Reassign user data ownership

If a user leaves an organization and stops using their Arvados account, it may be desirable to reassign the data owned by that user to another user to maintain easy access.

This is currently a command line based, admin-only feature.

Step 1: Determine user uuids

User uuids can be determined by browsing workbench or using arv user list at the command line.

The “old user” is the user that is leaving the organization.

The “new user” is the user that will gain ownership of the old user’s data. This includes collections, projects, container requests, workflows, and git repositories owned by the old user. It also transfers any permissions granted to the old user, to the new user.

In the example below, x1u39-tpzed-3kz0nwtjehhl0u4 is the old user and x1u39-tpzed-fr97h9t4m5jffxs is the new user.

Step 2: Create a project

Create a project owned by the new user that will hold the data from the old user.

$ arv --format=uuid group create --group '{"group_class": "project", "name": "Data from old user", "owner_uuid": "x1u39-tpzed-fr97h9t4m5jffxs"}'
x1u39-j7d0g-mczqiguhil13083

Step 3: Reassign data from the old user to the new user and project

The user merge method reassigns data from the old user to the new user.

$ arv user merge --old-user-uuid=x1u39-tpzed-3kz0nwtjehhl0u4 \
  --new-user-uuid=x1u39-tpzed-fr97h9t4m5jffxs \
  --new-owner-uuid=x1u39-j7d0g-mczqiguhil13083

After reassigning data, use unsetup to deactivate the old user’s account.

$ arv user unsetup --uuid=x1u39-tpzed-3kz0nwtjehhl0u4

Note that authorization credentials (API tokens, ssh keys) are not transferred to the new user, as this would potentially give the old user access to the new user’s account.

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