Home Directories

Your home directory in CS is served by a high performance network fileserver. Any Linux server you log in to will have your home directory mounted, likewise with Windows desktops (mounted through the SAMBA server as K:/). New home directories are located under /u and are limited in size.

After logging in to one of our Linux servers, your working directory will be your home directory

xyz1ab@portal02:~$ pwd
/u/xyz1ab

xyz1ab@portal02:~$ storagecheck -h

Home directory usage for /u/xyz1ab: 21%
You have used 21.5G of your 100G quota

Home directories are quota limited in size, and should not be used for large data sets or project data. Users must save large data sets or project data in a project directory (see Project Directories).

Upon separation from UVA CS, your account will be closed one month after that separation, and your home directory will be removed. No backup will be provided, so it is important for you to save any files you wish to take with you onto other storage.

Note, the command df -h will produce inaccurate information for home directory usage as it displays the storage capacity and utilization for the entire filesystem, that is, for all user home directories. Please utilize the storagecheck -h command instead.

Home Directory Access

NFSCS filesystems are exported via NFS to department-managed Linux interactive and compute nodes. Filesystems are mounted consistently across all nodes so the paths are identical no matter what node you are working on. If you have root on your own desktop or laptop, we do not export NFS to your machine, you'll need to use our SAMBA server (samba.cs.virginia.edu) using the SMB protocol.
Samba/CIFSUsers logging into their “CSDOM” Windows account will automatically find their home directory mounted as their “K:\” drive.
Anyone can mount their home directory using Samba on their personal computers. Windows, Linux and Mac OS all have clients that will allow you to mount your CS department home directory over Samba.
SCP/SFTPFor remote access, we recommend using an SCP/SFTP client: the openssh package is available on Mac OSX and Linux. For Windows users, openssh is part of the cygwin packages, and ITS also provides SecureFX at ITS Software Central. For these connections, you should use the hostname portal.cs.virginia.edu to access the files; direct access to all file servers is restricted to Samba and NFS services.

Secure Copy (SCP)/Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP)

You can use scp or sftp to copy files to/from our filesystems. Use the host sftp.cs.virginia.edu for these connections.

Using SAMBA to access home or project directories from Mac/Windows

We have a SAMBA server samba.cs.virginia.edu that everyone can use to connect to their home directory. From off Grounds, you need to create a UVA VPN connection first to use SAMBA.

To connect to your home directory, use the following network share:

\\samba.cs.virginia.edu\userid

When asked to authenticate please format your username like this:

CSDOM\userid

For example:

CSDOM\abc1de
Using SAMBA on Windows

SAMBA allows users on PCs to access their home or project directories via the SAMBA protocol.

ShareShare PathDesc
/u/username\\samba.cs.virginia.edu\usernameHome Directories
/p/project_name\\samba.cs.virginia.edu\p\project_nameProject Directories
/bigtemp\\samba.cs.virginia.edu\bigtemp/bigtemp temporary data space
Using SAMBA on Mac or Linux

Graphical file managers under the Mac or Linux OS (e.g. Nautilus, Finder, Caja, etc.) allow you to enter a network directory path using the following formatting:

smb://samba.cs.virginia.edu/username   <- home directory 
smb://samba.cs.virginia.edu/p/project_name   <- project directory 
smb://samba.cs.virginia.edu/bigtemp   <- bigtemp directory 

On a Mac, you would select “Connect to Server” at the end of the Go menu on a Finder window, and type in the string above.

You may be required to specify a user name in this path, so if you are not asked for a username and password, try adding your username like so:

smb://username@samba.cs.virginia.edu/username   <- home directory 
smb://username@samba.cs.virginia.edu/project_name   <- project directory 
smb://username@samba.cs.virginia.edu/bigtemp   <- bigtemp directory 

If you are asked for a domain or workgroup, use CSDOM.

Home Directory backup

Each night, your home directory is backed up. These backups are kept for 30 days. So we can retrieve files for you if they were removed less than 30 days ago. To have files retrieved from backup, email the CS helpdesk (cshelpdesk@virginia.edu).