(Updated November 13, 2025)
Overview
Every operating system stores files in various locations. Windows uses drive letters, like C:, to note the name of the hard drive that contains the files. It then imposes a filing system to organize the content.
Linux is identical in many ways. The difference is Linux doesn’t use drive letters and the pathnames are constructed a little differently than Windows. This document will show you the location of your files relative to the storage model used on the servers of the Computer Science department at Skidmore.
Filesystems
Linux, instead of using drive letters uses a series of mount points. These are typically filesystems that represent complete, or portions of, disks in the server. By mounting the filesystems, we gain access to the files contained therein.
The filesystems of the Computer Science servers are listed below:
localhost:/home 3.5T 255G 3.3T 8% /students/home localhost:/shared 2.3T 1.2T 1.2T 50% /students/shared localhost:/home 4.7T 456G 4.2T 10% /department/home localhost:/shared 3.7T 195G 3.5T 6% /department/shared
As you can see there is an amount of storage set aside for both the department and students. It’s further broken down to home and shared. All student home directories are located in /students/home. Similarly, student shared storage is located in /students/shared.
Each student home directory has a quota of about 2GiB. This quota is a limit on the amount of storage you can use. The shared area does not have a quota.
Filesystem objects of importance are saved to your home directory. Anything that is temporary or of little importance can be stored in your shared directory. This is where application caches and other relatively unimportant objects are stored. Their loss is of little significance and is usually recreated by the applications.
Pathnames
While applications provide a convenient graphical means of finding and saving files, beneath all the glamor are pathnames. A pathname is a string that represents the precise location of a filesystem object. Remember that these objects are typically files and directories.
If you’re looking for a quick review of the Linux filesystem and commands to manage files, you can refer to the Manipulating Files section of Schott’s book.
If you’re just looking for a quick peek, you only need open a terminal window and run a few commands like those in the following transcripts.
Here we look at which directory we’re currently in (pwd) then list the contents (which has been abbreviated).
[linux01@cslinux01 ~]$ pwd /students/home/linux01 [linux01@cslinux01 ~]$ ls -al total 296 drwx------ 38 linux01 linux01 4096 Jul 14 13:56 . drwxr-xr-x 531 root root 16384 Sep 3 09:11 .. drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 28 Apr 12 2022 .abrt lrwxrwxrwx 1 linux01 linux01 33 Apr 12 2022 .android -> /students/shared/linux01/.android lrwxrwxrwx 1 linux01 linux01 32 Apr 12 2022 Android -> /students/shared/linux01/Android drwx------ 5 linux01 linux01 81 Apr 23 2022 Arduino drwx------ 5 linux01 linux01 221 Apr 23 2022 .arduino15 -rw------- 1 linux01 linux01 1230 Jul 14 11:36 authorized_keys -rw------- 1 linux01 linux01 55 Apr 12 2022 .bash_history -rw------- 1 linux01 linux01 33 Apr 12 2022 .bash_logout -rw------- 1 linux01 linux01 213 Apr 12 2022 .bash_profile -rw------- 1 linux01 linux01 124 Apr 12 2022 .bashrc -rw------- 1 linux01 linux01 54735 Jul 14 13:55 Biology-Wikipedia.txt lrwxrwxrwx 1 linux01 linux01 35 Jan 24 2025 .BurpSuite -> /students/shared/linux01/.BurpSuite lrwxrwxrwx 1 linux01 linux01 31 Apr 12 2022 .cache -> /students/shared/linux01/.cache -rw------- 1 linux01 linux01 43041 Jul 14 13:55 Chemestry-Wikipedia.txt -rw------- 1 linux01 linux01 29208 Jul 14 13:55 ComputerScience-Wikipedia.txt drwx------ 15 linux01 linux01 4096 Jul 26 2024 .config drwx------ 3 linux01 linux01 33 Apr 12 2022 .dbus drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 44 Jul 14 12:26 Desktop drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 6 Apr 12 2022 Documents drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 6 Apr 12 2022 Downloads lrwxrwxrwx 1 linux01 linux01 33 Jan 21 2025 .eclipse -> /students/shared/linux01/.eclipse lrwxrwxrwx 1 linux01 linux01 32 Apr 12 2022 .gradle -> /students/shared/linux01/.gradle drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 41 Apr 12 2022 .gstreamer-0.10 -rw------- 1 linux01 linux01 187 Apr 12 2022 .gtk-bookmarks drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 6 Apr 12 2022 .gvfs -rw------- 1 linux01 linux01 539 Jul 14 13:56 .history -rw------- 1 linux01 linux01 5024 Apr 23 2022 .ICEauthority lrwxrwxrwx 1 linux01 linux01 28 Nov 19 2024 .m2 -> /students/shared/linux01/.m2 drwx------ 3 linux01 linux01 26 Apr 12 2022 .macromedia drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 6 Apr 12 2022 MATLAB lrwxrwxrwx 1 linux01 linux01 33 Jan 11 2023 .mozilla -> /students/shared/linux01/.mozilla drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 6 Apr 12 2022 Music drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 6 Apr 12 2022 .nautilus drwx------ 3 linux01 linux01 26 Jul 26 2024 .nv drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 48 Apr 14 2022 .oracle_jre_usage drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 6 Apr 12 2022 Pictures drwx------ 3 linux01 linux01 19 Apr 13 2022 .pki -rw------- 1 linux01 linux01 37 Apr 12 2022 .printer-groups.xml drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 6 Apr 12 2022 Public -rw------- 1 linux01 linux01 256 Apr 12 2022 .pulse-cookie drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 19 Apr 12 2022 sketchbook drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 17 Apr 12 2022 .spice-vdagent drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 61 Jul 14 11:53 .ssh drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 6 Apr 12 2022 Templates drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 6 Apr 12 2022 Videos lrwxrwxrwx 1 linux01 linux01 32 Jan 11 2023 .vscode -> /students/shared/linux01/.vscode lrwxrwxrwx 1 linux01 linux01 39 Jan 11 2023 .vscode-server -> /students/shared/linux01/.vscode-server lrwxrwxrwx 1 linux01 linux01 30 Jan 11 2023 .wine -> /students/shared/linux01/.wine
You may have noticed in the listing, above, that some of the objects are symbolic links. These are noted by the l on the far left and the -> showing where the object points. The system administrator has done this to limit the impact on your quota by relocating some objects to the shared area. Again, if these disappeared, they would be recreated by the applications that manage these objects.
Here’s a brief look in the shared area for the user.
[linux01@cslinux01 ~]$ ls -al /students/shared/linux01 total 36 drwx------ 16 linux01 linux01 279 Jan 24 2025 . drwxr-xr-x 543 root root 16384 Sep 3 09:11 .. drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 6 Apr 12 2022 .android drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 6 Apr 12 2022 Android drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 6 Jan 24 2025 .BurpSuite drwx------ 19 linux01 linux01 4096 Jul 14 12:29 .cache drwx------ 3 linux01 linux01 35 Apr 12 2022 .config drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 6 Jan 21 2025 .eclipse drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 6 Apr 12 2022 .gradle drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 6 Jan 17 2023 .keras drwx------ 3 linux01 linux01 59 Nov 20 2024 .lein drwx------ 3 linux01 linux01 32 Nov 20 2024 .m2 drwx------ 3 linux01 linux01 22 Jan 11 2023 .mozilla drwx------ 4 linux01 linux01 68 Jul 26 2024 .vscode drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 6 Jan 11 2023 .vscode-server drwx------ 2 linux01 linux01 6 Jan 11 2023 .wine
There is good deal more to using pathnames effectively. This document provides only a look into how files are stored within the Linux systems you’re using.
Backup and Recovery
Backups are performed daily. Only the home directories are kept for a specific duration and rotation. Although backups are available, be careful what you choose to delete. Files and directories can be restored, but it depends on a great number of variables, including how long a filesystem object has been missing.
The goal of backups is for restoration as a result of the loss of critical data or catastrophic failure.