A virtual office space allows you to store your data files in a safe place, easily accessible from any computer on the network, and through different methods to connect to its contents (web, network, etc...). This provides an auxiliary and additional storage space to the data supports of your devices, whose main utility is to free you from backup units (CD's, USB`s, etc...), and of which backup copies are also made, which guarantees the availability and recovery of the data in case of loss. In the university environment, in addition to having personal storage spaces, we can have virtual office storage spaces for work groups with different purposes (administrative, research, etc...).
The UV's Virtual Office service allows you to share and access your data from anywhere on the network.
The Virtual Office keeps your data safe and copies it regularly.
The Virtual Office allows you to create collaborative spaces with other users of the university.
All spaces can be accessed via the web, connecting as a Windows network drive, as a MacIntosh AppleShare drive or using an FTP client.
The spaces can be different types: You can create a WEB space for publishing your files on the network, and a VIRTUAL OFFICE space which is like a virtual disk only for you and accessible only with your username and password.
All the spaces of the groups to which you belong will appear as subspaces of your individual space and you will be able to access all of them in read and write (if you are authorised) by typing your username and password only once.
If you are the administrator of a group, you can add and remove three different types of users from your group: editors (who can read and write), readers (who can only read) and Webauts (who can modify WWW spaces).
In case you have any doubts, first check the documentation we provide you with the most frequently asked questions about the VIRTUAL OFFICE and web pages at the UV, and other additional information that will surely help you optimise the use of your storage resources.
Shared storage
A virtual disk space allows you to store your data files in a safe place, conveniently accessible from any computer on the network.
Your virtual office is a storage space accessible through the network, what we now call "in the cloud". This virtual office allows you to deposit files, and access them from anywhere on the Internet through a web interface.
From the University, or via a VPN connection, you can also access this virtual office, as if it was on your own computer, as if it was a local drive.
- In the case of a Virtual Office space for individual use (private folder), the Virtual Office allows you to free yourself from the need to transport other media such as disks, CDs, USB's, or other information media.
- In the case of a Virtual Office space for group use (group folder), the Virtual Office also allows you to carry out collaborative work in a more flexible way, since all the users of the group have access to the same information at the same time. Additionally, the publication and maintenance are flexible, as the group administrators can change at any time the list of users belonging to the group (authorised to see the information stored in the group's Virtual Office) or authorise or not a user to modify the contents of the disk space ("editor" permission).
As an additional advantage, the data present in the Virtual Office spaces are regularly copied (by the Computer Service), to keep them safe from possible catastrophes, and regular copies are kept in order to be able to recover recently lost files.
What can I do with my UV Virtual Office?
From the User Portal of the Universitat de València (miUV) you can access the management of your user account. There you can manage your accounts and spaces. To access your data to view and modify them you can use the "Virtual Office" interface: https://disco.uv.es which you can also access from the email interface: https://correo.uv.es (File explorer).
Among other things, you can:
- Activate or delete your virtual disk space.
- Get an occupancy report of your virtual disk space.
- Connect via web to check and update your disk and group spaces.
- Check the groups you belong to: and their characteristics (members, permissions, active spaces, ...) and, if you are the administrator of a group, change the members; change access permissions; activate, delete and/or obtain a report on the occupation of your virtual disk space and/or group web page.
How can I request...?
- Request the creation of a group Virtual Office space (individual spaces can be activated without further action, see previous section).
- Request the increase the capacity of an individual Virtual Office space.
- Request the increase the capacity of a group Virtual Office space.
- Request the recovery of lost data in a Virtual Office space.
Space management
Introduction to Spaces, Virtual Office and Web Pages, capacities and quotas.
Public spaces (WEB) and private spaces (Virtual Office)
If you already have an account, the Universitat de València offers two storage services:
- Storage of Web Spaces (pages).
- Storage of Virtual Office Spaces.
Each can be used by individual users, or work groups.
In the case of workgroups, the group management tools can be used to define editors (people authorised to modify disk spaces) and webauths (people authorised to modify web spaces). In general, all members of a group will be able to see the content of the group's spaces.
