NetFiles Support

To get help using NetFiles please review to content on this page. If you need to further assistance please call 1-Help, your campus helpdesk, or email the NetFiles support group at netfiles@umn.edu. System errors and more difficult problems would best be addressed to the NetFiles support email.

Help Topics

NetFiles Builtin Help Docs
NetFiles Security Features
Using NetFiles as Web Space
Windows Desktop Client (Xythos Drive Software) *staff/faculty only*
Mac Webdav Notes
Windows Webdav and Internet Explorer Notes
File Size Issues
Windows Vista
Creating a Drop Box
NetFiles Departmental Space
Trash Folder/Versions/Recovering Files

NetFiles Security Features

NetFiles is secure by default. Users can change permissions to files over which they have admin rights. so NetFiles can certainly become insecure with just a few clicks. That can be mitigated by controlling who has admin rights to the data in question. Users have admin rights to the files in their netfiles space so those files are only as secure as people keep them.

This list is meant to help data owners determine if NetFiles is appropriate for storing or sharing their data.

All communication with NetFiles is done over https.
All files stored on the NetFiles system are encrypted while on NetFiles disk. The users get a unencrypted version when they download the file.
NetFiles has rather detailed logging that can't be turned off by users. All file reads, writes, permission change logs include the username, ip address and time.
The permissions and ticket functionality allow rights to be restricted in a rather detailed way. NOTE: Once a file has been downloaded out of NetFiles to a personal computer, that local copy of the file is not protected by the permissions in NetFiles.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Granting "public" rights to something really does mean public, any user on the internet could potentially access files with public permissions. Be careful how you use them.

Windows Webdav and Internet Explorer

To prevent an intermittent error when uploading files with Internet Explorer (a warning that the page contains both secure and insecure items and after saying ok, a page cannot be displayed error.).:

In Internet Explorer go to the tools menu and select internet options. Click on the advanced tab and then scroll down under the browsing section and uncheck "show friendly http error messages".

Internet Explorer also has one extra feature, a button on the toolbar at the top titled "Web Folder". This folder will create a web folder in my network places for whatever folder you are viewing in the web user interface. This is handy when you wish to upload folders or many files at once. More information on creating web folder connections is available at http://www.umn.edu/netfiles/Clientsnew.html.

File Size Issues

NetFiles has not enforced File size limit, but there are some practical limits. The maximum file size you can upload will of course be limited by your quota, so for all users nothing larger than 5GB can be written. Most users will hit limitations with their computers, clients or network before they reach their quota.

Webdav is an extension of the http protocol. Writing a file to netfiles is a type of http request, one with a really big file encoded in it. Some clients seem to write this into memory when making the request, the client computer needs to have the memory (physical or virtual) available to handle it. Some users have been able to write files larger than 3GB form one computer, while files less than 500MB fail from another with limited resources. Uploads from pure webdav connections (not in a browser) seem to work better with larger files.

Windows Vista

There is a known issue with connecting to Webdav shares with the built in Webdav functionality in Vista. Webdav connections in Vista require every folder in the path to be readable, in Netfiles the /users folder is not readable by anyone. This prevents Webdav in Vista from connecting to a /users/internetid home directory. The Web UI works fine in Windows Vista. For more information please see http://www.64bit-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50208&highlight=webdav for a discussion on this problem.

Desktop Client on Vista, some users have seen connectivity issues and intermittent pauses when using the desktop client with vista. If you have issues, or successes please let us know at netfiles@umn.edu, we are still gathering information.

Trash, Versions, and File Recovery

System Backups are for DISASTER recovery only. It is not realistic to use a system backup to restore individual files and folders.

For the Recovery of files and folders NetFiles has two features to help you get your file back.

Trash - Anytime something is deleted it will be placed in the trash folder designated for the folder it was in when deleted. For user home folder this means that deleted files go to /users/internetid/trash. Once a file is deleted from the trash folder or the "empty trash" link is used to delete everything in the trash those files are permanently gone.

Versions - If you've overwritten a file and wish to recover the previous version it won't be in the trash. You will need to click on the manage icon next to the file name and then click on the versions link. You will see a link for each version of the file along with the time that version of the file is created. Click on the link for that version to open it, or click on the copy icon to save that version on its own.