For all of these methods, your username is your UUN (e.g., s1234567) and your password is the same as you use in the lab (your Active Directory password).
Option A: mount the remote filesystem
To avoid copying files back and forth, you can access your lab home directory directly from your personal computer.
- Advantages: direct access to files using your operating system’s graphical interface, in a terminal, or an editor, all running on your personal computer
- Disadvantages: can be slow over the network, especially when browsing through folders containing many files or deeply-nested folders
Start by connecting to the VPN. Then follow the instructions for your operating system:
Apple OS X
Open the Finder, press ⌘K then enter smb://fs1.ppls.ed.ac.uk, then navigate to your home directory.
Microsoft Windows
Type \\fs1.ppls.ed.ac.uk in the Windows Explorer address bar, then navigate to your home directory. Your username may need to be in the form s1234567@ed.ac.uk rather than just s1234567. This method has been reported as working for some, not for others. If it doesn’t work for you, use Option B instead, and try Option A again later.
Linux
There are several methods, but since you are smart enough to own a Linux machine, you surely know how to find out! Use the SMB protocol with the server mentioned above, fs1.ppls.ed.ac.uk.
Option B: copy files to/from the remote filesystem
If the above method isn’t working for you, or is very slow, then you can instead copy files between the lab computers and your personal computer (e.g., audio saved from Festival that you wish to listen to).
- Advantages: once files are copied to your personal computer, access is instant and doesn’t use the network
- Disadvantages: less convenient than Option A
Start by connecting to the VPN. Then follow the instructions for your operating system:
Apple OS X / Linux
For example, you have created a directory called output in your ss directory, into which you have saved output from Festival. Instead of using scp to copy files, we’ll use rsync which is smart about only copying changed or new files. Do the following on your personal computer (not on the remote lab computer):
$ rsync -avul s1234567@scp1.ppls.ed.ac.uk:/home/s1234567/Documents/ss/output ~/somewhere/on/your/personal/computer
Another example, this time you want a complete copy of your Documents folder on your personal computer:
$ mkdir ~/somewhere/you/choose/Documents/ $ rsync -avul s1234567@scp1.ppls.ed.ac.uk:/home/s1234567/Documents/ ~/somewhere/you/choose/Documents/
The trailing “/” in rsync are meaningful when working with folders – don’t omit them. Imagine we now changed a file and wanted to send it back to the lab. It’s a bit risky synchronising your entire Documents back, so let’s just do part of it:
$ rsync -avul ~/somewhere/you/choose/Documents/ss/ s1234567@scp1.ppls.ed.ac.uk:/home/s1234567/Documents/ss/
It is possible to run rsync without having to enter your password every time, if you set up ssh keys, which also allow you to log in without a password too.
Importantly, ssh keys only work for lab computers (e.g., ppls-atl-0020.ppls.ed.ac.uk) and do not currently work for scp1.ppls.ed.ac.uk. So, once you know a lab machine is running linux (e.g., you are logged in to it!) you can also rsync to it
$ rsync -avul s1234567@ppls-atl-0020.ppls.ed.ac.uk:/home/s1234567/Documents/ss/output ~/somewhere/on/your/personal/computer
Microsoft Windows
On Windows, you will need to use an scp client, such as WinSCP. The server name is scp1.ppls.ed.ac.uk . Using keys (as described above) is also possible on Windows with Putty and WinSCP.