Disk Usage
Contents
CIS uses NFS and CIFS file systems to allow your files to be available on any computer in the department.
Quotas
All CIS accounts are given an initial quota of 1 Gigabyte. The purpose of these quotas is not due to limited file server space available. The purpose of these quotas is to avoid abuse by students and to prevent anyone from accidentally filling up a drive with a runaway program or other malware.
Any student or staff or faculty member may ask for an increase in that number if it is not adequate. The amount of unused space on our file services is in the Terabyte range, so we grant nearly all such requests. However, if you make such a request please be aware of the following two warnings:
WARNING: Please be aware that all of our machines are ultimately public property and thus we cannot guarantee the privacy of data, files, or email stored on our systems. You should keep sensitive data stored on your own equipment. The systems staff works to protect every user's privacy, but is required by law to reveal files to authorities if given a proper request by authorities. The systems staff may also examine user's files if there is reason to believe those files are in violation of department or univeristy policies or local, state, or federal law. The systems staff may also examine a user's files if it is necessary to do so in order to guarantee system security and the proper order of systems, though this use is rare and restricted by our usage policy.
WARNING: As per the KSU policy and in accordance with federal law, we do not permit the storage or transmission of copyrighted material on our machines unless you are the copyright holder. Such data may be removed without warning or notification if discovered. Students found illegally distributing such data from our servers may have their account privileges revoked and be subject to other consequences as determined by the department, university, and other local, state, and federal authorities.
Checking Your Quota
If you want to determine how much disk space you are currently using and how much you have left before you exceed your quota. You can check your quota one of two ways.
If you login to a Windows system in our department, you may right-click on your U:-drive and click on the Properties menu item. The dialog box should show you how much space you have used and how much remains on your quota.
If you login to a Linux system, you may run the following command:
quota -g
if you want something a little less verbose, try:
quota -g username_users
where username above is replaced with your CIS username.
Group Quotas
All quotas on our systems are "group quotas." This allows for very simple accounting of files on our system. All users are members of at least one group (and usually more) named username_user where username is the user's CIS username.
If you are a member of another group, for example an Software Engineering Team for CIS 540, you will also be member of another group. If you change the file permissions on a file to another group, that file is counted against that group's quota rather than your own. Therefore, you can store more than your own quota limits by changing the group a file belongs to. If you need help on how to do this, please see the FAQ entry titled What are "Unix file permissions"?
Quota Notification
Every morning, every quota is checked to determine if any user is in violation of their quota. You will be informed by email if you are exceeded your quota or are within 10% of your limit. This is intended to help you determine when you need to either clean up your files or request a quota increase. It is also to help you in case you have problems using our systems, since some systems do not function well or at all if you run out of disk space on your quota.
Faculty and staff should be aware that this same check will automatically increase your quota to 110% of your current usage if you run into the limit. You should be notified by email when this happens. If this happens a couple days in a row and you aren't sure why, you may wish to send a request to the systems administrators as it may be a sign of a runaway program or other malware filling up your home directory.
Temporary Directories
Under our Linux systems, please be aware that any file placed inside of the /tmp directory may be deleted after 24 hours. In order to keep the disks on our systems from filling up from temporary files, any file older than 1 day is deleted from the system on a regular basis (generally every hour).
Temporary Project Space
If you are working on a project and need space to place large binary distributions (such as web servers, database servers, etc.) we may give you a special directory to work in. If you need such space, please send a request to the system administrators.
Software Installation
We have a large amount of software installed on most of our systems for student use, but you may require other software for a project or course work. We permit students to install software they need in their home directory.
If you think an application would be of value to yourself and other students, you may send a request to the system administrators for software to be installed.
Accessing from Personal Computers
Windows
Quick Direct Access
You may reach your home directory from your own laptop on campus by using the network name \\homefiles.w2k.cis.ksu.edu\\eID. Going to Start > Run... and using this name should ask for authentication and then show your home directory files.
Mapping a Network Drive
Right-click on My Computer and choose Manage...
You can use any drive letter that's available on your system. For the Folder use \\homefiles.cis.ksu.edu\eID.
Click on different user name and enter your cis authentication credentials.
Click OK
Click Finish
Go to My Computer and the network drive should now be there.
OS X
- Select the Finder application (clicking on the desktop is one way of doing this).
Press the hotkey apple + k. You should see a window similar to this:
Fill in the appropriate info. All you should have to change from the example is replacing jprintz with your eID. Also, you can use the + button to keep the entry in the list for easier access later.
Click the Connect button, you should be prompted with an authentication dialog like this:
- Login with your CIS account name and password just as you would on a lab machine.
Click the OK button, and your home directory should appear in a Finder window.
- You can use the link in the left part of the Finder window to get back to your home directory later, as long as you don't lose your network connection.
- When you're ready to disconnect the drive just click on the eject button next to the folder link in the Finder window.
CNS VPN
You may also access your files from off-campus by using the VPN software supplied by CNS. We do not support this software ourselves, so please contact iTAC if you need assistance with it.