How-to: Mapping to a network drive

Owned by Karker, Nicholas
Last updated: Jan 04, 2024 by Whinnery, Daniel E
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This article documents how to map your $LAB or $HOME directory to your personal windows, mac, or linux computer. Mapping to a $LAB or $HOME directory is only available while on the UAlbany network. If you need to access these directories from off campus, you must first connect to the VPN. Please read more at the Remote Access page.

Instructions

Windows

 

  1. Open up the File Explorer


  2. Right-click on "This PC" and select "Map a network drive..."




  3. Select the "Drive: " of your choice

    1. for a $LAB directory, input into "Folder:" \\storage.arcc.albany.edu\[your_lab_name]

    2. for a $HOME directory, input into "Folder:" \\storage.arcc.albany.edu\[your_netid]

      Hint: Be sure to check "Connect using different credentials"


  4. Click finish and make sure Domain: UALBANY is displayed! Then, enter your NetID (lowercase) and password.

    1. If you do not see Domain: UALBANY, in the username field enter; UALBANY\[netid]


  5. You should now see the mapped drive in file explorer

Mac OS

To map from a mac, you need to use smb://

  1. From the Mac OS X Finder, hit Command+K to bring up the ‘Connect to Server’ window

  2. Enter smb://storage.arcc.albany.edu/[your_lab_name] and press "Connect"

  3. When prompted, enter your netid (lowercase) and password, and your directory should now appear in finder

Linux

Accessing from Linux is system dependent, if you are having trouble extrapolating the above directions to Linux, please contact askIT@albany.edu for support.

Ubuntu

The following has been tested with Ubuntu kernels as old as 4.13.0-45-generic on Ubuntu 16.04.1. In the example, $LAB is the name of your lab share.

  1. Ensure cifs is installed by running

    sudo apt-get install cifs-utils

  2. Create a directory for mounting the lab folder by running

    sudo mkdir -p /network/rit/lab/$LAB

  3. Mount the share by running

    sudo mount -t cifs -o username=NETID,vers=3.0 //169.226.65.171/$LAB /network/rit/lab/$LAB

 

 

Troubleshooting

If an error such as the following occurs where 'The network folder specified is currently mapped using a different user name and password. To connect using a different user name and password, first disconnect any existing mappings to this network share.' simple follow the instructions:

The solution is to disconnect all drives that are failing to connect and then reconnect with credentials. Windows is remembering details/credentials that it is not supposed to and then using them when mapping a new drive. By removing all un-connectable drives you can start with a clean slate for new mapping instructions.