Basic File and Directory Navigation

• Files and Folders and Directories, Oh My!
  
  
• Two Worlds, Two Visions, one underlying reality
  
  
• The Windows Perspective
  
  
• The Linux and Unix Perspective
  
  
• Crossing the Divide
  
  
• What do we have, and Where is it?
  
  
• Summary

WHAT ARE ALL THESE THINGS?

• File: basic unit of organization
  
  
• Folder: something to put files in
  
  
• Directory: Just another name for a folder
  
  
• Disk: or partition, or hard drive: physical medium for all the above
  
  
• Server: A computer with disks, accessible via the network
  
  
• Client: A computer (yes, with disks and files!) that you sit in front of
  (might or might not be a server)

WHAT'S THE HIERARCHY?

• Folders within folders, or (sub)directories within directories
  
  
• Tree structure
  
  
• Top level: drive letter C:\, or root directory /

• Paradigm is the same, e.g.:
    C:\pmurphy\mystuff.txt
  /users/pmurphy/mystuff.txt
  
  
• Delimiter: Unix/Linux uses / (forward slash), Windows uses \ (backslash)
  
  
• Commands are similar: cd, ls or dir, mkdir
  
  
• "Up one level" convention is two dots (both Windows and Unix/Linux)
  
  
• Each file has:
  • Location: folder or directory name, plus file name
  • Ownership: Account name that owns the file
  • Protection: readable, writable, and more
  • Access Control: groups, access to file (including "world", "everyone")

• Drive "Letters" (DOS Legacy): A:, B: for floppy drives, C: first hard drive, etc.
  
  
• Early networking: Additional letters for network drives ("drive mapping")
  
  
• More Modern (SMB) networking: \\server\sharename to "share" an area
  
  
• Windows Explorer usually used to navigate (image?)
  
  
• "Network Neighbourhood": other clients disks, other servers

• One FileSystem (to rule them all), starts with root dir /
  
  
• Standard locations: /usr, /var, /etc, /tmp, /bin on all Unix/Linux systems
  
  
• Different disks (= drives), partitions "mounted" on directories within the filesystem
  
  
• Everything is a file (devices too).
  
  
• Network File System (NFS): mount a server's disk. Everything in the One FileSystem!
  
  
• Shell (terminal, xterm) commands used to navigate (more powerful than DOS commands)
  
  
• Graphical Browsers (Gnome, KDE) used to browse the One FileSystem
  
  
• Automounter to explore other clients, servers "on demand" (not there till asked for!):
  • autofs: predefined set of mount points, e.g. /users/pmurphy or /home/aips or /DATA/BONOBO_1
  • amd: more like "network neighbourhood": /net/bonobo/ shows all "exported" filesystems on host bonobo.

• How do we access windows files from Linux or vice versa?
  
  
• SAMBA server: export parts of Unix/Linux FileSystem to Windows via SMB
  
  
• smbmount: samba client, mount windows SMB shares just like a NFS system
  
  
• NetApp: allows viewing Unix/Linux areas natively on Windows
  
  
• NetApp: also permits viewing Windows Shares thereon via NFS (by Linux/Unix clients)
  
  
• PC-NFS: (historical) product for NFS client and server functionality on Windows.
  
  
• Main inter-operability tools (SAMBA server, client tools) are now Unix/Linux based.

• NetApp (cvfiler): centralized, redundant, backed-up storage
  
  
• Samba Server (samba-cv, samba-gb, etc): show Linux/Unix filesystems (including NFS-mounted ones) to Windows users.
  
  
• Standard locations for Unix/NFS and Samba/Windows defined by CCE.
  
  
• CV Computing pages have more info; subset shown below.

• We're all in this together
  
  
• Know what resources we have, what disk space is there
  
  
• Your audience may have Windows and Linux people: accomodate both
  
  
• Don't forget to think about document formats.
  
  
• Keep your stick on the ice!