Dear Grex/HPC User,

As you might have heard, the University is switching from Duo to Microsoft Entra MFA solution.

The Digital Research Alliance of Canada, and our UManitoba HPC system, Grex, continue Cisco Duo as the multifactor authentication (MFA) second factor.

As of today (January 9, 2024) enrollment in Duo is required to access Grex, and optional but highly recommended to access the Alliance systems such as Cedar, Graham, and Narval.

On Grex and Alliance systems, the following second factors are enabled:

Duo smartphone app (Android and iOS)
Yubico Yubikey cybersecurity USB key device
10 one-time codes (recommended as a backup 2FA in addition to the primary device). The one-time codes require another 2nd factor registered first.

Enrollment into the Alliance Duo is through CCDB: https://ccdb.alliancecan.ca. A successful Enrollment enables the MFA requirement on every SSH login on both Grex and Alliance systems like Cedar, Graham, Narval, or Niagara. The following Grex Documentation page explains the process of the device enrollment with screenshots: https://um-grex.github.io/grex-docs/connecting/mfa/

Our staff will be available for support in case you have difficulty enrolling or using MFA. If you have any questions, please let us know (by an email to support@tech.alliancecan.ca, mentioning “Grex” in the subject line). Thank you for your attention to this message!

Your Grex HPC team.