How to Share an Object Publicly

Owned by Ryan Nakashima, created
Last updated: Oct 04, 2021 by Victoria Nguyen
2 min read

 

Overview

The SDSC Cloud Dashboard can be used to enable internet sharing of objects stored in SDSC Cloud Storage. Finding the URLs of the shared objects cannot intuitively be done with just the SDSC Cloud Dashboard. This guide explains two methods of sharing the URLs - one that uses only the SDSC Cloud Dashboard and one that uses a combination of the SDSC Cloud Dashboard and the third-party browser program, Cyberduck.

These steps make all objects in a storage container readable to the world. Do not follow these steps if any confidential information is in the container.

SDSC Cloud Dashboard Steps

  1. Log into the SDSC Cloud Dashboard at https://dashboard.cloud.sdsc.edu with your SDSC Cloud credentials. Email support@sdsc.edu for login problems.

  2. Under the “Object Store” menu, navigate to the container that has the data you want to share.

  3. Click the “Public Access” checkmark. A link should appear next to it.

  4. Click the link and copy the URL (or copy the link from the page). Don’t worry that the link will show an error if you try to navigate to its page. The URL will be in the format
    https://object.cloud.sdsc.edu/v1_AUTH_characters/containername

  5. Use the copied URL and append the name of the object you want to share to form the full URL. The format is:

    https://object.cloud.sdsc.edu/v1_AUTH_characters/containername/objectname

    Example full URL where the container name is slartibartfast and the object name is fjords.png:
    https://object.cloud.sdsc.edu/v1_AUTH_kjh34jk3h45kjh253jklkf/slartibartfast/fjords.png

  6. Share the full URL with whomever needs to download the file.

SDSC Cloud Dashboard + Cyberduck Steps

An alternate way to get the URL is to follow the “Sharing Public Data Using Cyberduck” steps on the Cyberduck | Sharing Public Data using Cyberduck guide.

 

Tips

Sharing via message: if the filename has a file type extension (e.g. .txt, .pdf) that a web browser understands how to load, then the file can be loaded by the web browser for immediate viewing instead of downloading. Download steps depends on the file type.
For instance, most web browsers support right-clicking images and saving the image locally. PDFs will be loaded for viewing using the browser’s PDF viewer. Some types of files may be saved by default instead of loaded automatically.

Sharing via website: users may be told to right-click the URL on the site and choose “Save link as” to download the file locally instead of having the web browser try to load the file.