Mounting network drives
What?
To use the central disk space which is offered, you must connect to the network drives to which you have access. You need to "mount" your network drives.
When a network drive is mounted, you will see the drive letter and/or disk name associated with the disk space in the (Windows) Explorer or (Mac) Finder. You can then open files or save them on the network drive.
A number of network drives are mounted automatically on Athena and on all (Windows) PCs installed using the rollout and joined to the Active Directory domain.
You will have to add NEW network drives.
Tip: first check if your network drives are mounted automatically.
Mount how?
- Via Athena: no VPN required. See: Network drives via Athena.
- Locally on your PC, Mac, Linux system. You can mount drives on every Windows computer, every Mac with MacOS X or higher and every computer that can mount network drives via the SMB protocol.
Mount on a Windows device
Make sure the computer is connected correctly to the UGentNet. From outside the UGent, this means that you first need to set up a VPN-connection
When you mount a network drive, you assign a drive letter to the (server path of the) network drive. The letters A, B, C, H, S, W, X, Y and Z cannot be used.
A number of drive letters are reserved.
| H: |
for your homedrive, personal disk space; is mounted automatically on Athena and on all (Windows) PCs installed using the rollout and joined to the Active Directory domain. Drivemapping is: \\files.ugent.be\login\home |
| S: |
only for UGent staff: grouping all your shares; is mounted automatically on Athena and on all (Windows) PCs installed using the rollout and joined to the Active Directory domain. Drivemapping is: \\files.ugent.be\login\shares |
| W: |
for your personal web space Drivemapping is: \\files.ugent.be\login\www |
- Click on "Desktop".
- Click on the Windows button + E.
- Click on "Computer".
- Click on "Map Network Drive".
- Choose an allowed and not in use "Drive" letter.
- Fill in the "Path:" (for example): \\files.ugent.be\loginname and click "OK".
- Select "Reconnect at sign-in" if is not selected.
- If you are using a computer that is not installed using the UGent rollout select "Connect using different credentials".
- Click on "Finish".
-
When using a non rolled out computer you will now be asked to fill in your credentials.
Add UGent.be\ before your username, eg. UGent.be\jpeetersCheck "Remember my credentials".
Mount on a Mac (MacOS X or higher)
Make sure the computer is connected correctly to the UGentNet. From outside the UGent, this means that you first need to set up a VPN-connection
Mac OS X does not use a drive letter but a drive name to refer to a mounted network drive.
Use this method to reach your network drives:-
Open Finder and click on "Go" > "Connect to server"
smb://UGENT\loginnaam@files.ugent.be/loginname
Mount on a Linux system
Make sure the computer is connected correctly to the UGentNet. From outside the UGent, this means that you first need to set up a VPN-connection
The shares are running samba version 3. This can cause issues on some distributions.
Keep the following in mind:
-
smbclient
If you use smbclient you need to use the flag '-m smb3'.
Eg.: smbclient -U UGENT/username //files.ugent.be/username -m smb3 -
cifs mounts
For cifs mounts (eg. in /etc/fstab) you need to specify vers=3.0.
Attention: for DFS links cifs-utils and keyutils need to be installed.
Eg. share: //files.ugent.be/<ugent_username>/shares/<sharename> /mnt/<sharename> cifs domain=UGENT,username=<ugent_username>,password=<ugent_password>,noperm,vers=3.0,sec=ntlmv2i 0 0
Eg. webshare: //webhost.ugent.be/_<websharename> /mnt/<websharename> cifs domain=UGENT,username=<ugent_username>,password=<ugent_password>,vers=3.0 0 0 -
Linux kernels older than 4.17 contain a bug that causes issues with mounting samba 3 shares.
If you are experiencing problems, please verify that you are using a recent kernel.
There is also a known issue with Ubuntu and derivatives using kernel 5.4.x.
On Ubuntu 20.04 the issue can be fixed by upgrading to the 'edge' kernel: apt install linux-generic-hwe-20.04-edge
Mount on Ubuntu
Make sure the computer is connected correctly to the UGentNet. From outside the UGent, this means that you first need to set up a VPN-connection
-
Add the following to the samba client configuration file (/etc/samba/smb.conf):
[global] client min protocol = SMB2_10 ; default is 'CORE' (MS-DOS era) client max protocol = SMB3 ; default was 'NT1' (aka CIFS) until Samba v4.6 ; finally includes SMB3 as of Samba v4.7
- Select in 'Files' - 'Connect to Server'.
- Fill out:
-
Server adres: 'smb://<loginname>@files.ugent.be/<loginname>'
or try: 'smb://UGENT\<loginname>@files.ugent.be/<loginname>'
UGENT in capital letters! - Click 'Connect'
- Enter your UGent password.
-
Server adres: 'smb://<loginname>@files.ugent.be/<loginname>'
Remarks
-
Students who sign on to a DICT workstation (read: a computer controlled by DICT, e.g. in the faculty computer rooms), will automatically obtain the drive mapping:
H: the personal directory on the fileserver for students -
On a Windows system no distinction is made between lowercase and uppercase in filenames. On a Unix server however this distinction is made.
As a consequence you have to be aware of the fact that you have to be careful when creating files on a pc and respect the use of lowercase and uppercase, although a pc doesn't make this distinction.
To avoid problems, see to it that you always use unique filenames. - Mounting the H:-drive (and other SMB-shares) from GoodReader on iPad is discouraged and will not receive support.