Using Samba

Mounting your Popnet home directory as a "network drive"

Many of the PCs in PRI are configured to allow "Samba" access to user's home directories. This means that you can add another drive letter to your computer, on which you can store files and data of all sorts. This "network drive" is actually your home directory on Popnet. This means that data stored there can be remotely accessed from any computer that can normally access Popnet. Additionally, it means the data will be included in our nightly backups, which is worth the price of admission all by itself. If you're working with data that has special security concerns, however, this might be a bad idea. Please contact us with questions or concerns about this matter.

What's necessary for this to happen?

A few things are required for this to work. One is that the PC needs to be added to our database of machines with permission to do this. Another is that the PC needs to be able to communicate with our Samba server. Then, you need to tell the computer to mount your home directory and you need to supply the appropriate password. Additionally, you need to log off when you're finished using your home directory. If you frequently mount your network drive and do not unmount it when finished, I will remove your machine from our database of machines with permission.

In more detail: we must add the PC to our "NIS" files, which control, hopefully, all sorts of data access on our network, things like user ids and passwords, groups, and what sorts of access particular machines are allowed. The PC must be able to see our Samba server, which is trivial if it's on our local network but will require additional information in the WINS setup, or possibly elsewhere, if the machine is outside our local network. Telling the computer to access our server and thus mount your home directory is discussed at the end of this page.

How to mount your home directory

Run the following command:

Here, <drive letter> is any free drive letter on the PC being used. I recommend something not used on any system normally, like h: or something beyond that. About one of three times you become accustomed to using d: or e:, it will lead to a problem.

The <userid> refers to your userid on Popnet, not your access account or any other user id you might have.

The "/user:<userid>" option in the XP example tells the PC to use a specific userid to connect to the Samba server. If you don't tell it this, it will make up a userid by itself, and it will usually be the wrong userid.

For many people, making a shortcut on the desktop with the correct command is a good option. This will allow you to run the command by simply clicking on the shortcut.

Last modified: 04/07/06 | Contact Webmaster