- 5 Accessing Network Resources #
- 5.1 Connecting to a Network #
- 5.2 General Notes on File Sharing and Network Browsing #
- 5.3 Accessing Network Shares #
- 5 Accessing network resources #
- 5.1 Connecting to a network #
- 5.2 General notes on file sharing and network browsing #
- 5.3 Accessing network shares #
- Browse files on a server or network share
- Connect to a file server
- Writing URLs
- Types of servers
5 Accessing Network Resources #
From your desktop, you can access files and directories or certain services on remote hosts or make your own files and directories available to other users in your network. SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server offers the following ways of accessing and creating network shared resources.
Your file manager, GNOME Files, lets you browse your network for shared resources and services. Learn more about this in Section 5.3, “Accessing Network Shares”.
Sharing Directories in Mixed Environments
Using GNOME Files, configure your files and directories to share with other members of your network. Make your data readable or writable for users from any Windows or Linux workstation. Learn more about this in Section 5.4, “Sharing Directories”.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server can be configured to integrate into an existing Windows network. Your Linux machine then behaves like a Windows client. It takes all account information from the Active Directory domain controller, just as the Windows clients do. Learn more about this in Section 5.5, “Managing Windows Files”.
Configuring and Accessing a Windows Network Printer
You can configure a Windows network printer through the GNOME control center. Learn how to do this in Section 5.6, “Configuring and Accessing a Windows Network Printer”.
5.1 Connecting to a Network #
You can connect to a network with wired and wireless connections. To view your network connection, check the network icon in the right part of the main panel. If you click the icon, you can see more details in the menu. Click the connection name to see more details and access the settings.
To learn more about connecting to a network, see Chapter 26, Using NetworkManager.
5.2 General Notes on File Sharing and Network Browsing #
Whether and to what extent you can use file sharing and network browsing and in your network highly depends on the network structure and on the configuration of your machine.
Before setting up either of them, contact your system administrator. Check whether your network structure supports a feature and whether your company’s security policies permit it.
Network browsing, be it SMB browsing for Windows shares or SLP browsing for remote services, relies heavily on the machine’s ability to send broadcast messages to all clients in the network. These messages and the clients’ replies to them enable your machine to detect any available shares or services.
For broadcasts to work effectively, your machine must be part of the same subnet as all other machines it is querying. If network browsing does not work on your machine or the detected shares and services do not meet your expectations, contact your system administrator to ensure that you are connected to the appropriate subnet.
To allow network browsing, your machine needs to keep several network ports open to send and receive network messages that provide details on the network and the availability of shares and services. The standard SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is configured for tight security and has a firewall that protects your machine against the Internet.
To adjust the firewall configuration, you either need to ask your system administrator to put your interface into the internal zone or to disable the firewall entirely (depending on your company’s security policy). If you try to browse a network while a restrictive firewall is running on your machine, GNOME Files warns you that your security restrictions are not allowing it to query the network.
5.3 Accessing Network Shares #
Networking workstations can be set up to share directories. Typically, files and directories are marked to allow users remote access. These are called network shares . If your system is configured to access network shares, you can use your file manager to access these shares and browse them just as easily as if they were located on your local machine. Your level of access to the shared directories (whether read-only or write access, as well) is dependent on the permissions granted to you by the owner of the shares.
To access network shares, open GNOME Files and click Other Locations in the sidebar. GNOME Files displays the servers and networks that you can access. Double-click a server or network to access its shares. You might be required to authenticate to the server by providing a user name and password. Common network shares are SFTP-accessible resources (SSH File Transfer Protocol) or Windows shares.
5 Accessing network resources #
Learn how to share files and directories with other users in your network.
From your desktop, you can access files and directories or certain services on remote hosts or make your own files and directories available to other users in your network. SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server offers the following ways of accessing and creating network shared resources.
Your file manager, GNOME Files, lets you browse your network for shared resources and services. Learn more about this in Section 5.3, “Accessing network shares”.
Sharing directories in mixed environments
Using GNOME Files, configure your files and directories to share with other members of your network. Make your data readable or writable for users from any Windows or Linux workstation. Learn more about this in Section 5.4, “Sharing directories”.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server can be configured to integrate into an existing Windows network. Your Linux machine then behaves like a Windows client. It takes all account information from the Active Directory domain controller, just as the Windows clients do. Learn more about this in Section 5.5, “Managing Windows files”.
Configuring and accessing a Windows network printer
You can configure a Windows network printer through the GNOME control center. Learn how to do this in Section 5.6, “Configuring and accessing a Windows network printer”.
5.1 Connecting to a network #
You can connect to a network with wired and wireless connections. To view your network connection, click the network icon from the right side of the top bar. Then click Wi-Fi not connected , click the name of the network you want and click Connect . Click the connection name to see more details and access the settings.
