Effective data access

Aside from the web-interface, there are other specialised ways of accessing SIF, ways that give you more effective, transparent, and integrated access. These make it possible a.o. to transfer many and large files effectively and to tie your SIF project files and folders to your machine, letting you work with them as if they were local.

NB. SIF enforces strict project isolation in this area as well: you can only open one project at a time. Therefore, if you have more than a single SIF project you will have to configure effective access for each in turn.

All access uses a safe connection to SIF, which means it is available whereever you are, so long as you are conected to the internet. It is not necessary to use VPN outside AU. On the other hand, access is further secured through 2-factor authentication.

Using SIF as external drive/WebDAVS

WebDAVS setup in SIF

WebDAV is a protocol to access remote storage, and can be secured with TLS/SSL like websites. On these pages, we call the secure version WebDAVS. Newer versions of Microsoft Windows, Mac OSX and Linux have direct WebDAVS integration, safely letting you open content from remote storage without installing further programmes.

In general, you begin by opening the WebDAVS tab under SIF Setup, pick a password for login, and click Save WebDAVS Settings. Note that your login details - including your automatically generated username, which will often be a combination of your email and the name of your SIF project - will be shown here too.

WebDAVS - Windows Files

You can access WebDAVS remote folders in Windows directly from Files, e.g. through Map network drive or Add a network location, both of which you can find under Computer. Note that Windows 7 only shows the second possibility if you click on the 'Connect to a Web site ...'-link in the Map network drive wizard. Windows 8 and newer versions have a built-in button for the function.

In this example, we use Map network drive in Windows 10 Files.

NB: Windows 7 was the first version that offered real WebDAVS-support. Older versions, such as Windows Vista may work as we describe here, and if not you can find the function through external WebDAVS help programmes.

Adjust the Windows WebDAVS size limit

Unfortunately, Microsoft has set a low limit for the size of the files you can download through WebDAVS. This means that you will receive an error message if you try to download files of around 50MB or more.

You can increase the limit to 4GB through the Registry Editor. We will go through how you do this, but the solution is also described here: FIX: Error 0x800700DF The file size exceeds the limit allowed and cannot be saved in SharePoint & WebDAV. - wintips.org - Windows Tips & How-tos.

What to do: search for Regedit on your computer and run the command.

Select the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE folder, open SYSTEM, and open CurrentControlSet.

Open Services, then Webclient and Parameters. This will take you to FilesizeLimitinBytes, where you can change the value to, for example, 4294967295 in Decimal base.

You can now transfer files of up to 4GB.

If you work with large amounts of data, we recommend that you use SSHFS instead of WebDAVS.

WebDAVS - Mac OSX Files

On Mac OSX you can use Finder to open WebDAVS folders. Choose Connect to Server under Go.

Type the server URL from SIF's WebDAVS tab under Server Address and click Connect.

Log in with your username and password. Your username will generally be a combination of your registered email and the name of your SIF project.

If login is succesful, you will find your SIF folder under Files.

WebDAVS - Linux Files

Most modern Linux distributions lets you open WebDAVS folders via Files, regardless of whether you're using Nautilus, Konqueror, Dolphin, Thunar or a fifth. Usually, you click Go and choose Open Location.

Type in the server URL from WebDAVS under setup (replacing https with davs in the URL if it fails) and click Connect.

In XFCE with the Thunar Files, shown here, you have to use the davs prefix rather than https.

Login with the username and password you chose on the WebDAVS tab. Your username will generally be a combination of your email and the name of your SIF project. If login is succesful, you will se the remote folder contents in your system.

NB: Nautilus/Thunar uses GNOME's gvfs-library, which had a known error in older versions. The error caused uploads on over 1GB to hang. If you experience this problem, try upgrading to a corrected version of gvfs (e.g. 1.22.2) or use another client.