UCT hosts several network drives – such as an individual F: drive (personal storage space for each student) and the G: drive (which contains storage space for each department).
NOTE:
For shared areas – such as the folders on your department’s G: drive – you’ll need access to the department’s common drive.
How to access the drives
Connect to the UCT file services cluster
Before you begin, ensure that you have the following:
- a Linux or Unix box capable of running smbclient, or with the cifs-utils package installed
- a network connection
- a valid UCT username and password
- the file path of the server you want to connect to – for example: //srvnvscfs000//datstf000
NOTE:
You can get the file path of your server from your IT Liaison or the IT Helpdesk.
You can connect to the file server using one of three methods:
- Command line for smbclient (Root access required)
- Command line to mount using cifs (Root access required)
- Command line to auto-mount using cifs (Suitable for shared machine)
Method 1: Command line for smbclient (Root access required)
- To access the your F: drive (applicable to UCT students only) from a shell, run the following command:
smbclient //srvnvscfs00#/datstf00# -U "user"
(Where # is the last digit of your staff number and "user" is your username, without the quotation marks or the network context.)
- To access your G: drive from a shell, run the following command:
smbclient //srvnvsshr20#/datshr20# -U "user"
(Where # is the share code of your faculty and "user" is your username, without the quotation marks or the network context).
- To access the drives, use smbclient:
- Type help for a list of commands.
- Use cd to navigate.
- Use dir to list files and folders.
- Use [m]put or [m]get to upload and download files.
- To shut down the session, type exit.
Method 2: Command line to mount using cifs (Root access required)
- To access your F: drive (applicable to UCT students only) from a shell, run the following command:
mount -t cifs -o user= "user" //srvnvscfs00#/datstf00# /tmp/"shr"
(Where # is the last digit of your staff number, "user" is your username – without the quotation marks or the network context, and "shr" is an arbitrary name of your choosing.)
- To access your G: drive from a shell, run the following command:
mount -t cifs -o user="user" //srvnvsshr20#/datshr20# /tmp/"shr"
(Where # is the share code of your faculty, "user" is your username – without the quotation marks or the network context, and "shr" is an arbitrary name of your choosing.)
- To access the drives, from the shell, browse to the mount point.
- To unmount the mount point, type umount /mnt/F.
(You can replace "F" with any other drive location you want to unmount.)
Method 3: Command line to auto-mount using cifs (Suitable for shared machine)
- On the shared machine, as administrator, add the following line(s) to the /etc/fstab file:
//srvnvscfs00#/datstf00# /mnt/F cifs credentials=/home/user/.novell,file_mode=0640,dir_mode=0755,user,noauto 0 0
(Where "user" is your local username – without the quotation marks or the network context, and "shr" is an arbitrary name of your choosing.)
- Create a credentials file: /home/user/.novell with these contents:
username=your UCT username
password=your UCT password
- Create a mount point by running the following command:
mkdir /mnt/F
(You can replace "F" with any other drive location of your choice.)
- Mount the share point by typing:
mount /mnt/F
- To access the drives, from the shell, browse to the mount point.
- To unmount the mount point, type umount /mnt/F.
(You can replace "F" with any other drive location you want to unmount.)