Courses Disk Space

Last update 4/4/2001

The department provides course related AFS disk space for professors teaching courses. The Courses disk space is located in AFS file space. The Unix directory path name is "/afs/cs.unc.edu/project/courses". You can access this data area via any Unix system in the department or by mapping a drive to your Microsoft Windows platform. Students can then access the courses disk space from any of the department's computers.

You can place web documents and files in your courses directory. You can request a web link be placed on the department's http://www.cs.unc.edu/Courses page that links to your courses directory space. See the Courses web page for details. You can keep an archive of course related materials in the /afs/cs.unc.edu/courses/materials directory. Read below for more information.

Requesting Disk Space and Directory Naming Convention

To obtain disk space for your course please email help@cs.unc.edu requesting disk space. Please provide the course number. The course number will be used to create a subdirectory for you. Directories use the convention "comp###-syr" for example:

    /afs/cs.unc.edu/project/courses/comp101-s01

This would be for comp 101 spring semester 2001. You will get full AFS permissions on the directory. Directories have an initial disk quota of 500 megabytes. Quotas can be increased if necessary. Please indicate if you will need more then 500 megabytes of space.

About AFS

You will need to know something about AFS permissions; The AFS Users Guide is a good place to learn about AFS ACL's (Access Control Lists). You will be given full access to your courses directory. Your directory will also have read/list access from any machine in the department. You can then create AFS groups, add users to those groups and give permissions to those groups on your courses directory and subdirectories. For instance, you can create a group for your Teaching Assistants and give them full access rights to your courses directory. You can create a student group, add your students to this group and give the group permissions on subdirectories.

Courses web pages

You can create a subdirectory in your courses directory in which to store the course's web info. You can use any directory name you like; "public_html" is a standard directory name that is often used. Create a subdirectory in your courses directory, then send email to pubs@cs.unc.edu and request a link be made to your courses directory from the department's Courses page. If you create a subdirectory that does not have an "index.html" file within the subdirectory, the directory contents will be listed. Users can then use their web browser's to downloads files, i.e. course data.

The directory must have read/list AFS privelages in order for the web server to be able to access your pages. The following AFS command will give your directory access so that any machine in the department including the web server can read your courses web directory:

   /usr/afsws/bin/fs sa dir_name cs-machines rl

Where dir_name is the directory you wish to set access on. See the Department's Web Server FAQ for more info on the departments web server. Email help@cs.unc.edu if you need assistance with setting up your courses web space.

The courses/materials directory

A convention for indefinitely storing course related materials was started in spring 2001. The directory:

    /afs/cs.unc.edu/project/courses/materials

is a directory that can be used for indefinitely storing course related materials. PLEASE DO NOT run your courses directory out of the materials directory! When teaching a course request a directory with the course name and semester configured for you as described above. You can make pointers, (Unix links), that link from your course directory to your materials directory if you wish.

All professors in the AFS group "faculty" will have full access to the materials directory. If you are not in this group send email to help@cs.unc.edu requesting that you be put in the AFS faculty group. Execute the command "pts member faculty" on any department Unix machine to get a list of user names that are in the group.

Disk Space Management

There are13.5 gigabytes allocated for the entire courses directory. You can view how much space is available in the courses AFS partitions by executing the Unix command "fs df /afs/unc/proj/courses". We request that you periodically review your data in the courses directory and remove any data that is no longer needed. If you are done with your top level courses directory please email help@cs.unc.edu requesting that the directory be removed.