Mounting a Firewire Disk on the Cluster


A popular means of transfering data from the synchrontron home is to copy it to one of the lab's firewire, portable, disks and carry it home.   (This sort of transfer used to be called "SneakerNet".)  At the very least, you will need to copy this data to DVD-R for long term storage and you may want to transfer it to /usr/images for local processing.  Your best bet for connecting a firewire disk to the "cluster" is via one of the linux systems in the computer room.  The linux systems are given the names of halogen elements.

So far I have found it impossible to write new files to a firewire disk, or to delete existing files.
  1. Pick your linux machine and log on.
  2. Plug the power cord into a power socket.
  3. Plug the firewire cable, which should already be connected to the computer, into the drive
  4. Turn on the drive
  5. Type the command "mount /mnt/fw"
  6. Your files will now be found on the file system /mnt/fw.  You can read files there and copy them elsewhere, as you desire.  If you log out, the drive will remain mounted.  The drive belongs to your account.
  7. When you have finished, type the command "umount /mnt/fw"
  8. Turn off the drive, unplug the firewire cable leaving it plugged into the computer, and remove the power cord.

Dale Tronrud, August 27, 2004
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