Home directories
Each user has a central data store, his home directory. It is used to store important documents, or for frequently accessed data on different computers and personal websites as well as for easy data exchange.
All HZB-standard Linux / UNIX systems (except for the HPC cluster dirac) create user dependent configuration files from there, mostly as hidden files or directories (they start over with a dot). These files can not be deleted without any reason!
The directories are available through a fail-safe, hierarchical system, a Storage Area Network (SAN) with about 10 TB of primary storage. The directories are copied daily into the central data storage.
When using Linux / UNIX systems, there may be in rare cases recoverable problems with so-called File Locks (instructions to remedy the situation). For example, you may be no longer able to start your applications (such as Thunderbird, Firefox) or they behave very strangely.
Each user can occupy up to 20 GB of space. You can check your current space used here. In order not to push the limits (very unpleasant), please remember to delete or archive data no longer needed for direct access.
You must save in exceptional cases even larger amounts of data centrally, please contact us at support@helmholtz-berlin.de. If your data is intended to be shared with a group of employees, we offer special group directories.
Access to your personal home directory
(abc stands for your HZB ID)
- Windows (CIFS): \\home\abc (use Map Network Drive);
on the Terminal Server system (WAF) as the Z: drive available - Linux/UNIX (NFS): /net/home/abc
If you need to authorize please you to use your HZB ID and your HZB internal password. Windows systems may use as a domain HMI-DOMAIN.
Access to other Linux / UNIX directories from Windows
With soft links in your home directory you can reach all of Windows systems and directories available on the HZB Linux/UNIX server and HZB Linux workstations.
Example: you have data on the Linux system dinux4 in the directory /hmi/xyz/. This directory is reachable by convention on all HZB-Linux/UNIX computers with the path /chmi/dinux5/xyz. After creating a soft link with the command
ln -s /chmi/dinux4/xyz ~/dinux-data
you can reach it on any HZB-Linux computer. Windows users can reach it with
\\home\abc\dinux-data
dinux-data then appears as a subdirectory in your home directory, as long as you do not delete the link.
This is very convenient, but has one drawback: If the link can not be followed because the computer dinux5 is turned off, all applications which want to access the home directory are blocked until a timeout occurs. These side effect can be avoided: put the link in a subdirectory
in your home directory. That would make the above example as follows:
mkdir ~/links
ln -s /chmi/dinux5/xyz ~/links/dinux-daten
The access is done then one level down. With the Windows operating system you have to use the path
\\home\abc\links\dinux-data
Please replace abc with your HZB ID.
With iFolder you may create self-managed file space for you and other users.
[at]
