Synology diskstation

Pergamon is a Synology diskstation that can be accessed in a number of ways. It offers each group member 1 TB of storage space (this may be expanded in the future).

Usage scenarios

Logging in via ssh

You have the same username as on the main cluster. Log in from your workstation via 'ssh pergamon'. This is not a full Linux implementation; the main purpose of the shell is to navigate around the file system. Your home folder is '/volume1/homes/USERNAME'.

ssh access is disabled.

Web access

https://pergamon.ms.northwestern.edu:5001

Copying data to diskstation via scp

You can use scp as you would use it for copying files to any other machine:

scp access is disabled.

scp LOCAL_FILES pergamon:

Copying data to diskstation via rsync

You must specify your home folder, i.e., from your workstation do

rsync -avz LOCAL_FILES pergamon:/volume1/homes/USERNAME

Mounting your Synology folder on OS X

On your Mac, start Finder, select 'Go' and then 'Connect to Server'. In server address, enter:

afp://pergamon.ms.northwestern.edu

From the folders offered, select 'home'. This folder is now available in Finder under 'Shared: pergamon' and from the command line on your Mac via '/Volumes/home'.

As an alternative, you can also mount your folder via the WebDAV protocol. This works in the same way, except that you enter the following for the server address:

https://pergamon.ms.northwestern.edu:5006

Using Synology for OS X Time Machine backups

Once the pergamon drive is mounted you can use it as a backup drive with Time Machine on a Mac OS. Simply chose the appropriate pergamon drive (e.g. home) in Time Machine and the backup should begin. Depending on the size of your disk the first backup might take up to two days. After the first backup the Time Machine will perform regular hourly backups whenever connected to the internet with pergamon drive mounted. Time Machine will create a folder "xx.sparsebundle", where "xx" is your computer name, within which all backup files are kept. Note the standard quota per user is 1TB (as of June 2019) so you might want to delete old backups manually to avoid overfilling the drive. When restoring files the Time Machine will take more time to load as compared to having an USB backup drive which is due to bandwidth limitations of the network connection.

Accessing your Synology folder on your Linux workstation via WebDAV

On Ubuntu, open Nautilus (see e.g. https://www.synology.com/en-global/knowledgebase/tutorials/610#t2_3) and choose Connect to server. Then enter as Server Address:

davs://pergamon.ms.northwestern.edu:5006

On openSuSE, open Dolphin (from launcher go to "Computer" and then "Network"). Then choose Add Network Folder. In the dialog box, enter:

• Name: Pergamon
• User: your username
• Server: pergamon.ms.northwestern.edu
• Port: 5006
• Folder: /
• Check Use encryption. It is possible that the port is then reset to 443. If this happens, change it back to 5006.

Then proceed via Save & Connect. You will receive a warning about the SSL certificate. Accept this.

Mounting your Synology folder on your Linux workstation via WebDAV

Prerequisite: the davfs driver must have been installed and configured, see below under 'Enabling davfs'. Then, as regular user, do

mount /mnt/pergamon

To unmount, do

umount /mnt/pergamon

This works well, but one problem I observed is that the creation time of folders copied TO the Synology folder is not preserved when using 'cp -p' or 'cp -a'. In principle this should be possible (they are preserved when using rsync), so this appears to be a bug.

Mounting your Synology folder on your Linux workstation via NFS

This is technically possible, but currently not enabled.

Administration

Creating a new user

• On the Control Panel, select User, Create.

• • Choose the same username as in NIS.

• • Join groups: Only users.

• • Assign shared folder permissions: read/write to homes, no access to all other folders.

• • User quota settings: 1000 GB.

• • Assign application permissions:

• • User speed limit setting: no limit.

• After this, log in as root, and change /etc/passwd, such that for the new users /sbin/nologin is replaced with /bin/sh

• Also, while logged in as root, do chmod og-rx /volume1/homes/newuser (where newuser is the new username)

Enabling davfs on Linux

These instructions are for openSuSE 13.1.

• Install davfs2 (see https://software.opensuse.org/package/davfs2)
• Add this line to /etc/fstab:

https://pergamon.ms.northwestern.edu:5006   /mnt/pergamon   davfs   rw,noauto,user,file_mode=600,dir_mode=700 0 0

• Create mount point:

mkdir /mnt/pergamon