HPC University Shared Drive Access

Owned by Douglas Kirby
Last updated: Dec 06, 2022 by Dave Christianson
6 min read

The HPC team is updating this page. Check back for new information.

What is SMB

SMB is a file transfer protocol supported by nearly every type of file storage device or operating system. You can use the SMB protocol on the HPC cluster via the smbclient command. By following the instructions below, you can transfer data from the HPC cluster to any device on campus that supports the SMB protocol, including the UITS Research Data service, a departmental NAS (Synology, etc.), an individual Windows desktop, and more.

Connecting to an SMB server

To access the SMB server, you need to use the following command:

$ smbclient -W DOMAIN -U NetID //server.uconn.edu/folder/path

  • Replace DOMAIN with the appropriate domain for your department, usually "grove.ad.uconn.edu" (UITS) or "ad.engr.uconn.edu" (School of Engineering).

  • Replace NetID with your university NetID.

  • Replace server.uconn.edu with the network name of your file server.

  • Replace folder/path with the set of directories that correspond to your network share.

Example: ITS P and Q Drives

P Drive

UITS describes the P: drive as:

Personal (P:) Drives are available to all students, staff, and faculty who have a NetID to save files for access on any university computer. These drives allow for 50 Gigabytes(GB) maximum of university related files and is private for your individual use only.

These drives are accessible through the HPC cluster using smbclient.

$ smbclient -W grove.ad.uconn.edu -U <NetID> //files.uconn.edu/Home Enter <NetID>'s password: Domain=[UCONN] OS=[SpinStream2] Server=[Windows 2000 Lan Manager] smb: \> cd <NetID> smb: \<NetID>\> ls

Replace NetID with your actual university NetID.

Q Drive

UITS describes the Q: drive as:

These drives are accessible through the HPC cluster using smbclient.

Replace NetID with your actual university NetID. You can then change directories to your departmental file share.

Copying files

To copy the file from the local file systemt to the SMB server:

To copy the file from the SMB serverto the local file systemt:

Example: Copy a file from HNAS to HPC

Commands for smbclient

?/help [command] - If command is specified, the ? command will display a brief informative message about the specified command. If no command is specified, a list of available commands will be displayed.

! [shell command]If shell command is specified, the ! command will execute a shell locally and run the specified shell command. If no command is specified, a local shell will be run.

cd <directory name>If "directory name" is specified, the current working directory on the server will be changed to the directory specified. This operation will fail if for any reason the specified directory is inaccessible.If no "directory name" is specified, the current working directory on the server will be reported.

del/rm <mask>The client will request that the server attempt to delete all files matching mask from the current working directory on the server.

dir/ls <mask>A list of the files matching mask in the current working directory on the server will be retrieved from the server and displayed.

du <filename>Does a directory listing and then prints out the current disk usage and free space on a share.

exit/quitTerminate the connection with the server and exit from the program.

get <remote file name> [local file name]Copy the file called remote file name from the server to the machine running the client. If specified, name the local copy local file name. Note that all transfers in smbclient are binary. See also the lowercase command.

historyDisplays the command history.

lcd [directory name]If directory name is specified, the current working directory on the local machine will be changed to the directory specified. This operation will fail if for any reason the specified directory is inaccessible.If no <cdoe>directory name</code> is specified, the name of the current working directory on the local machine will be reported.

lowercaseToggle lowercasing of filenames for the get and mget commands.When lowercasing is toggled ON, local filenames are converted to lowercase when using the get and mget commands. This is often useful when copying (say) MSDOS files from a server, because lowercase filenames are the norm on UNIX systems.

mask <mask>This command allows the user to set up a mask which will be used during recursive operation of the mget and mput commands.The masks specified to the mget and mput commands act as filters for directories rather than files when recursion is toggled ON.The mask specified with the mask command is necessary to filter files within those directories. For example, if the mask specified in an mget command is "source*" and the mask specified with the mask command is "*.c" and recursion is toggled ON, the mget command will retrieve all files matching "*.c" in all directories below and including all directories matching "source*" in the current working directory.Note that the value for mask defaults to blank (equivalent to "*") and remains so until the mask command is used to change it. It retains the most recently specified value indefinitely. To avoid unexpected results it would be wise to change the value of mask back to "*" after using the mget or mput commands.

md/mkdir <directory name>Create a new directory on the server (user access privileges permitting) with the specified name.

mget <mask>Copy all files matching mask from the server to the machine running the client.Note that mask is interpreted differently during recursive operation and non-recursive operation - refer to the recurse and mask commands for more information. Note that all transfers in smbclient are binary. See also the lowercase command.

mput <mask>Copy all files matching mask in the current working directory on the local machine to the current working directory on the server.Note that mask is interpreted differently during recursive operation and non-recursive operation - refer to the recurse and mask commands for more information. Note that all transfers in smbclient are binary.

prompt ON/OFFToggle prompting for filenames during operation of the mget and mput commands.When toggled ON, the user will be prompted to confirm the transfer of each file during these commands. When toggled OFF, all specified files will be transferred without prompting.

put <local file name> [remote file name]Copy the file called local file name from the machine running the client to the server. If specified, name the remote copy remote file name. Note that all transfers in smbclient are binary. See also the lowercase command.

rd/rmdir <directory name>Remove the specified directory (user access privileges permitting) from the server.

Reference

More command information is available at Smbclient.