The sector has a file server service. This provides networked storage accessible from the workstations.

Access from managed Linux workstations

To set up your access to the file server for the first time run

/usr/local/shared/bin/setup_fs_connection

Type your Admitto password prompted. Then edit your ~/.bashrc file to contain this command:

/usr/local/shared/bin/setup_fs_connection -q

This ensures that you get silently connected to the server every time you log in.

The fileserver appears under a directory called sharedhome in your home directory. You will already have your own directory in sharedhome/people/username. Your group may have a directory in sharedhome/groups.

Quotas and space usage

Everyone's usage of the file server is within an allocated quota. To see your quota issue this command from your workstation:

ssh theory-fs.ch.private.cam.ac.uk df -h | egrep 'ident|Size'

where ident is your Admitto/CRSId followed by a vertical bar character and the word Size.

To see how much disk space in total is used do

ssh theory-fs.ch.private.cam.ac.uk df -h /data/group/theory

Troubleshooting

Never run compute jobs from the file server directories as this will be slow and could cause the connection to lock up. Always run then out of local storage, e.g. /scratch.

If you copy very large amounts of data in one go then it's possible for the connection to the file server to hang. To fix this run

/usr/local/shared/bin/setup_fs_connection -u

to unwedge it. If that fails, you will need to track down and kill the 'sshfs' process, and then run the /usr/local/shared/bin/setup_fs_connection command again to reconnect.

For other problems, please email support@ch.cam.ac.uk for help.

Backups and reliabilty

The data is continuously replicated between a pair of servers in Chemistry, and daily replicated to a third server that is kept offsite. Snapshots of the data are made frequently on the live server itself.