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Connecting to RDS

RDS presents storage using the SMB protocol 1 to machines on the KCL network. Instructions for connecting are given below for Microsoft Windows, MacOS and Unix.

Microsoft Windows

The Windows format for the RDS SMB share is

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\\rds.er.kcl.ac.uk\<your share name>

and will work “as-is”, if you’re logged on with your KCL ID, from an “Explorer” window (replacing with the title registered to your Project).

Tip

e.g. if your project is my_project the view in the Explorer window will be similar to the following. . .

example

If you receive an error saying that you do not have access or the password is incorrect, it may be that Windows is trying to present incorrect credentials. The user can be specified explicitly from a command prompt with:

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net use \\rds.er.kcl.ac.uk\"your share name" /user:kclad\"KCL ID"

Attention

(replacing "KCL ID" and "your share name" as appropriate to your account and project)

Once RDS is mounted you will be able to access the storage in a manner similar to any other Network Drive. RDS will be visible in the Network section on the left hand side of the Explorer window as shown:

explorer

If you would like to make the connection your RDS share automatic, it can be mapped to a Windows drive letter by right-clicking on the share and selecting Map network drive... You will be given the option to chose which drive letter, which credentials (username/password) to use for the connection and whether to re-connect automatically at machine restart.

example

MacOS

On MacOS, the share can be mounted via the Finder application, using the “Connect to server” option under the “Go” menu (or Cmd-K) and connecting to:

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smb://"KCL ID"@rds.er.kcl.ac.uk/"your share name"

Attention

(replacing "KCL ID" and "your share name" as appropriate to your account and project).

e.g. If your KCL ID = k1234567 and your new project is my_project. . . ...

macos

The storage will appear in the filesystem under /Volumes.

If you cannot connect it may be that MacOS is automatically using the wrong password. You can force it to prompt for the password by adding ":*" after your username. e.g.

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smb://k1234567:*@rds.er.kcl.ac.uk/my_project

Linux, BSD, other Unices

There are various ways of connecting to SMB storage on different Unix systems. As an example, the following is for Debian/Ubuntu Linux distributions.

Mounting an RDS share

First ensure that the appropriate package is installed to handle SMB mounts.

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sudo apt install cifs-utils

and then mount the storage

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sudo mount -t cifs //rds.er.kcl.ac.uk/"share name" \\
"desired local mount point" \\
-o domain=kclad,username="KCL ID",file_mode=0666,dir_mode=0777

replacing "share name", "KCL ID" and "desired mount point" accordingly.

Attention

The file_mode and dir_mode directives ensure that the mount is accessible by all users on the system and should be modified if this is not what is required.

Command line transfers to/from RDS

If you do not wish to mount RDS, for simple file transfers the smbclient utility may be suitable.

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$ smbclient //rds.er.kcl.ac.uk/my_project -U kclad/k1234567
Enter KCLAD\k1234567’s password:
Try "help" to get a list of possible commands.
smb: \>

After entering the password and connecting, the remote share is accessible in a manner similar to sftp, with the prompt smb: \> accepting commands such as ls, get, put.

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Message_Block ↩