You can only access our Windows file server directly (using normal Microsoft file sharing) from a University of Minnesota network address. If connecting from outside, you can either first connect to the University VPN service, or you can connect using ssh.

If you are trying to access the University network from a external source (ie. a personal home computer), you will need to connect to the U's VPN service - here are their downloads and guides.

After connecting to the VPN, you should be able to connect to your home directory and other shares using native Windows file sharing, either by typing the path into the address bar in a file browser such as Windows Explorer, or by using “Map network drive”.

Some example paths you can connect to include:

• your user folder at \\spa-home.spa.umn.edu\users$\<your X500>
• other school shared drives at \\spa-home.spa.umn.edu\sharename (replace sharename with the name of the drive)
• your research group space at \\spa-data.spa.umn.edu\sharename

For your username to access the share, enter AD\<your X500>

Windows XP users may need to perform some additional configuration, see “Troubleshooting” towards the bottom of this page.

This lets you connect to your Windows file storage without first connecting to the VPN.

Use winscp to connect to spa-home.spa.umn.edu. Login with username of AD\internetid and your x500/internet password.

Note, winscp has two interfaces available (and asks which you want during installation) - the “Explorer” interface is most similar to the regular Windows file manager.

Alternatively you could try mapping a drive letter using either Dokan (free but untested) or ExpanDrive (tested, but you have to pay for it)

• First install macfuse (Latest version here)
• Then download sshfs for your version of OS X (Latest version here) and save in your Downloads folder
• Open a terminal and do the following to install sshfs:

mv ~/Downloads/sshfs-static-leopard ~/sshfs   #(or replace 'leopard' with whatever your version is)
chmod a+x ~/sshfs

Then, to make a folder “physics” on your desktop which is connected to AD use the following syntax:

mkdir -p ~/Desktop/physics
~/sshfs -o uid=$UID youx500internetID@spa-home.spa.umn.edu:/home ~/Desktop/physics

The key is -o uid=$UID to map the username from your AD account to your local mac user, without this the files will not be accessible.

There's also a nicer graphical client for accessing files over ssh called MacFusion (from http://macfusionapp.org). To make it work with our server, you'll need to use the “Extra options (Advanced) field to specify your local UID (which is usually 501, but you'll need to check this). Thus, the options field would read something like -o uid=501.

From most linux distributions (including departmental linux systems) you can simply run:

mkdir targetdir
sshfs -o uid=$UID youx500internetID@spa-home.spa.umn.edu:/home targetdir

Non-UMN Windows XP installs *may* need NTLMv2 auth policy set in gpedit.msc.

• Click on the Start menu and select Run…
• Type gpedit.msc and click OK.
• Navigate to Local Computer Policy/Computer Configuration/Windows Settings/Security Settings/Local Policies/Security Options.
• Double click on Network security: LAN Manager authentication level.
• Set the value to Send NTLMv2 response only. Refuse LM & NTLM.
• Click the OK button.
• Restart the computer.