Whether they are group or individual spaces, disk or web spaces, all spaces will appear as folders within the user's base folder when they are accessed to modify them.
Available Capacities
The occupation of disk and web spaces is limited. A quota is assigned to each space at the time of its creation. This quota grows as the server capacities increase. To find out how much space is available at any given moment, consult the "Report on the capacity of my web space" or the "Report on the capacity of my disk space" available on the account server http://accounts.uv.es.
If you need more space, you can request an increase in capacity through the ICT UV Support Center.
Activate Spaces: how to get a virtual disk space or a web page?
How to obtain a Web or Virtual Disk space?
Both the private disk space and the web space can be activated directly by the user, as long as he/she has an e-mail account. This activation is done through the page http://cuentas.uv.es, click on CONNECT. Here you will see the options Activate/Deactivate my WWW page and Activate/Deactivate my virtual disk, from which you must choose the one you want.
In the case of groups, a request ( http://solicitudes.uv.es ) to create a group on the disk server or to create a group on the web server is necessary for us to generate the group. The group will consist of more than one user, at least one of whom will be an administrator. These administrators will be the main responsible and valid interlocutors for all issues related to the space. Users can be user@uv.es (at least one) and user@alumni.uv.es (optional). Once one of the two spaces (disk or web) has been requested and enabled, any of the administrators of the group can activate the other one. All persons will be considered EQUALLY responsible for the content of the space.
In either case, whether group or individual, disk or web spaces, all spaces will appear on login as folders within a folder owned by the user.
How can I access and modify the file contents of the folders in the Virtual Disk or Webspace?
Each user will log in with their own username and password. Four access methods (protocols) are provided: via Web/HTML, via MS Windows SMB/CIFS drive, via Appleshare and via FTP.
Virtual office access methods:
Vía WEB (Accesible desde Internet sin VPN)
To access the information deposited by the group on the server, open the server address http://disco.uv.es with a browser and click on CONNECT.
Via FTP
ftp disco.uv.es, using your mail user and password.
In the case of a browser, it is possible to make the connection directly at the address: ftp://uuuuu@disco.uv.es/.
Enter your username instead of "uuuuu" and the computer will ask for your password. If you have Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher, it will be possible to drag the files in the window as if it were a local folder.
Via assembling Network Drive (SMB/CIFS)
Connect disk space as network drive from MS-Windows (SMB/CIFS)
The recommended method is to connect the disk space as a network drive. This is done by opening My Computer, and selecting in Tools Connect to network drive... folder: \\disco.uv.es\uuuuu (put your user instead of "uuuuu") and select Connect again when logging in (if that is what you want). Click on Connect using a different login name to allow you to enter your UV username. You will also be asked to enter your password.
Another method is Start menu, Run, and enter \\disco.uv.es\uuuuu (put your user instead of "uuuuu"). You will be asked to enter your email password. With this method, every time you close the window, you will lose connection
Assembling the directory as an SMB or AppleShare disk on MacOSX (!MacIntosh)
From the Finder, we use the option "Go", "Connect to server" and we enter:
- smb://disco.uv.es/uuuuu (SMB connection)
or
- afp://uuuuu@disco.uv.es/Home Directory (AppleShare connection). If the "Home Directory" is not specified, it can be selected later.
(put your username instead of "uuuuu").
Publication of spaces or how to publish any folder in your spaces
Publication of spaces
You can publish any folder you have in a space (disk, web,...), so that it is visible via web without the need of user and password.
The folder will be displayed in read-only mode as you see it from the web interface of "virtualoffice.uv.es". That is to say, all the files, URL's, folders it contains will be shown, with their comments if any; it will be possible to see the thumbnails and show slideshows with the images. Index files ("index.html", "MainPage.wiki",...) are not used, i.e. they are not displayed "as a web page".
This allows you to very easily create public, self-indexed repositories of information, similar to what you have when you leave files on a web server that auto-indexes the folders; but with a much more complete interface, where you can add comments, sort, etc...
