Handling Data & Storage Folders#

Backend.AI supports dedicated storage to preserve user's files. Since the files and directories of a compute session are deleted upon session termination, it is recommended to save them in a storage folder. List of storage folders can be found by selecting the Data page on the sidebar. You can see the information such as the folder name and ID, the storage host name where the folder is located (Location), and folder access rights (Permission).

Figure 15.1

There are two types of storage folders: User and Project. You can distinguish between them in the 'Type' column.

Invitation badge and entry point#

When another user invites you to share one of their storage folders, a small invitation badge appears on the Data page entry in the sidebar and next to the folder status summary. The badge displays the number of pending invitations that still need a response.

Figure 15.2

Click the badge to open the invitation list, where you can accept or decline each pending invitation. Accepted folders immediately appear in your folder list with the Invited type. The /data page itself is also a valid entry point for reviewing invitations — open the Data page and the same invitation list is reachable from the folder status summary.

Create storage folder#

To create a new folder, click Create Folder on the Data page. Fill in the fields in the creation dialog as follows:

Figure 15.3

The meaning of each field in the creation dialog is as follows.

  • Usage Mode: Set the purpose of the folder.

    • General: Defines a folder for storing various data in a general-purpose manner.
    • Models: Defines a folder specialized for model serving and management. If this mode is selected, it is also possible to toggle the folder's copy availability.
    • Auto Mount: Folders automatically mounted when a session is created. If selected, the folder name must start with a dot ('.').

  • Folder name: The name of the folder (up to 64 characters).

  • Location: Select the storage host where the folder will be created. If there are multiple hosts, choose one. An indicator will show if there is enough available space.

  • Type: Determines the type of folder to be created. It can be set as User or Project. The User folder is a folder that users can create and use alone and the Project folder is a folder created by admin and shared by users in the project.

  • Project: Shown only when you select Project type. The folder belongs to the project currently selected in the top bar — there is no separate project selector, and a confirmation message indicates which project will own the folder. This field has no effect when creating a User folder.

  • Permission: The mount permission applied when the folder is mounted into a compute session. Read & Write allows writing to the folder inside sessions; Read only prevents it. This applies to both User and Project folders; for a Project folder it governs access for all project members.

  • Cloneable: Shown only when you select usage mode to "Model". Select whether the vfolder you are creating should be cloneable.

The folders created here can be mounted when creating a compute session. Folders are mounted under the user's default working directory, /home/work/, and the file stored in the mounted directory will not be deleted when the compute session is terminated. (If you delete the folder, the file will also be deleted.)

Explore folder#

Click the folder name to open the folder explorer and view the contents of the folder.

Figure 15.4

The folder explorer uses a two-panel layout:

  • Left panel: File browser showing the directory tree and file list for the storage folder.
  • Right panel: Additional information and logs, organized into two tabs:
    • Metadata: Folder description and properties (previously shown as a side panel).
    • Audit Log: A chronological record of operations performed on this folder.

On wide (xl) screens a draggable divider separates the two panels so you can resize them to suit your workflow. On narrow screens the panels stack vertically.

Figure 15.5

Figure 15.6

File operations#

Inside the left panel you can see all directories and files in the folder. Click a directory name in the Name column to navigate into it. Use the buttons in the Actions column to download or delete a file or directory. You can rename a file or directory as well. For more detailed file operations, you can mount this folder when creating a compute session and then use a service like Terminal or Jupyter Notebook.

You can create a new folder on the current path with the Create Folder button, or upload a local file or folder with the Upload button. All of these file operations can also be performed using the above-described method of mounting folders into a compute session.

WARNING

The Upload button (and drag-and-drop upload) is disabled when your account does not have the upload-file permission on the storage host that hosts this folder. The button itself remains visible but is greyed out, and tooltips explain that uploads are not permitted.

upload-file is a host-level capability granted through domain-level permissions, project-level permissions, or your keypair resource policy — you receive it if any one of these grants it for the storage host. If the button is disabled, ask your administrator to grant you upload-file permission for the host that stores this folder. You can identify which host the folder lives on from the Location column in the folder list or from the folder detail drawer.

Figure 15.7

The maximum length of a file or directory name inside a folder depends on the host file system, but it usually cannot exceed 255 characters.

NOTE

To ensure smooth performance, the screen limits the maximum number of files that can be displayed when a directory contains an excessive number of files. If a folder contains a large number of files, some may not be shown on the screen. In such cases, please use the terminal or other applications to view all files in the directory.

Edit text files#

You can edit text files directly in the folder explorer. Click the folder name to open the file explorer, then click the Edit File button in the Control column for any text file.

Figure 15.8

The text file editor opens in a modal with a code editor interface. The editor automatically detects the file type based on the file extension and applies appropriate syntax highlighting (e.g., Python, JavaScript, Markdown). The modal title displays the file name and size.

Figure 15.9

The editor supports both light and dark themes matching your UI preferences. You can edit the file content, then click Save to upload the modified file, or Cancel to discard changes.

NOTE

The Edit File button is only available when your access to this storage folder includes the write_content permission (granted via folder sharing permission or your role on the folder). Storage-host level settings in the control panel do not affect this. If the file fails to load, an error message will be displayed.

Audit log tab#

The Audit Log tab in the right panel shows a chronological list of all operations performed on this storage folder (create, update, delete events, and more).

