participant in the [PLN]. You can help us help you by:

1. Providing feedback and/or contributing documentation on the [Documentation Repository]
2. Providing feedback on the software tools and resources provided by the [PLN]
3. Joining one of our standing committees

We are also very interested in knowing about any papers related to digital preservation that you have published, and/or presentations related to digital preservation that you have given (or are planning to give) at conferences.

Finally, please note that the [PLN] staff will help facilitate assigning username/password information for several of the resources covered within this document, including the Email Lists, [Documentation Repository], Conspectus, Plugin Repository, and the Cache IP List for Web Server Administrators. Please make sure to identify and pass along the names, roles, and contact info for all of your institutional staff that will be playing an active role in the [PLN]’s preservation activities. The [PLN] staff will arrange to contact individuals by phone when establishing sensitive passwords.

• The local system administrator needs an ID and password from the [PLN] Systems Administrator to access the network IP page (will exchange username/password via phone)
• The cache needs all identity credentials
  • Fixed, publicly addressable IP address.
  • Hostname and domain name
  • Entry in local site DNS servers
  • Settings are emailed to [PLN] System Administrator
• The local admin and a project member will need to agree on a user ID and password for operating the cache via the LOCKSS user interface, a.k.a. Web UI administration.
• The site needs firewall / security rules
  • Port 9729 Open
  • Port 22 Open
  • Port 8080 Open
  • Port 8081 Open to the central [PLN] admin servers
• The cache needs network information that is forwarded to the [PLN] Systems Administrator
  • Netmask
  • Gateway
  • DNS server
  • Mail server and email of local admin
• Prepare a CentOS DVD (Currently Version 6, 64-­‐Bit)
• Server room prepared for new server. (space, power, network, etc.)
• Verify You have Received SSL Keys from central staff.
• OPTIONAL -­ Additional network connection for IPMI (remote access)