Publishing a folder does not imply publishing the subfolders it contains: if you wish to do so, you must publish each of the subfolders separately.
Procedure
To activate the permission it is only necessary to have access to the folder.
- Connect to the http://disco.uv.es interface.
- Access the folder or space containing the folder you want to publish.
- Click on the corresponding "Modify description" icon (i) in the line of the folder to be published.
- Select "Publish" and click "Apply".
The folder will be published and you will be shown the corresponding URL (these are simple URLs in the form http://disco.uv.es/pub/user/ + the path to the folder). You can share this URL with anyone you want to be able to access the contents of the folder.
- This is not the same URL that was used before. It is now a URL of disco.uv.es, not from www.uv.es.
- The URL of the space is shown in green at the top of the page as soon as you click "Apply".
- At any time, you can check the URL of the published space by clicking on the (i) button in the folder.
- You can also publish your own "disk" and "web" space. But in this case, "Modify description" appears at the top of the list.
Space protection
Website Protection
It is possible to protect some or all of the pages of your WWW space if you consider that their access should not be public.
Currently, the server supports two types of page protection:
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- WWW pages with restricted access to all (or part) of the university users.
- Password-protected WWW pages.
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Websites with restricted access to certain users
This service allows you to protect a web space so that its pages can only be accessed by people who have an university account. It is possible to specify which of the university's users can access it. Several spaces can be defined, each accessible to its own set of users.
Service configuration procedures:
- It is assumed that the user owns a WWW space on the university server and wants to leave a set of pages on the server that he/she wants to protect.
- The user creates a directory whose name starts with "private" (e.g.: "private", "private1", "privatedomio",...), in lower case, at the FIRST LEVEL (not in a subdirectory) of his webspace on the university's web server (the "www" server, this does NOT apply to the "wall" server). You can create as many of these directories as you wish. The URL of these directories will be of the following style: http://www.uv.es/user/private , http://www.uv.es/user/private0 , etc...
- Automatically, all pages included by the user in these directories will no longer be publicly accessible, requiring to provide a valid username/password pair on the university's mail servers (post or postal) in order to view them.
- To further restrict access and only allow access to certain users (e.g. upepe, juanjp, calcas), the page creator must include in the "private..." directory a file called ".htaccess" (as is: name in lower case, starting with a dot and NO suffixes) containing lines like the following (ASCII text, user name in lower case)
require user upepe juanjp require user calcas
If the .htaccess file exists, only the users specified in the .htaccess file will have access to the page. The .htaccess file can be different for each of the "private..." directories you have.
Note: In MS-Windows, the best way to create an ".htaccess" file is to use the "notepad" program, making sure not to put the extension ".txt" when saving the file.
Restricted pages for UV staff
If the directory instead of beginning with "private" starts with "privuni" ("privuni1", "privunia",...) only @uv.es accounts (UV staff) will be allowed access, i.e. only UV staff will be able to access, not students.
Password changes
The valid password for accessing protected pages is the current password of the authorised user, unless the password has been changed on the same day, in which case the new password takes effect the following day for access to protected pages, in which case the old password must be used until then.
Web pages protected by a single password
This service allows to protect a web space in such a way that its pages are only visible to users who know a certain name/password.
Service Conditions
Any user of the university's official WWW server can request that a "subpage" (subdirectory or subfolder) of their WWW space on the server be protected by name/password. An entire WWW space can be protected, although this is not recommended. In order for a user to request protection of a sub-space, it must be within the user's personal page or within a group page for which the user is primarily responsible.
Note: In this service only one username/password pair is provided per protected space, i.e. all users of the space share name/password.
Necessary Data
- URL of the webspace to protect (http://www.uv.es/~...). Alternatively, user name and subdirectory name in that user's WWW space.
- Short description (200 characters maximum) of the space to be protected and a title (30 characters maximum) for the space to be protected.
- Suggested "Name" (lower case letters or digits, maximum 8 characters).
Procedure
- Access the ICT UV Support Center and fill in the corresponding application form.
- The protected space will be created with the suggested name (or as close as possible) and a password generated when creating the protection.
