Mount Project Drive on Server

Last modified

November 27, 2024

What this documentation will help achieve

Project drive storage from TU Delft ICT can be mounted and made accessible in your (TU Delft) Virtual Private Server.

Prerequisites

Steps

  1. Locate the URL of your project storage
  2. Connect to your TU Delft VPS via SSH
  3. Create a new directory as a mounting point
  4. Retrieve your Linux user and group details
  5. Edit the fstab file to include project storage technical details
  6. Mount the project drive

Step 1. Locate the URL of your project storage

The URL for your project drive can be obtained from either - the email from TU Delft ICT with the confirmation of your project drive request, or - by navigating to https://webdata.tudelft.nl/, and then through WebDav Web Links > Staff-Umbrella > “Enter your netID and password” to retrieve a list of your project drives.

Copy everything after “https://webdata.tudelft.nl/” (this will be staff-umbrella/<your_project_name>)

Step 2. Connect to your TU Delft VPS via SSH

Follow instructions in TU Delft ICT email from initial server setup or configure a 1-step connection via SSH.

Step 3. Create a new directory as the mounting point

The convention is to create mounting points in the folder /media. Navigate to the folder and create a new folder with

cd /media
mkdir <server_mount_point>

Replace <server_mount_point> with the name of your choice. This will be the name of the folder where your project drive will be mounted.

Step 4. Find and save your user and group details

In the terminal, you can retrieve your local user and group details with:

id -u <your_netID> # User ID
id -g <your_netID> # Group ID

You may need the values for uid and gid for step 5.

Note

These commands are server-specific, so make sure to execute them on the server where the project drives will be mounted.

Step 5. Edit the fstab file to include project storage technical details

The fstab file containes a list of the addresses of external file systems. In this file, the details of your project drive will need to be added in a single line. This line consists of four parts: 1. filesystem - the address of the project drive 2. mount point - the location in the VPS where you want to mount the project drive 3. type - the type of the filesystem 4. options - additional option such as user privileges

The fstab file must be in the /etc/ directory and can be opened with the vi or nano editor:

In the terminal, enter the following command to open the fstab file in the vi editor:
sudo vi /etc/fstab
Then, switch to the insert mode (hit “i” to switch to insert mode and be able to type)

In the terminal, enter the following command to open the fstab file in the nano editor:
sudo nano /etc/fstab

Add the following line to the file:

<your_netID>@sftp.tudelft.nl:/staff-umbrella/<project_drive_name>  /media/<server_mount_point> fuse.sshfs  rw,noauto,users,_netdev  0  0

replacing the values between < and > with your NetID, the name of your project drive, and the name of the folder you created in step 3.

Note

If this configuration throws a permission error during mounting, try:

//tudelft.net/staff-umbrella/<project_drive_name>/ /media/<server_mount_point> cifs username=<your_netID>,noauto,uid=<your_uid>,gid=<your_gid>,forcegid,rw,_netdev

Use the values for uid and gid from step 4.

Close the file editor and save the changes:

Use Control+C followed by :wq to save the file and close it to get back to your terminal.

As indicated by the nano interface, use Control+O to write the file. Then, confirm your choice of filename by hitting enter. Finally, exit the file with Control+X

Step 6. Mount the project drive

To mount the project drive execute the command

sudo mount /media/<server_mount_point>

You can also unmount the drive with

fusermount -u /media/<server_mount_point>

The project drive will not mount automatically, so you will need to remount it manually each time you restart the server.

Note

If the step above does not work, it probably means that the packages for mounting cifs-type filesystems haven’t been installed. Depending on your linux flavour you will need to install them using:

sudo apt install cifs-utils

sudo yum install cifs-utils

Notes and next steps

The steps above can also be used to mount any storage offered by TU Delft with a WebDav link (staff-homes, staff-groups, staff-bulk, student-homes, student-groups and apps). Simply use the latter half of the URL from the WebDav web link of your storage drive, which will change from staff-umbrella (project drive) to something else depending on the storage drive you would like to mount.