1. A crash course in njit’s Afs
AFS Quick Tips
A crash course in njit’s Afs
- Kashif Qazi

2. What is AFS AFS stands for Andrew File System
A way to have storage space
Distributed file system lets you access your data virtually anywhere, anytime

3. Distributed Computing
Defn:
Users won’t know that the process or data is in some other computer in the network
Advantages
Availability
Efficiency

4. What is AFS for ME in NJIT?
A way to have storage space on the college network
A place to store
Web pages
Course Material
Research Material
Course Assignments

5. Client/Server Server provides data and services to the client
Client is accessed by the user and gets services and data from the server

6. Authentication Server
AFS
File Server
File Server
File Server
Authentication Server
(username,
password)
Client
Tokens
Remotely
E.g. afsconnect1.njit.edu
Laptop

7. Where is AFS File Servers: Clients:
In NJIT
Clients:
afsconnect1.njit.edu and afsconnect2.njit.edu
Any NJIT maintained MS Windows Workstation (Library, Student Mall PC Labs, GITC 2302)
Your own PC with OpenAFS Client installed
Each student has 125 MB of AFS disk space

8. Services Available by NJIT on AFS
Web Services (Apache Tomcat)
Variety of open source and commercial software (compilers like javac and gcc)
MySQL Database

9. How to Use AFS Three ways of accessing your 125 MB AFS space
Secure Shell (Remote Login)
OpenAFS Client for Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris
One of the AFS client machines in the labs
You need your UCID and AFS password

10. How to Use AFS – Secure Shell
Download and install the SSH Secure Shell from
If downloading remotely, you need VPN
Run SSH
Click ‘Quick Connect

11. How to Use AFS – Secure Shell
Enter afsconnect1.njit.edu or afsconnect2.njit.edu in ‘Host Name’
Enter UCID in User Name
Click ‘Connect’
Step 1
Step 2

12. How to Use AFS – Secure Shell
Enter your AFS Password
Click ‘OK’
Step 3

13. How to Use AFS – Secure Shell
You are connected!!

14. How to Use AFS – Secure Shell
Unix commands work in this environment
Type in ls and press return to see the list of files and directories in your root

15. How to Use AFS – Secure Shell
Unix commands work in this environment
Type in cd directory_name to go to particular directory

16. How to Use AFS – OpenAFS Client
Install and setup OpenAFS Client as per instructions at
After this, you should have a drive in ‘My Computer’ called H:
This is your AFS ‘drive’ which means your AFS space is directly accessible from ‘My Computer’

17. How to Setup Web Page
Your web-page’s address is:
The index.html file is located in public_html directory under root in your AFS space
For SSH you can type in cd public_html from root
For OpenAFS you can double click H: in ‘My Computer’ and then double click public_html directory
Modifying index.html modifies the web-page at the above address

18. How to Setup Web Page
You can now build your website in the public_html directory
Additionally NJIT’s AFS also provides for an Apache TomCat Web Server
You can also install CMSs like Drupal or CodeIgnitor

19. Backup Backup is taken every day
Last backup of home directory will be in the home directory itself
Older backups up to one year available from tape
Backups of research directories are backed up every week in a tape and kept for 1 year!

20. Some Help with Unix Commands
cd <path/directory_name> : changed current directory to path/directory. E.g. cd public_html
ls : Lists all files and directories in current directory
cp <path1/file> <path2/file> : copies file from path1 to path2
cat file_name : displays the file on the screen. Useful for reading small files

21. Some Help with Unix Commands
rm file_name : removes the file
mkdir dir_name : creates a new directory
rmdir dir_name : removes directory
fs sa ~/<path> ucid rl : gives ucid access to path directory on your AFS

22. Killing a process? If an application hangs? Find the process id
ps –u <username> | grep <processname>
Kill the process
kill -9 <processid>

23. Moving Files from your Computer
SSH
Includes SSH Secure File Transfer
Run and connect same way as Secure Shell Client
Drag and drop
OpenAFS Client
H: is like any other drive
Copy-Paste as usual

24. Connecting via Linux - I
Open up a terminal window in Linux
Execute the command
ssh –l ucid afsX.njit.edu
The first time you will see:
The authenticity of host afsX.njit.edu' can't be established. RSA key fingerprint is a long string of characters Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?
Type in ‘yes’ and press return
Type in password and press return

25. Connecting via Linux - II
Install OpenAFS Client
apt-get install openafs-client
Set “CELL” to cad.njit.edu
Other values use default
klog ucid
cd /afs/cad.njit.edu/u/k/m/kmq2

26. Further References For further information on NJIT’s AFS, visit
The last link is useful to check your AFS Quota, Usage, Reset Password, etc.