Student Server

Every MCAD Student has space on the MCAD Student Server. Upon enrollment at MCAD, the school sets up an account for each student. 2 Gigabytes of virtual storage space are yours to utilize and enjoy. Every time you log onto one of the lab computers, you are accessing your personal server.

This has a number of benefits and uses. You can use the server as extra storage, or as long-term storage, for files and projects you may be working on. You know that big project that you just finished, but your client might want more work on it later? Store it on your server!

One of the great things about the student server is that you can access it anywhere. Need to access your files on a different computer, but they’re too big to e-mail? Store them on your server!

In addition to storage space, your student server has been set up as a web-server. On your server, that is a folder named ‘Sites.’ If you put your files in your Sites folder, you can access them on the Internet! This is a great way to share files with or show work to other people who don’t go to MCAD, like family and friends. Can’t meet a client in person, but you want to show them what you’ve got for them? Host it on your server!

It’s important to note that your laptop also has a folder named ‘Sites.’ That is NOT the same as the Sites folder on your server. Putting things in that Sites folder doesn’t make them internet-accessible. If you use your Sites folder to publish things to the Internet, make sure it’s the one located on your student server, and not your laptop’s hard drive.

How to use it:

The student server can be accessed in a number of different ways, depending on where you access it from.

If you are in a computer lab:

This one is the easiest of all. By logging on to a Lab computer, you automatically connect to your server. Be careful, though! Even though everything on your server is on the computer, everything on the computer is NOT NECESSARILY on your server. The Temp_Storage volume is the hard drive of the specific computer you use. If you save something there, it can only be accessed from that computer. What’s worse is that Temp_Storage is just that: temporary! Store files there with caution or for short periods only, because you may return to that computer a few days later to find the drive emptied, and your files lost.

If you are using your laptop on campus:

When you are on-campus, connecting to your laptop is quite easy, just follow these steps.

1. In the menu bar of your Finder, select Go > Connect to Server (⌘K)
2. Select ‘students.mcad.edu’ as the server you wish to connect to
3. Sign in using your regular Username and Password

This will connect to your student server, which you can access from the Finder, or from the icon it places on your desktop. The default name is your username: first initial last name.
e.g. John Q Student = jstudent

If you need to connect to your server from off-campus:

This way is the trickiest, but still fairly simple. You’ll need an ftp program like Fetch or Fugu. You should have one in your Applications folder if you have one of the MacBooks purchased from the school.

Open up the FTP program you wish to use. Connect to the server: students.mcad.edu
You will need to put in your username and password as normal. Once you are connected, it should be just like connecting on campus.

Accessing files in your Sites folder from the Internet:

So you’ve put a webpage or image in your Sites folder, and you want to show it off to all of your friends back home. What address do you give them?

The Internet address of your Sites folder is this:
http://students.mcad.edu/~yourusername

e.g. John Q Student:
http://students.mcad.edu/~jstudent

Remember! There’s no www in the address, and you don’t need to put Sites in the address bar, either, that address is for your Sites folder; adding a Sites on the end would cause your computer to search for a folder called ‘Sites’ inside your ‘Sites’ folder (which, frankly, is ridiculous). To display an image or access a web page you’ve put in there, you’ll need to add a slash (/) followed by the filename.

http://students.mcad.edu/~jstudent/mywebsite.html
http://students.mcad.edu/~jstudent/myproject.jpg

If you want the root address (just as far as /~yourusername) to be the homepage of your website, you’ll need to name the page index.html

If you do that, going to http://students.mcad.edu/~yourusername will go to your website.


If you have any additional questions about the specific nature of your 2 gigabytes, and what you can use them for, the Computer Support department will be happy to answer them.

-Spencer Ruskin