Download Geo Sra Data Using Aspera Connect

Question

[dfernan]

I'd like to download the following SRA files:

ftp://ftp-trace.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra/sra-instant/reads/ByStudy/sra/SRP%2FSRP014%2FSRP014751

using aspera connect in our university linux cluster but when I try ascp'ing it asks me for a password, do you know if there is a guest password or I should write to the sra email [e-mail].

Also is there a way to recursively download all the files directly? I was ascp'ing them one by one, would the following command work?

ascp -QT -l640M [e-mail]:/sra/sra-instant/reads/ByStudy/sra/SRP/SRP014/SRP014751/ ./test/

I looked at the http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK47527/pdf/Aspera_Transfer_Gui.pdf but it did not explicity say anything about requiring a password.

Please let me know if anyone has some experience with using Aspera to download GEO data.

Thanks!

[Gangcai]

Hi, have you solved this problem. I have added asperaweb_id_dsa.putty, but still need Key passphrase. Where could I get this Key passphrase? Thanks.

Answer 1

[Ann]

Following up on my previous comment:

I recently installed Aspera Connect on my Mac using this site: http://downloads.asperasoft.com/connect2/

The newer version of ascp requires using asperaweb_id_dsa.openssh instead of asperaweb_id_dsa.putty. This change happened within the last year or so. Some of the older documentation may be out of date.

Also, like Jeremy said, ascp -i requires the absolute path.

Answer 2

[Jeremy Leipzig]

ascp definitely wants that -i "/full_path_to/asperaweb_id_dsa.putty" argument

[dfernan]

@Jeremy thanks.

[Ann]

I have a similar problem. I tried giving it the full path but ascp still asked for a passphrase.

[zhangz.cs]

The same thing happens to me. Changing from .putty to .openssh still requires me to enter a passphrase.

Answer 3

[baikalevi]

Thanks Ann: This is very helpful, it worked absolutely fine by adding full path for -i and changing putty to openssh.