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Windows file shares (smbclient)

Windows file shares (aka. "Samba" shares or "CIFS" shares) can be accessed from the login nodes using the smbclient tool. The workflow shown below should support most use cases. In the example shown here, we will connect to the Windows file share \\campushome.campus.tue.nl\20232655, with the username tue\20232655. If you want to connect to a non-centrally mananaged storage, e.g. a research group's NAS, you might need to use a different username and password, e.g. nottue\myname

Besides through the smbclient tool, direct access to Windows file shares on the cluster is not supported. The reason for this is that a misbehaving job could easily put a too large demand on the central Windows storage, which would hinder everyone working at TU/e.

Connecting

  1. Connect to any of the cluster's login nodes.

  2. Connect to the Windows file share using the following command: 

    smbclient -U tue/20232655 //campushome.campus.tue.nl/20232655
    and enter your password when prompted.

    Note: you need to use the appropriate username! If you want to connect to a non-centrally managed storage, such as a research group NAS, you may need to use a different username and password!

  3. The smbclient tool now shows you the following prompt: 

    smb: \>

smbclient provides you a prompt much like the following:

smb: \>

Here, the "\ indicates that we're currently in the root of the Windows file share. To show the files and folders on the share, do

ls

For example:

smb: \> ls
  .                                   D        0  Wed Jun 21 13:46:30 2023
  ..                                  D        0  Wed Jun 21 13:46:30 2023
  software                            D        0  Wed Jun 21 13:59:42 2023
  _viminfo                            A    15029  Wed Jun 21 13:46:30 2023

                262144 blocks of size 4096. 194259 blocks available

which shows that we have a directory ("D") called "software" and a file called "_viminfo". To go into the "software" directory, do

cd software

For example:

smb: \> cd software
smb: \software\>

smbclient now correctly shows that we're in the "software" folder. To go back up to the root folder, do

cd ..

For example:

smb: \software\> cd ..
smb: \>

Copying files into the cluster

The following command will copy a file called "data.zip" to the current directory on the cluster:

smb: \> get data.zip
getting file \data.zip of size 99248046 as data.zip (46574.7 KiloBytes/sec) (average 46574.7 KiloBytes/sec)
smb: \>

The following commands will copy a folder hierarchy called "myfolder" to the current directory on the cluster:

smb: \> recurse on
smb: \> prompt off
smb: \> mget myfolder
getting file \myfolder\data.zip of size 99248046 as data.zip (56912.5 KiloBytes/sec) (average 56912.5 KiloBytes/sec)
getting file \myfolder\morefolders\afile.txt of size 21 as afile.txt (10.3 KiloBytes/sec) (average 56845.7 KiloBytes/sec)
smb: \>

Copying files to the Windows file share

The following command will copy a file called "data.zip" to the current directory on the Windows file share:

smb: \> put data.zip
putting file data.zip as \data.zip (59828.3 kb/s) (average 59828.3 kb/s)
smb: \>

The following commands will copy a folder hierarchy called "myfolder" to the current directory on the cluster:

smb: \> recurse on
smb: \> prompt off
smb: \> mput myfolder
putting file myfolder/morefolders/afile.txt as \myfolder\morefolders\afile.txt (6.8 kb/s) (average 6.8 kb/s)
putting file myfolder/data.zip as \myfolder\data.zip (110894.6 kb/s) (average 110515.3 kb/s)
smb: \>

Closing smbclient

Enter the following command:

smb: \> exit

or hit Ctrl-D.