Issue with BALSA Aspera

[Z S]

Dear experts,

I am writing to seek your advice regarding an issue we are encountering when downloading HCP data via the BALSA platform.

According to BALSA’s requirements, downloading data requires IBM Aspera Connect to be installed. I have installed IBM Aspera Connect on our Linux computer; however, our system is running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.1, which relies on OpenSSL 3.

IBM Aspera Connect appears to require OpenSSL libraries (e.g., libssl.so.1.1, likely provided by OpenSSL 1.x). Due to this dependency mismatch, the IBM Aspera Connect GUI cannot be launched on RHEL 10.1. While the application fails to start the full interface, the download process itself can still be triggered from the BALSA website, and the download progress can be monitored via the Aspera monitoring window. In other words, Aspera monitoring window is working.

Now the data can be successfully downloaded, but it is written to the default download directory, which resides on a drive with limited storage capacity. In order to store the data on our large-capacity drive, I need to modify the default download path. Unfortunately, this requires launching the IBM Aspera Connect interface, which is not possible on our RHEL 10.1 system due to the compatibility issue described above.

I was just wondering whether
(1) there is a way to change the default download directory in Aspera?
(2) there is an alternative, supported download mechanisms for HCP data on modern RHEL server systems (e.g., Globus)?

Thank you very much for your time.

Best,

Zack

[Elam, Jennifer]

Hi Zack,

The only way I know to change the download directory for Aspera on the client site is through the GUI:  IBM Aspera Connect>Preferences>Transfers

 

We are exploring alternatives to Aspera for transfers to be implemented in the new year.

 

Best,

Jenn

 

________________________________________

Jennifer Elam, Ph.D.
Scientific Outreach, Human Connectome Project
Washington University School of Medicine
el...@wustl.edu
www.humanconnectome.org

 

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[Glasser, Matthew]

That is probably stored in a config file somewhere.  I would poke around to see if that exists somewhere.

Matt.

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[Z S]

Hi Jenn,

Thanks for your suggestions. Yes, I agree. As I mentioned in the previous conversion, REHL 10 might not be able to open the GUI because of the compatibility with OpenSSL 1.x, which is required by Aspera GUI. I guess I have to wait for the alternative approach to transfer. Or contact Aspera Connect to fix this compatibility issue and release a new version. 

RHEL 10 has removed the compat-openssl11 library because OpenSSL 1.1 has reached its end-of-life upstream, and applications are expected to migrate to OpenSSL 3.x, which is the default in RHEL 10. Thanks again for your feedback. I really appreciate it.

Best,

Zack

[Z S]

Hi Matt,

That's a good point! I am using the latest version of Aspera (4.2.18.918), which might use a new infrastructure. So, I checked config and json files in the Aspera, but did not find any hints. Any suggestions would be really appreciated.

Thanks,

Zack

[Tim Coalson]

If all else fails, you could rename the existing download folder and make a symlink to somewhere else.

Tim

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[Z S]

Hi Matt,

That's a great idea. I tried to set up a symbolic link through typing "ln -s <source folder> <target folder>". Now, it working. Thank you so much for your help. 

Best,

Zack

On Monday, December 15, 2025 at 2:42:21 PM UTC-5 glas...@wustl.edu wrote: