Mounting CUBINlab drives under MS-Windows

Overview

CUBINlab provides numerous shares to the network for MS-Windows users. Access is provided to each satellite entity as appropriate using separate file servers. Authentication is provided via the core network server, so you can use your single CUBINlab username/password for all shares across the entire network.

Core Network

Within the core, three shares are available:

• \\samba-core.cubinlab.ee.unimelb.edu.au\homes for user home directories
• \\samba-core.cubinlab.ee.unimelb.edu.au\scratch for the scratch space on Emu
• \\samba-core.cubinlab.ee.unimelb.edu.au\public for the public partition on Emu

Distributed Simulation Cluster

Within the DSC, one share is available:

• \\samba-dsc.cubinlab.ee.unimelb.edu.au\scratch for the scratch space on all cluster machines

Note that within the folder above exists an automount tree. Within that, a directory exists for each machine within the DSC. These folders are normally hidden until they are accessed (by any user) for the first time. You should map the share above, then manually change into the respective directory for access to the data on a particular machine if it doesn't appear in the folder list. e.g. to access the scratch space on the machine Shannon, map \\samba-dsc\scratch\ then enter the folder \\samba-dsc\scratch\automount\shannon manually. The folder will magically appear and you will then gain access to the /scratch-local/ partition on Shannon.

To see why this occurs, note that the samba server of the DSC resides on machine Einstein. It automounts the scratch space of each cluster machine on demand. There exists a single samba share (above) to the folder where the automount takes place. So when you request access to the scratch space of a particular machine, it is mounted automatically - you can then access it. Normally, the folder doesn't appear in a directory list until it is automounted. Once automounted, the share is not unmounted until the server is rebooted.

How to map the shares under MS-Windows

To mount these shares under MS-Windows, simply go to "Map Network Drive" under the "Tools" menu in Windows Explorer. From there, you can select a drive letter to assign for the share, then type in one of the addresses above to mount. Should you need a login and password (for the homes share, this is mandatory), please use your CUBINlab username and password.

Accessing the shares from outside the network

Note that to mount these shares, you must be directly connected to the CUBINlab network. Our firewall normally blocks this type of traffic to the external network. If you aren't directly connected, you can utilise the VPN to become "virtually connected" and avoid any firewall issues.