MPCDF SelfService - Help

MPCDF users invite guests to let them gain access to specific services provided by the MPCDF in order to let them participate in projects or share files. Guests use the credentials they chose when registering on this platform to log in to those backend services. Access to the services may be granted or revoked on a per-service basis at any point.

Once you received an invitation from an MPCDF user you have 7 days to go to the provided link and register as a guest user. After 7 days the link expires and your data is deleted from the database. The link also expires after a successful registration. If you have lost your invitation mail please ask your inviter to resend it.

On the registration page you have the chance to correct any spelling mistakes in your name. You are provided with a preliminary username that you can change to your liking. Note that any username you choose will always start with 'g-'. For the username you may use any latin character and arabic numbers, for your full name a range of European characters and dashes are allowed.

You will need to set a password for your account. Please consult our password policy for password requirements and make sure you use a password that can't be guessed easily. Also note that reusing existing passwords is not allowed since this makes your account very vulnerable to password reuse attacks.

After you have accepted the Terms of Use you can activate your account. Please note it can take up to 20 minutes for your account to be synchronized to the backend services. After this period you will be able to log in to the services you were invited to use.

In case guests forget their password they can request a password reset email here. Alternatively, the inviter can send this email via the guest edit page.

Please see our 2FA FAQ

Users

I have changed my password recently

Your password is likely locked temporarily. See this FAQ for more information.

I haven't changed my password recently

Your password or account may have expired. Please request a password reset (account restoration) here.

Guests

Holders of g-accounts can't log in to the SelfService platform. You can log in to the backend services directly. If you have questions about your account please contact support.

The new password needs to meet our security requirements. This is indicated by the red X symbols next to the input field for the new password. The password change will only work if all symbols have turned into green or yellow checkmarks.

Browser compatibility

For this page to work properly you must use a reasonably modern browser:

• Firefox >= 55
• Chrome >= 58
• Edge >= 16
• Safari >= 12.1
• Opera >= 45

All compatible browser versions were released in 2017 or later.

The red Xs don't change into checkmarks

The red Xs should start changing into checkmarks as soon as you start typing the new password. If they don't then your browser doesn't execute the JavaScript code properly.

• Make sure JavaScript is enabled in your browser
• Make sure no plugins or your browser are blocking any page content
• Try a different browser
• Try a different device

Make sure you are providing the current password for the account that you have selected in the dropdown above. If you are trying to change the password of a secondary/functional account then this is not the same password you used to log in to the SelfService.

You can reveal the password you typed and check for typos by clicking on the eye icon on the right-hand side of the input field.

If there are too many failed login attempts your password gets locked temporarily. This sometimes happens after a password change and is often caused by client software that still has the old password saved. When your password is locked you won't be able to authenticate or change your password.

Please check all your programs, apps, and devices and delete the old password everywhere. Such software could be:

• Email clients like Thunderbird and Outlook
• The email app on your phone
• SFTP/SCP file transfer clients
• Automated scripts
• Calendar apps that sync with DataShare

Note that programs like Thunderbird have an internal password store and you might have to delete the password from there. Please see the documentation for the according program on how to do this.

After all old passwords are removed you'll need to wait 5 minutes for the password to become unlocked again.

Only for IPP users with Windows access

Log out of any Windows PCs and log back in using the new password. Windows logins are locked for an hour. You can contact your local helpdesk to have the password unlocked manually after ensuring that the old password is deleted everywhere and you have logged out of and back into any Windows PCs:

• IPP Garching: it-support@ipp.mpg.de
• IPP Greifswald: w7x-servicedesk@ipp.mpg.de

Your Kerberos and Windows passwords are now out of sync. Please request a password reset here to have them re-synced.

Please request a password reset here. If you have 2FA enabled for your account you will be asked to provide a valid OTP. You can choose to omit the OTP by clicking on "Token unavailable" but this will make the reset process longer since the request needs to be verified.

Users

Please request a password reset here.

Guests

Please ask your inviter to extend your account.

Users

Please check if you are actually subscribed to the service you can't access by logging in to the SelfService and navigating to "My Account > Services". You can grant yourself access to the services there. Note that it can take up to 20 minutes for the changes to become effective. If you also can't log in to this platform or any other MPCDF service then your password or account may have expired. If you find that you are already subscribed to the service you are trying to log in to please contact support.

Guests

Your account may have expired or have been deactivated by your inviter. Your inviter can also withdraw access on a per-service basis so you might still have access to other services. Please check with your inviter whether your account has the necessary access rights. Note that it can take up to 20 minutes for the access rights to get updated after a change. It is also possible that your inviter's user account has been deactivated. In this case you will need to find an MPCDF user that is willing to "adopt" your orphaned account.

Please contact support to have your guest account transferred to a different "inviter"

You can have another regular MPCDF user invite you as a guest with a private email address. However, note that it is not possible to create a guest account with an email address that used to be associated with your regular user account. You will also not be able to access any data associated with your regular user account from your guest account.

It is not possible to grant access to resources that belong to a locked user. Therefore, to ensure that a person always has access to certain resources even if the person's regular account is locked please create a dedicated guest account with the appropriate access rights. Please note that transferring resources between the two accounts or accessing one from the other is not possible due to security considerations. Please do not ask support for exceptions as requests will not be considered.

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