To learn more about connecting to a network, see Chapter 31, Using NetworkManager.
5.2 General notes on file sharing and network browsing #
Whether and to what extent you can use file sharing and network browsing and in your network highly depends on the network structure and on the configuration of your machine.
Before setting up either of them, contact your system administrator. Check whether your network structure supports a feature and whether your company’s security policies permit it.
Network browsing, be it SMB browsing for Windows shares or SLP browsing for remote services, relies heavily on the machine’s ability to send broadcast messages to all clients in the network. These messages and the clients’ replies to them enable your machine to detect any available shares or services.
For broadcasts to work effectively, your machine must be part of the same subnet as all other machines it is querying. If network browsing does not work on your machine or the detected shares and services do not meet your expectations, contact your system administrator to ensure that you are connected to the appropriate subnet.
To allow network browsing, your machine needs to keep several network ports open to send and receive network messages that provide details on the network and the availability of shares and services. The standard SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is configured for tight security and has a firewall that protects your machine against the Internet.
To adjust the firewall configuration, you either need to ask your system administrator to put your interface into the internal zone or to disable the firewall entirely (depending on your company’s security policy). If you try to browse a network while a restrictive firewall is running on your machine, GNOME Files warns you that your security restrictions are not allowing it to query the network.
5.3 Accessing network shares #
Networking workstations can be set up to share directories. Typically, files and directories are marked to allow users remote access. These are called network shares . If your system is configured to access network shares, you can use your file manager to access these shares and browse them just as easily as if they were located on your local machine. Your level of access to the shared directories (whether read-only or write access, as well) is dependent on the permissions granted to you by the owner of the shares.
To access network shares, open GNOME Files and click Other Locations in the sidebar. GNOME Files displays the servers and networks that you can access. Double-click a server or network to access its shares. You might be required to authenticate to the server by providing a user name and password. Common network shares are SFTP-accessible resources (SSH File Transfer Protocol) or Windows shares.
Browse files on a server or network share
You can connect to a server or network share to browse and view files on that server, exactly as if they were on your own computer. This is a convenient way to download or upload files on the internet, or to share files with other people on your local network.
To browse files over the network, open the Files application from the Activities overview, and click Other Locations in the sidebar. The file manager will find any computers on your local area network that advertise their ability to serve files. If you want to connect to a server on the internet, or if you do not see the computer you’re looking for, you can manually connect to a server by typing in its internet/network address.
Connect to a file server
- In the file manager, click Other Locations in the sidebar.
- In Connect to Server , enter the address of the server, in the form of a URL . Details on supported URLs are listed below .
Writing URLs
A URL , or uniform resource locator , is a form of address that refers to a location or file on a network. The address is formatted like this:
The scheme specifies the protocol or type of server. The example.com portion of the address is called the domain name . If a username is required, it is inserted before the server name:
Some schemes require the port number to be specified. Insert it after the domain name:
Below are specific examples for the various server types that are supported.
Types of servers
You can connect to different types of servers. Some servers are public, and allow anybody to connect. Other servers require you to log in with a username and password.
You may not have permissions to perform certain actions on files on a server. For example, on public FTP sites, you will probably not be able to delete files.
The URL you enter depends on the protocol that the server uses to export its file shares.
If you have a secure shell account on a server, you can connect using this method. Many web hosts provide SSH accounts to members so they can securely upload files. SSH servers always require you to log in.
A typical SSH URL looks like this:
When using SSH, all the data you send (including your password) is encrypted so that other users on your network can’t see it.
FTP is a popular way to exchange files on the Internet. Because data is not encrypted over FTP, many servers now provide access through SSH. Some servers, however, still allow or require you to use FTP to upload or download files. FTP sites with logins will usually allow you to delete and upload files.
A typical FTP URL looks like this:
Sites that allow you to download files will sometimes provide public or anonymous FTP access. These servers do not require a username and password, and will usually not allow you to delete or upload files.
A typical anonymous FTP URL looks like this:
Some anonymous FTP sites require you to log in with a public username and password, or with a public username using your email address as the password. For these servers, use the FTP (with login) method, and use the credentials specified by the FTP site.
Windows computers use a proprietary protocol to share files over a local area network. Computers on a Windows network are sometimes grouped into domains for organization and to better control access. If you have the right permissions on the remote computer, you can connect to a Windows share from the file manager.
A typical Windows share URL looks like this:
Based on the HTTP protocol used on the web, WebDAV is sometimes used to share files on a local network and to store files on the internet. If the server you’re connecting to supports secure connections, you should choose this option. Secure WebDAV uses strong SSL encryption, so that other users can’t see your password.
A WebDAV URL looks like this:
UNIX computers traditionally use the Network File System protocol to share files over a local network. With NFS, security is based on the UID of the user accessing the share, so no authentication credentials are needed when connecting.
A typical NFS share URL looks like this: