Granite utilizes proprietary VPN software known as tiCrypt to provide a common computer platform (Windows or Linux) upon which researchers across Dartmouth Health and Dartmouth College can collaborate to view, analyze, and store sensitive data for active research projects.
Obtaining a Virtual Machine
- When setting up the protocol through the DH IRB, the data storage statement should mention using Granite if identified data needs to be shared with non-DH analysts/researchers
- Additionally, if your project mentions sharing protected data across institutions, your project will be flagged by the IRB as a candidate for using Granite and it will be recommended to you as the preferred storage environment
- Your project will be assigned a Virtual Machine on which you and your colleagues can collaborate.
Setting up your computer
You must be connected to the dartmouth.edu or hitchcock.org networks, you must be connected through one of the following ways:
- Physically on campus and connected to one of the secure networks
- On VPN connected to one of these networks from an outside location.
Note: Citrix (DHApps) will not allow you to connect to Granite.
To check whether you are connected to either of these networks, visit https://granite.dartmouth.edu
If you can access this site, you are connected to a network.
Installing the software
- Install the software that was just downloaded
- If you are working on a Mac, make sure that you have the Microsoft Remote Desktop application which can be downloaded from the macOS App Store.
Creating your account
- Click on the tiCrypt Connect application you installed
- Granite will launch within a browser window.
- Click on Add new deployment
- In the Deployment URL field, enter the following
- https://granite.dartmouth.edu/dart/Granite-Dartmouth.dep
- Click on Import and then Import again
- Click the play button on the new `Granite` deployment
- Click the Register button
- On the Generate a keypair step, click Continue
- On the Login to Granite screen, select Dartmouth College or Dartmouth Health depending on which institution you are working with.
- On the 2: Registration step, provide a password for the PrivateKey that will be generated, then click Register
- Very Important! A .json file will automatically be downloaded, store this in a secure location (ex. Lastpass, ...) and have a second copy (GoogleDrive, ...). Also, store the private key password in a secure location (ex. Lastpass)
- Granite administration CANNOT recover this password or file.
- If you lose either, then we will have to create a new account from scratch. You won’t lose the VM or data on it, but, as you can see, it’s quite a process to create a new account.
- Now that you have created a Granite account, you will need to contact a Granite administrator to associate your user with the research project in Granite. You can work with the Office of Research Informatics at Dartmouth Health or Research Computing at Dartmouth College to complete this step.