Lab overview & Account setup

ENV 761 - Landscape GIS   |   Spring 2024   |   Instructors: Peter Cada & John Fay  

As in the Fundamentals class last semester, we will be primarily using ArcGIS Pro in this course, and we'll be storing our data on the NS-GIS server. The objective of this tutorial is to ensure that everyone has the appropriate file space set up on the server and can access course materials on Canvas and on the NS-GIS server. Once that is settled, we'll review some general guidelines and expectations for the laboratory exercises of this course.

♦Your file space on the NS-GIS server

You'll be allotted another 10GB of file space on the NS-GIS server for ENV761; do not use your ENV559 space for this class as your access to that space will soon be cut-off if that hasn’t occurred already. Some important reminders regarding file space on the NS-GIS server:

  • There is no "recycle bin" for files on this server. If you delete it, you can NOT retrieve it from the trash.

  • The server is backed up nightly. If you do mistakenly delete a file or if a file gets corrupted, you can retrieve the previous day's copy by contacting NSOE IT (email: it@nicholas.duke.edu).

♦Accessing NS-GIS from campus machines

Class data will be provided on two mapped two drives -- a "V:/" drive, mapped to your personal class space, and a "W:/" drive mapped to the class workspace. There is a DOS batch file called Login761.bat that will map these drives when it's run (by double clicking it). You may wish to copy this file to your H: (CIFS) drive so that it is available to you any time you log onto a CIFS connected machine, or you may simply use the link on the course website to download and use the script.

  • Make sure you can connect to both your V: and W: drives. Contact me or a TA if you have any problems since you won't be able to do much without being able to use these drives.

♦Accessing your NS-GIS files from off-campus machines

You can also access your NS-GIS file space from off-campus machines. First you need to connect to Duke's Virtual Private Network (VPN), which gets you within Duke's firewalled area. To do this point your browser to https://portal.duke.edu, set the Department to -Default- and follow the instructions. If you have issues connecting via VPN, contact OIT.

Once connected via VPN, you may have to tweak your drive mapping script so that it includes your netID (rather than uses the name that you used to log into the machine) and authenticates you to Duke's WIN domain. To do this, you can save a copy of the Login761.bat file to a new filename, and edit it with a text editor (e.g. Notepad or Wordpad). Change it to look like this (with <netID> replaced with your actual Duke NetID):

if exist W: net use /delete W:
net use W: \\ns-gis.win.duke.edu\ENV761_2024 /user:<netID>\@WIN
if exist V: net use /delete V:
net use V: \\ns-gis.win.duke.edu\ENV761_2024\<netID> /user:<netID>\@WIN

♦Manually mapping drives

If using the scripts to map drives is just not for you, you can always map drives manually, by right clicking on "Computer" in Windows Explorer and selecting "Map Network Drive…" Just be sure to enter \\NS-GIS.win.duke.edu\ENV761_2024 for the W: drive and \\NS-GIS.win.duke.edu\ENV761_2024\<netID> for the V: drive (replacing ‘netID’ with your actual Duke NetID).