At IU, how do I map or mount my RFS account to my workstation?

Samba servers act as a gateway between Research File System (RFS) servers at Indiana University and your workstation, and provide a fast and easily configured way of accessing your RFS files and folders. See the appropriate section below for instructions on mapping or mounting your RFS account to your workstation.

On this page:

• Windows
• Mac OS X
• Linux
• Shared files and projects

Windows

The Samba interface allows you to access your RFS files and folders as if they resided on a drive on your workstation. Before you can access your RFS folder directly, you need to configure your computer as follows:

1. Right-click My Computer and select Map Network Drive... .
   
   
2. In the "Folder:" field, type the path for your RFS account: \\rfs.iu.edu\username

   Replace username with your username and click Finish.

3. You will be prompted to enter a username and password. Your RFS folder will be mapped to a drive on the workstation.

Mac OS X

You must have Mac OS X 10.1 or later to mount your RFS space using SMB, the sharing protocol used in Windows. To access your RFS account using Samba:

1. In the Finder, from the Go menu, select Connect to Server... .
   
   
2. In the Connect to Server window, in the "Address:" field, type: smb://rfs.iu.edu/username

   Replace username with your username. Click Connect.

3. You will be asked to authenticate. In the Workgroup/Domain field, type ADS . Type your username and password in the appropriate boxes.
   
   
4. Click OK. Your RFS folder will be mounted on the desktop shortly.

Linux

To establish file system access to the RFS from Linux via Samba, use one of the following methods (replace netid with your IU Network ID username; you will be prompted for your password):

• Mount RFS as root, as follows: # mkdir /rfs # mount -t cifs -o username=netid,sec=ntlmv2 //rfs.iu.edu/netid /rfs

  For older Linux installations, the following may be useful:

  # mkdir /rfs # mount -t smbfs -o username=netid,krb //rfs.iu.edu/netid /rfs

  If the above example returns a "krb5_get_credentials failed" error message, try the following command instead:

  # mount -t smbfs -o username=netid@ADS.IU.EDU,krb //rfs.iu.edu/netid /rfs
• If you want to mount RFS such that it maps to a local UID (for example, UID 500) correctly, you may want to do something like this: # mount -t smbfs -o uid=500,username=netid,sec=ntlmv2 //rfs.iu.edu/netid /rfs
• If you do not have root access, use the following commands: # mkdir ~rfs # smbmount //rfs.iu.edu/netid ~/rfs -o username=netid,sec=ntlmv2

  For older Linux installations, the following may be useful:

  # mount -t smbfs -o uid=500,username=netid,krb //rfs.iu.edu/netid /rfs
• Alternatively, if you do not have root access, use the following commands: # mkdir ~rfs # smbmount //rfs.iu.edu/netid ~/rfs -o username=netid,krb

  If smbmount does not work without root access, contact your system administrator.

Note that you will need a Kerberos-enabled Samba client on your Linux computer. This is the default on many distributions like Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Debian. If the mount command returns "No kerberos support compiled in", you may need to install Samba manually or consult your distribution's documentation to install a Kerberos-enabled version of Samba.

Shared files and projects

At IU, you can access shared files in another user's RFS space if the other user has set up permissions for you to access the files according to the steps in At IU, how do I share my RFS data with other users? You can connect via Samba to the afs-home space by using the appropriate path for your operating system:

• Windows: \\rfs.iu.edu\afs-home
• Macintosh: smb://rfs.iu.edu/afs-home

This places you in the top-level view of the RFS, where you should see the directories a through z. To access the correct RFS space, descend the RFS tree by clicking in succession the first two letters of the appropriate username. For example, to access the RFS space of myuser, first click m and then click y, and then locate and click myuser in the list of usernames beginning with "my".

Projects are a special category of accounts created for users whose work involves collaborative long-term research. To connect to the projects space via Samba, use the appropriate path for your operating system:

• Windows: \\rfs.iu.edu\projects
• Macintosh: smb://rfs.iu.edu/projects
• Linux: $ smbmount //rfs.iu.edu/projects -o username=netid,sec=ntlmv2 mountpoint Password: $ smbmount //rfs.iu.edu/afs-home -o username=netid,sec=ntlmv2 mountpoint Password:

  Replace netid with your Network ID username, and mountpoint with the name of an empty directory where you wish to mount the projects or afs-home directories. For older Linux installations, you may need to replace sec=ntlmv2 with krb .

For more information on project accounts, see In RFS, what are projects?

Note: Your computer must be configured to use VPN if you are connecting through an outside Internet service provider (ISP). When you are away from campus, Samba access will work only if you maintain a VPN connection to the IU network. For more information on using VPN, see The basics of VPN at IU.