The two supported ways to access your CS home directory from a PC are using SSH and SMB.

SSH Access

The simplest way to do this from off campus is to use an SSH file transfer client. Most SSH clients include some type of file transfer ability, which might be a GUI browser or a command line scp. See the SSH Client FAQ Entry for a listing of several SSH client packages. For Windows, you will probably want to use WinSCP which is available for free from winscp.net.

SMB Access

If SSH access is not a viable option for you, you can use SMB access by following these steps:

1. Get a local IU IP address - In order to use SMB the computer you are using must have an IU IP address. If you are connecting from a system on the IU campus then you are all set. If you are using a non-IU system or using the IU Secure wireless network then you will have to use an IU VPN (Virtual Private Network) connection since IU blocks SMB traffic coming into campus. To get the details of setting up a VPN connection go to the UITS Knowledge Base, search on 'VPN connection', and go to the link corresponding to your operating system.

2. Set up a samba password - The primary CS samba server authenticates using the IU ADS domain. So, as long as you have an IU ADS account (which all IU faculty, students, and staff will have) then there is nothing you need to do and you can continue to the next step. However, there are some limited cases where you will need a local samba password in order to get access. This may be the case if you are using a local CS class or project account that isn't in ADS or if you are using any other CS username that isn't in ADS. If this is the case, then you must create an entry in the samba password file before you will be able to login. You can do this using the CS Samba Password Update Page. Note that this page will require you to login using your IU Network ID password. If you do not have other IU accounts then you will have to use this page instead.

3. Verify your security settings - It is critical that you are using NTLMv2 only on your Windows system. To ensure that this is the case, you should follow the steps in the associated KB entry. It is recommended that use the automated tool referenced in this KB article. However, you are strongly encouraged to also go through the manual configuration steps in this article to verify that things are set correctly. We have seen cases where the automated tool did not properly set the LAN Manager authentication level properly. If this is not set correctly, it will fail to let you login in the same way as if you entered the wrong username or password. After making this change, you may need to reboot.

4. Connect to the SMB share - You can follow these instructions on how to access SMB shares on the IU campus. The following shares are available from the CS samba servers:

   CS Home directory		\\samba1.cs.indiana.edu\username
   CS /nobackup directory		\\samba1.cs.indiana.edu\nobackup\username
   CS /scratch directory		\\samba1.cs.indiana.edu\scratch\username
   CS research directories		\\samba1.cs.indiana.edu\research

   In each of these you will need to replace username with your CS username.

   If you are connecting to an account that isn't in ADS (and you created a local samba password in step 2) then you will have to replace samba1 with samba2 in the above paths.

   PLEASE NOTE: If you are connecting from a system that is a member of the IU ADS Domain (which includes any CS-managed system) then you will login using your normal IU username and password. However, if you are connecting from a system that isn't a member of the domain (which might include your laptop, home sytems, or VMWare image) then you may have to use a username of "ads\username" instead of just "username".

[Return to the FAQ index]