Computers at the ITB

General info

All public computers and servers at the ITB (when they run Linux) are set up with a similar file system layout.

Standard linux folders:

/
/boot/
/dev/
/etc/
/run/
/opt/
/usr/
/var/
/tmp/
/... (perhaps some more)

Shared network folders:

/groups/
/home/

Local storage:

/extra/
/extra2/ (if available)

Scratch folder (network):

/scratch/

Share folder (network):

/share/

Your home folder will be in /home/$USERNAME where $USERNAME will be a user’s last name in most cases. All home and group folders are shared amongst all computers and are regularly backed up.

The /extra folders are always local to a particular computer and are not backed up!

For computations it is advised to use either the /extra folders (and back up the results later), if the data does not need to be shared with other computers. Or the /scratch folder, if the data needs to be used on another computer or server.

As writing to the home and group folders too much can result in crashing the network (for everbody), it is advised not to run simulations directly in these folders but rather in a subfolder on /extra and write the resulting files there. After all data has been collected, it can be stored inside either your own home folder or inside your group’s folder in /groups.