Configuring & Accessing Your VUspace
What is VUspace?
VUspace gives you 100 MB of file space that is available to you from
just about any networked campus computer you might use. VUspace gives you
a place to not only securely store files, but also put your webpage. And
then even without a VPN, files that are
your
public
web space are accessible
from any computer that is connected to the Internet.
Your VUspace is authenticated by your VUnetID and password, which helps
ensure that only you have access to files you store there. An exception
is a folder named public_web, which you can create if you want to make
your files and or websites viewable from anywhere on the
Internet.
If you use your VUspace on a shared computer, such as in a lab, always
be sure to unmount your VUspace when you are finished. If you don't unmount,
the
next person to use the computer will have access to the files in your VUspace.
More than likely, you'll be using your VUspace from your office or home
computer.
How do I set up my VUspace?
You must first "claim" your VUspace. Do that here:
https://www2.vanderbilt.edu/maildb/plsql/vuspace_user.claim_vuspace_htm
Once you have claimed your own spave, then you have to be able to connect to it. There are many ways that you can do this. One of the easiest
ways is to use the VUspace Mounter utility.
The VUspace Mounter utility maps your VUspace drive to a local drive letter
(such as E:\ or even V:\). To most of your programs, your network drive
will appear and function like a local drive. Just imagine that your VUspace
is like a floppy disk or a thumb drive when reading from and saving to
your VUspace.
You can use the VUspace mounter utility from any networked computer on
campus, or at home when using a Virtual Private Network (more about this later). If you use the mounter utility on a public machine, make sure you unmount your VUspace so no one else has access to your files.
Download your VUspace Mounter Utility here: vuspaceMounter.exe
Every time you want to access your VUspace, you will need to use this mounter utility. If you accidently close the window showing the contents of your VUspace, don't panic. Go to My Computer, and look under Network Drives. Your VUspace should be listed there.
What is this "web space" within VUspace?
You should find a
folder named public_web in your VUspace. If you don't see this folder, you'll need to create it. Anything that you want to
access on the Internet should be put in here. Don't put private materials
in here, as the whole world has access to anything in the public_web folder.
In the public_web folder there might be a file named "index.htm". That is a file that works like a homepage. Browsers are smart and know to look for the index.html (or index.asp, index.html, index.php, etc.) file and will automatically display it. If you have other files that you want to access through a browser, you either need to remove the index.htm file, or just remember the names of the files that you want to access and put them at the end of the URL. (This is explained more in depth below.)
What's the URL of my VUspace?
If you want to view files online through a web browser such as Internet
Explorer or Firefox, you need to know the URL.
Your stuff is available at: http://people.vanderbilt.edu/~firstname.m.lastname where
firstname.m.lastname is any of your email address varients. (Again, remember that only stuff in the public_web folder will show up here. Everything else that isn't in the public_web folder is still safe and sitting in your remainnig VUspace.)
Here is an example: http://people.vanderbilt.edu/~rachel.vacek/
The file that you see when you go to this URL is the index.htm file that is in the public_web folder, but the browser doesn't display that part of the URL. But trust me, it's there. So in other words, the above URL is the exact same page as http://people.vanderbilt.edu/~rachel.vacek/index.htm.
Not everything in the public_web folder has to be an HTML file or stuff for webpages. Maybe you want to send your colleague a docuement, but it's huge and you don't want to fill their email inbox. Who likes getting huge files in their email anyway? You can put that document in the public_web folder, and send your colleague the URL instead. Save bandwidth and look cooler!
For example, here is the URL for a Word document that is in the same root folder as index.htm. Again, the browser is intelligent enough to recognize that it's a Word document and not an HTML file, so it will try to open the document.
http://people.vanderbilt.edu/~rachel.vacek/example.doc
How do I access my VUspace from off campus?
You must use Vanderbilt's Virtual Private Network (VPN) to access VUspace from off-campus if you're not connecting via VUaccess
(Vanderbilt's dial-up access). This means that if you connect through a commercial Internet service provider (ISP) such as BellSouth, EarthLink, AOL or Comcast, you must use Vanderbilt's Virtual Private Network to access VUspace.
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