Moving CS network directory shares to new server

Department’s old disk array system needs to be retired as soon as possible. We have a new Network Attached Storage (NAS) system already up and running, but most home and group directories are still in the old system.  In the same time we are moving away from CS user accounts to University’s AD user accounts. We try to do these things without disruption to services, but it is not always possible.
 
CS Home and group directories under Windows
 
You can continue to access your home directory through UNC path \\tktl-csfs.cs.helsinki.fi\user 
and your group directories through UNC path \\tktl-csfs.cs.helsinki.fi\group\groupname even after the move is complete. We will later make available a more direct and faster route to the new file server. 
Old UNC PATH \\csfs.cs.helsinki.fi\ will stop working.
 

CS Home directories under Linux systems

 
In the future home and group directories will only be available to Linux hosts which have Ubuntu 14.04 based Cubbli installation (or later). If your host is not yet upgraded, please contact itsupport@cs.helsinki.fi. This also applies to Ukko cluster. Please see section Ukko Cluster for more details. 
 
Please, remember to access your home directory only through path /home/fs/user and your group directory only through path /home/group/groupname. These are the paths which we keep working regardless of the current file server and these are also the paths which we have been using now for more than 25 years. 
 
Before the move your CS physical home directory path is /home/tktl-csfs/fs2/home/user. After the move it will be /cs/home/user. Please use paths /home/fs/user and /home/group/groupname instead, since the physical paths are liable to change. 
 
Group directories will move from /home/tktl-csfs/group/home/groupname to /cs/group/groupname. However, because of some technical details, this move will happen later, even when the file server has already changed to the newer one.
 

Ukko Cluster

 
Ukko cluster’s /cs/taatto and /cs/wfa* file shares are in the old disk array and these need to be retired ASAP. Please, stop using /cs/taatto ASAP, even if it is inconvenient to you. You should use directory /cs/work/scratch. If for some reason you need to keep files longer than 60 days, you should ask for a Ukko cluster specific group directory in /cs/work/group or a Ukko cluster home directory in /cs/work/home from itsupport@cs.helsinki.fi. CS home directories won’t be visible directly to Ukko cluster after the home directory move is complete. This is intentional: Ukko cluster can bring a file server to its knees with heavy IO load and it has already happened multiple times by accident. You can access /cs/work directory from melkinkari.cs.helsinki.fi.
 
It would be highly convenient, if you could just archive everything you produce in Ukko cluster in /cs/work directory indefinitely. However, this is not possible since we do not have infinite disc space available and we know from previous experience that files, even temporary ones, will be abandoned after the work is done and the paper is submitted.  This is why you should consider using /cs/work/scratch directory, even when unaccessed files are automatically removed after 60 days.
 

The tricky technical details

 
Some of our older CS user accounts have different numerical Unix/Linux UIDs than the user accounts in University’s AD user accounts. We actually did use compatible UIDs with university’s Unix-systems, but at some point when the new AD system was created University decided to allocate new incompatible UID:s for all users. Thus, when the home directories are moved we need to change all UID:s to new ones. This means, that all running processes using the old UID:s will need to be killed and restarted. You can check your CS UID with a command ‘id -u user@cs’. If it is less than 65535, your CS UID will change after your files are moved. Note: only the numerical UID is changed, you user account is still the same.
 
30.09.2015 - 13:33 Jani Jaakkola
29.09.2015 - 17:21 Jani Jaakkola