A workspace is a directory, with an associated expiration date, created on behalf of a user, to prevent disks from uncontrolled filling. The project provides user and admin tools to manage those directories.

Example for usage:

In a batch job, you write

SCR=$(ws_allocate MyData 10)
cd $SCR

This will set you into a temporary directory that will last 10 days.

You can check which workspaces you have using

$ ws_list 
id: MyData
     workspace directory  : /tmp/username-MyData
     remaining time       : 9 days 23 hours
     creation time        : Wed Mar 13 23:51:57 2013
     expiration date      : Sat Mar 23 23:51:57 2013
     available extensions : 15

and you remove the directory if you do not need it anymore with

$ ws_release MyData

For the administrator, the workspace is a way to make sure users do not store their data forever on your fast storage, but have to stage it to slower and cheaper storage.

For admin guide see https://github.com/holgerBerger/hpc-workspace/blob/master/admin-guide.md

For user guide see https://github.com/holgerBerger/hpc-workspace/blob/master/user-guide.md