University IFS File Storage Space

Students' personal file space is provided on a campus server and is known as Institutional File Server (IFS), or Andrews File Server (AFS), space. This space is provided as part of the Basic Computing Package and is routinely backed up by ITCS.  Accessing your IFS space requires your uniqname login and Kerberos password. 

Accessing your IFS Space

Web Access to IFS

You can upload and download files to and from your IFS space at http://mfile.umich.edu.

SFTP Access

If you have a Secure FTP program you can use FTP to access IFS.  Enter the following to connect to your IFS space:

Host Name:  login.itd.umich.edu 
Host Type:  automatic detect 
User ID/Login: uniqname
Password:  Kerberos password 

Sharing Files in Your IFS Space

Why exchange disks or emails to share files when you can use your IFS space?  Your IFS file storage space can be used to provide files over the Internet, either publicly or to specific individuals. 

Your IFS space has a Shared folder and a Public folder. You can set access to subfolders within these areas (and the files within these folders) for specific individuals with uniqnames or for public access. 

Your IFS Public Folder

Files and folders within your IFS Public folder are accessible for downloading by anyone who knows the address.  This is the easiest method to share files, both for set up and access by others.  While anyone can access the files who knows the address, based on your uniqname and subfolder name, you can have some degree of control by not sharing the address except with those who you want to access it.

1. Create a subfolder inside of your IFS/Public folder. Do not create a home.htm(l) or index.htm(l) page for this folder.
2. Provide others with the address http://www.umich.edu/~your uniqname/sub folder name.
3. In the Web browser, those who enter this address will receive a listing of all of the files in this subfolder. They can right click on a file they want in the list and save the file to their computer.

Note: Be sure the folder does not contain a file named home.htm(l) or index.htm(l) page, or the web page will appear rather than the file listing.  To create a website, first create a folder called "html" to store your webpages.

Your IFS Shared Folder

Files within your IFS Shared subfolder allow you to set specific control over which individuals can access the files at what level (read, write, upload other files to the folder, etc.). To provide access to this area, you set up an Access Control List for each person using their uniqname. If your group or team has changing members, you can set up a private "protection group" name then set up a single ACL for the whole group.  Members are then added and removed from the group rather than from the ACL.

Instructions to set up and manage Access Control Lists for your IFS space are at http://www.itd.umich.edu/itcsdocs/s4111/. 

Instructions for Protection Groups (similar to e-mail groups but for controlling IFS access) are at http://www.itd.umich.edu/itcsdocs/s4033/.

Others can access your Shared folder using an SFTP program or the http://mfile.umich.edu website by logging into their own IFS space then navigating to your folder following the path /first letter of your uniqname/second letter of your uniqname/your uniqname.

Your IFS Private Folder

All of the files that you want to keep private and secure should be saved inside of your Private folder.  Files and folders within the root directory of your IFS space, while not able to be opened or downloaded by others, are visible to others in the directory listing as they navigate from your IFS space into your Shared folder.