Network Drives
From Waisman Brain Imaging Wiki
Introduction
The Davidson labs store all of the collected experimental data on computer servers that are connected to the local lab networks. Almost all of these servers run some form of UNIX. Windows computers cannot directly connect to these servers, because Windows and UNIX file sharing methods are not compatible with each other. However, a solution is available. Each lab runs a special server which does nothing but translate between the Windows and UNIX methods. Windows PCs can connect to this server, and through it, connect to the file servers which store the experimental data. The translation server runs an application called Samba (http://www.samba.org) to do the translation, so it is usually called "the Samba server".
To connect to the Samba server, you need to "map" (or connect) a drive letter on your Windows PC to one of the shared drives on the Samba server. Here's how to do it:
How To Map UNIX Disks To PC Drives
Things you'll need before you begin:
- Anti-virus software and firewall software on your PC that is working, absolutely up-to-date, and turned on. This is MANDATORY. Failure to have these will result in you incurring the Wrath of Alanna.
- A network cable to connect your PC to the lab's local computer network. Ask Alanna, Adrian, or Aaron for one if you don't have one. Or, if you have a laptop with wireless capability, you can use the wireless access point at Brogden (but not the one at "Keck" - now known as BI).
- Your lab login name and password.
From Windows, run Windows Explorer. There should be a button in the row of buttons at the upper-right part of the window that looks kind of like a disk drive (or a fat envelope, or something--use your imagination) with a sparkly on the upper-left corner--if you point at it (but don't click) it should show "Map Network Drive". Click on it.
If you can't find the button, select the "Tools" menu, then select "Map Network Drive". If you can't find this menu selection, find a techie person, because your PC isn't connected to the network at all.
A little window will pop up. For "Drive:", select the letter of the PC drive that you want to use (for example, N:). For path, type in the path to the disk that you want to map to the drive (for example, \\LAN344\pccommon). In this example, LAN344 is the Samba server at the Brogden lab that translates UNIX drives to Windows.
Note that there are 2 backslashes before the computer name. If you click on the "Reconnect at startup" box, it will ensure that the drive will always be mapped for you; this isn't always a good thing, so make sure it isn't checked until you're sure that you want to keep the drive mapping.
If Windows says that it can't resolve the name "LAN344", replace it with 128.104.120.53. For example, \\128.104.120.53\pccommon
From a DOS (command prompt) window, to do the same mapping as in the example above, you would type in the following command:
NET USE N: \\LAN344\PCCOMMON
You can find the BI drive mappings here (http://brainimaging.waisman.wisc.edu/help/drives.html). Here are some common drive mappings at Brogden:
Drive PC Mapping Equivalent path on server ----- ---------- ------------------------- H: \\LAN344\<your_login> /home/export/users/<your_login> -or- ~/ N: \\LAN344\PCCOMMON /d2/pccommon P: \\LAN344\FIGURES /local/figures W: \\LAN344\DATA / (everything)