- The requester will be notified via email.
Password change or protection cancellation
- Send the ICT UV Support Center ( http://solicitudes.uv.es ) a request to do so, specifying the URL.
- The applicant (who must be the owner or main responsible of the site on which the protected space is located) will be notified via e-mail.
In this case, follow the instructions and create a ".htaccess" with the line:
Options Indexes
If the file already existed ( i. e. because you had a restriction to certain users), you can add this new line to it.
Backup files
All the contents deposited in the Web Spaces and Virtual Disk are periodically copied to a different medium from the working one. This offers security in two ways: against unwanted modifications by mistake by the user, and against disaster in the Calculation Centre itself.
Periodicity of copies and their expiration:
- Daily: Every working day (Monday-Friday) in the evening. The daily copy expires after three weeks.
- Weekly: Every weekend. Weekly copy expires after one year.
Functionality:
- Not all modifications made in these spaces are reversible. You can only go back to a previous situation of a file, if this file has been copied.
- For a file to be copied, it does NOT have to be requested. The only thing necessary is that this file is present at the time when the copies are made, as files are not being copied 24 hours a day, only at the times indicated.
- Copies expire, after which the copies are deleted. This space is recycled for copying new files.
- The daily and weekend copies are independent: after three weeks we can only retrieve a file that has remained in one of the spaces over the weekend, as all daily copies have expired.
- In order for us to execute the restoration, it will be necessary to make a request in the ICT UV Support Center.
Virtual Office and Webspace Backup Service
All the contents deposited in the Web Spaces and Virtual Office are periodically copied to a different medium from the working one. This offers security in two ways: against unwanted modifications by mistake by the user, and against disaster in the Calculation Centre itself.
Periodicity of copies and their expiration:
- Daily: Every working day (Monday-Friday) in the evening. The daily copy expires after three weeks.
- Weekly: Every weekend. Weekly copy expires after one year.
VIRTUAL OFFICE Mailbox
To have your e-mail attachments delivered directly to your disk space.
It exists and you can send mail messages to this type of addresses:
user_name@disco.uv.es group_name@disco.uv.es
Messages addressed to these addresses will be delivered to the corresponding disk space in a folder (created if necessary) named "diskinbox".
A sub-folder will be created for each message received, with the sender's address (i.e. "colleague@gmail_com_1").
Inside the folder there will be several files, corresponding to each of the parts (attachments) of which the message is composed, as well as a file headers.txt with the headers.
I.e., for the typical case of a message with an attached file:
firend@gmail_com_1157404923 [folder] headers.txt [headers] message.txt [message] blueplanet.pps [file attached]
A direct application of this is that a user can save an attachment or package received by mail to his or her virtual disk without having to first download it to his or her PC and then upload it back to disco.uv.es (impossible if the connection is slow).
It also allows the delivery of files UP TO 50MB (maximum limit for mail messages) to a user's disk without going through the parcel system and without them even having to open their mail.
Obviously, the disk space quota applies and messages will be rejected if this is exceeded.
Antivirus
The files ARE CHECKED with an ANTIVIRUS and are rejected if they are infected. It may happen that the sender does NOT receive the error message in this case, but the infected file is deleted and a file "VIRUS_FOUND.txt" is left on disco.uv.es to notifies what has happened.
Delivery conditions (anti-spam)
It is a NECESSARY CONDITION for delivery to be effected that either of the following two conditions is fulfilled:
- The sender (From:) is a domain address "uv.es".
- In the subject there is the subword "adjunt" or "attach" (i.e. it also works with the word "adjunto", "adjuntos", "attachments", etc...).
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- I.e.: it is sufficient to put "Subject: Requested documents attached".
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This allows university users to directly redirect messages to a @disco.uv.es mailbox, whereas a person with an external address will have to put "attachment" or similar in the subject line to be accepted. This is a (slight) anti-spam measure.
Note
Note that the service is designed for simple messages (a few attachments, not attachments within attachments). It is likely that some types of messages will not be correctly decoded by virtual office.