Storing files on desktops in AOPP

User files stored on AOPP Ubuntu desktops may be put in three places. These are described in this article.

  1. /local/home/#hostname#/#username#/Where username might be sosprey and hostname ellinga, i.e. /local/home/ellinga/sosprey/ . You may need to create your directory with mkdir /local/home/#hostname#/#username#/
  2. At the location pointed to by $HOME, which may be either /network/aopp/jupiter/#group#/#username# or /network/home/aopp/#username#You can check this in a terminal with "echo $HOME" as this is your home directory.In the first case if group were cpdn, that would be /home/jupiter/cpdn/sosprey (or possibly /home/jupiter/cpdn2/sosprey)
  3. /network/aopp/#server#/#group#/#username# Where server is the name of a group's storage server, such as cloud.

1. is on the hard disk of the computer and is not backed up, but is fast and capacious.

2. is on a network shared directory of a server computer, is backed up and will be subject to quota limits. Transferring large amounts of data to 2. or running computations where files are read and written from and to it can seriously slow down the entire system in AOPP. To keep things running smoothly, please run computations such that they use the local disk. Contact itsupport@atm.ox.ac.uk if you need help with this.

3. is accessed via a network shared directory, as the home directories are. They may not be backed up. If in doubt, write to itsupport@atm.ox.ac.uk

Some steps to reduce your usage on the network home directories:

  1. run "baobab ~" from a terminal and have a look at how your space is being used
  2. Move cache folders to the local hard disk (see below)
cd ~
setenv LOCALAOPP=/local/home/#hostname#/#username#/
mkdir $LOCALAOPP # will fail if the directory already exists
chmod go-rwx $LOCALAOPP # stop others accessing it
du -sh ~/.thunderbird ~/.cache
df -h $LOCALAOPP # check there's enough space for .thunderbird and .cache
mv ~/.thunderbird $LOCALAOPP/thunderbird
ln -s $LOCALAOPP/thunderbird ~/.thunderbird
mv ~/.cache $LOCALAOPP/cache
ln -s $LOCALAOPP/cache ~/.cache

Note: if you are using email accounts that are not permanently stored on a backed up mail server such as Physics mail or Nexus, contact itsupport@atm.ox.ac.uk about the best way to store the Thunderbird cache locally.

Categories: AOPP | Desktops | Linux