Public access methods

[robobenklein]

For both public and semi-public (invite / request) we need some method to manage access.

Right now I can think of three main ideas:

• Proxy the Arango HTTP interface and give out readonly arango access accounts
  • Does the API work normally behind an authenticated proxy?
  • Does the reverse proxy need to support websockets for the UI?
  • Nginx with LE will work standalone if 443 on the server is accessible through NAT
• Give people access to the server as linux accounts
  • This allows them to use the scratch space as well which is probably desired for any researcher working on a slower internet connection
  • Can't just give accounts out to anyone who asks, need to have at least some association or reputation, so probably will only be available to @edu email requests.
  • Liability for compromised accounts is annoying, so probably need some inactive account expiry after a year or 6 months
• Implement a web UI specific to WST
  • Clearly the most difficult and likely to take a long time to implement, but could allow for true "public" access where anyone can submit a validated query and get a response
  • Would allow for visual inspection of results in a WST appropriate format which would help understanding as well as exploration

[argvrutter]

I imagine the ideal outcome as a http api, which other researchers could access via access tokens. But making it available via linux accts. would also work

[AZHenley]

Path of least resistance, I think. So maybe we stick to Linux accounts for now.

[robobenklein]

https://github.com/utk-se/WorldSyntaxTree/wiki/Getting-Access-to-our-Datasets