Hello,

Maybe this was not appropriate for the networking forum...

My university provides me with an AFS space, on which all my data is stored. Its address is of the form /afs/umich.edu/user/....

Now, I would very much like to be able to map it, mount it, or whatever you call it, so that it appears as a folder on my desktop.
I know I can access it through ssh, but that's a pain. Is there a way to do this (easily...)?
I tried installing openAFS, and I did, but don't know how to launch it. Iy might not even be the right solution...

Thanks,
Tom

There are two methods for using AFS in linux. The first is a simple (but still incomplete) kAFS driver implementation (which comes with a vanilla kernel). Instructions for using it are here.

Additionally, there is OpenAFS. This is more complicated (with userspace daemons in addition to a kernel module). Here is a guide for setting up an OpenAFS client for use in linux (it targets Red Hat/Fedora, but the instructions should be the same). A more detailed quick guide may be found here (notice that the guide is originally for the closed IBM/AFS, so it references things like installing binaries off a CD and such. Just ignore that and obtain the appropriate packages from your distribution as you already seem to have done).

Thanks for the info!
This was all a little bit above my head, but I guess some of it worked, as I woke up this morning (after a reboot) with a "sftp.itd.umich.edu" on my desktop...

Now the question is... How on earth did I get it? Here are some of the commands that I tried yesterday:
smbclient file://afs/umich.edu/user/endOfthePath
smbclient //sftp.itd.umich.edu/ -U UMROOT/myName

or maybe something along the line of:
mount /afs/umich.edu/...
mount //afs/umich.edu
mount chadefau@sftp.itd.umich.edu


This last one (or something like it) is most likely, since I now have a folder on my Desktop called "sftp.itd.umich.edu", which asks me for my password when I click on it and takes me pretty much to the root of the umich system. (and i'd like to change that to my specific path in this system, which is why I need to figure out what I did...)

I should also say: when I open this "magic" folder, its location is: "ssh://sftp.itd.umich.edu". Just in case that tells us anything...

Thanks!
Tom