Local storage on Linux workstations and compute servers

Overview

On most Linux workstations, there's no user-writable local storage attached - all user data reside on file servers. This is a guarantee for users; they can move freely between workstations without worrying where their data actually is.

Back in the days (until ~2015 when the StorageUnified service was deployed), workstations were equipped with a local data area /NOBACKUP.

To enable free choice of workstations, a mechanism was put in place to access those data areas via the network. The folder /nobackup (sometimes /scr ) is a base folder on all workstations for network connections to those local data areas.

/NOBACKUP, /nobackup and scr is deprecated and is no first-class service of the institute anymore. Do not use it, if it can be avoided!

FAQ

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Why is /NOBACKUP storage deprecated?

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/NOBACKUP has one big advantage: it's connected directly to a computer, you can interactively log into.

However, there are some disadvantages as well:

• /NOBACKUP storage has always Protection level zero.
• There's no guarantee for file path stability. This is more important than you might think. Some programs rely on always finding their data at the same file path and put those paths into the actual data.
• Working from home/abroad is kind of common now. A workstation might be turned off, crashed or broken without anyone noticing.
• When doing computations on compute servers, using data on workstations is a lot slower than using data on file servers.

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There's no /NOBACKUP on my computer (anymore). Where should I put my data?

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Most storage in the institute is used for research data. This kind of data is managed on a per-project basis. Request storage for a research project or personal storage (e.g. for customized software, for paper collections, cloud synchronization folders,...) here.

Please write a ticket to request per-group storage of any kind.

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I need to access /to nobackup/mycomputer1 but it doesn't work on compute servers.

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Network connections to folders that are abruptly disconnected negatively affect the stability of the computer accessing the storage. Since non-IT personnel control the "off" switch of the computers on which these NOBACKUP folders reside, connections to these folders are not an option on systems that are difficult to restart (because many people are working on them at the same time).

Therefore compute servers do not allow access to /nobackup.

Solutions:

• Avoid NOBACKUP storage for your data! Get storage for research data here.
• Connect to a workstation to copy data from/to NOBACKUP partitions.
• Use sftp to access data on the respective workstation directly.

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... but I need access to /scr/mrincoming - this is not some workstation...

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Correct. /nobackup/mrincoming actually resides on a server but it is made accessible by the same concept as workstation storage is. Unfortunately, this cannot simply be changed. It is IT's goal to move this folder to StorageUnified ( /data/... ) but we're not there, yet.

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