Service Desk Knowledgebase: File Server

This is the File Server content page of the CL Wiki Service Desk Knowledgebase. Its purpose is to provide information to the Service Desk team on how to handle problems and requests about this CL service. If you are involved with the provision of this CL service please feel free to add to the knowledge about that it.

If CL staff need to tell the Service Desk team about problems with this service please email
sys-admin-aside@cl.cam.ac.uk.

Return to the Service Desk Knowledgebase SERVICE PORTFOLIO

Key Service Description & URLs

• Filespace in cl.cam.ac.uk - File Server is also known as: Filer, Elmer or (as a virtual disk server) Eldo
• Computer Laboratory News (Twitter use @UC_CL_SysAdm)

CL Customer Documentation

• Information for Windows users
• Remote file access using WebDAV
• Information for Mac OS X users
• Kerberos access to the filer

Further CL Sys-Admin Resources

• http://www.wiki.cl.cam.ac.uk/rowiki/SysInfo/NetApp - Sys-Admin Notes on the NetApp File Server

Underpinning Services

• ??? - Any supporting or underpinning services

Customer-base for this Service

• All staff and students of the Computer Laboratory

Costs

• Free to all current staff and students of the Computer Laboratory

SLA

• N/A

Service Desk Call Handling Procedure

Escalation points and key contacts to be defined...

• RT tickets can be escalated to the ??? team by leaving the Queue as sys-admin with the Owner set to Nobody and the Status set to new. Tell the requestor:
  I am passing this request over to the ??? team who, I'm sure, will be in contact shortly.

• RT tickets can be escalated to the ??? by changing the Queue to ??? with the Owner set to Nobody and the Status set to new. Tell the requestor:
  I am passing this request over to the ??? team who, I'm sure, will be in contact shortly.

• RT tickets can be escalated to Firstname Lastname by changing the Owner to ??? with the Status set to new. Tell the requestor:
  I am passing this request over to ??? who, I'm sure, will be in contact shortly.

Contacts

Primary

• ???@cl.cam.ac.uk (Goes to ???)
• ???@lists.cam.ac.uk (Goes to ???)
• Tel: ???

Other

• Firstname Lastname

Availability

• 24x7

Hints, Tips & Known Issues

Linux user can't login using graphical interface

Graham Titmus (13 Jan 2015)

Symptoms: Linux user can't login using graphical interface, they enter username and password and get a blank screen then back to login

A common cause of this is a failure to access the home directory stored on the File Server (AKA Elmer or Filer), X (the window manager) needs to write a file there when it starts the user session. To diagnose if this is the problem do the following:-

1. Remote login to the machine using ssh -K hostname@cl.cam.ac.uk from a CL machine - check if your home directory is present (ls -al ~). If is is look to see if the users home directory is present (ls -al ~crsid).
2. If the home directory is missing then try to restart the auto mounter (cl-asuser service autofs restart).
3. Look at the mounted filesystems (grep ldap /proc/mounts - will show which systems have been auto mounted using data form the LDAP).

An alternative is to ask the user to check if it is the machine failing to log them in or a problem with X by getting them to try on the text console (Select with Ctrl-Alt-F2). If they can login there but have no home then it is probably a problem with the filesystem. If they cannot login at all then it is an authentication problem. They should then try from another machine that is known to work to check their login works.

Categorising Keywords

• A categorization or service type