Figure 15.10

The audit log shows the following columns, in order:

  • Time: When the operation occurred.
  • Operation: The type of action (for example, create, update, or delete).
  • Status: The result of the operation (for example, SUCCESS or ERROR).
  • Description: Additional details about the operation.
  • Duration: How long the operation took.
  • Triggered By: The user who performed the operation, shown in "email (id)" format.

You can filter the log by Time, Operation, Status, and Triggered By.

Rename folder#

If you have permission to rename the storage folder, open the folder's detail drawer and click the edit button next to the folder name. Renaming is performed inside the detail drawer.

Figure 15.11

Delete folder#

If you have permission to delete the storage folder, you can send the folder to the Trash tab by clicking the trash bin button. When you move a folder to the Trash tab, it is marked as delete-pending.

Figure 15.12

In this status, you can restore the folder by clicking restore button in Control column. If you want to permanently delete the folder, please click trash bin button in the same column.

Figure 15.13

A confirmation modal will appear asking you to type the folder name. Once you enter the folder name correctly, the Delete Forever button becomes active. Click it to permanently delete the folder.

Figure 15.14

Cascading model card deletion

If the folder you are deleting is associated with a model card, the confirmation modal additionally surfaces the option "Also delete the associated model folder" with the warning "Deleting the associated model folder will also delete every model card that uses it." Proceeding with the deletion permanently removes every model card backed by this storage folder — not just the folder's files. Review the listed model cards before confirming; this action cannot be undone.

Figure 15.15

Using FileBrowser#

Backend.AI supports FileBrowser. FileBrowser is a program that helps you manage files on a remote server through a web browser. This is especially useful when uploading a directory from the user's local machine.

Currently, Backend.AI provides a FileBrowser as an application of a compute session. Therefore, the following conditions are required to launch it.

  • User can create at least one compute session.
  • User can allocated at least 1 core of CPU and 512 MB of memory.
  • Image that supports FileBrowser must be installed.

You can access FileBrowser in two ways.

  • Execute FileBrowser from file explorer dialog of a storage folder.
  • Launch a compute session directly from a FileBrowser image on Sessions page.

Execute FileBrowser from folder explorer dialog#

Go to the Data page and open the file explorer dialog of target storage folder. Click the folder name to open the file explorer.

Figure 15.16

Click Execute filebrowser button in the upper-right corner of the explorer.

Figure 15.17

You can see the FileBrowser is opened in a new window. You can also see that the storage folder you opened the explorer dialog becomes the root directory. From the FileBrowser window, you can freely upload, modify, and delete any directories and files.

Figure 15.18

When user clicks Execute filebrowser button, Backend.AI automatically creates a dedicated compute session for the app. So, in the Sessions page, you should see FileBrowser compute session. It is user's responsibility to delete this compute session.

Figure 15.19

NOTE

If you accidentally close the FileBrowser window and want to reopen it, just go to Sessions page and click the FileBrowser application button of the FileBrowser compute session.

Figure 15.20

When you click Execute filebrowser button again in the storage folder explorer, a new compute session will be created and a total of two FileBrowser sessions will appear.

Create a compute session with FileBrowser image#

You can directly create a compute session with FileBrowser supported images. You need to mount at least one or more storage folders to access them. You can use FileBrowser without a problem even if you do not mount any storage folder, but every uploaded/updated files will be lost after the session is terminated.

NOTE

The root directory of FileBrowser will be /home/work. Therefore, you can access any mounted storage folders for the compute session.

Basic usage examples of FileBrowser#

Here, we present some basic usage examples of FileBrowser in Backend.AI. Most of the FileBrowser operations are intuitive, but if you need more detailed guide, please refer to the FileBrowser documentation.

Upload local directory using FileBrowser

FileBrowser supports uploading one or more local directories while maintaining the tree structure. Click the upload button in the upper right corner of the window, and click Folder button. Then, local file explorer dialog will appear and you can select any directory you want to upload.

NOTE

If you try to upload a file to a read-only folder, FileBrowser will raise a server error.

Figure 15.21

Let's upload a directory with the following structure.

shell
foo
+-- test
|   +-- test2.txt
+-- test.txt

After selecting foo directory, you can see the directory just uploaded successfully.

Figure 15.22

You can also upload local files and directories by drag and drop.

Move files or directories to another directory

Moving files or directories in storage folder is also possible from FileBrowser. You can move files or directories by following steps below.

  1. Select directories or files from FileBrowser.

Figure 15.23

  1. Click the arrow button in the upper right corner of FileBrowser

Figure 15.24

  1. Select the destination

Figure 15.25

  1. Click Move button

You will see that moving operation is successfully finished.

Figure 15.26

NOTE

FileBrowser is provided via application inside a compute session currently. We are planning to update FileBrowser so that it can run independently without creating a session.

Using SFTP server#

Backend.AI supports SSH / SFTP file upload from both desktop app and web-based WebUI. The SFTP server allows you to upload files quickly through reliable data streams.

NOTE

Depending on the system settings, running SFTP server from the file dialog may not be allowed.

Execute SFTP server from folder explorer dialog in Data page#

Go to the Data page and open the file explorer dialog of target storage folder. Click the folder button or the folder name to open the file explorer.

Click Run SFTP server button in the upper-right corner of the explorer.

Figure 15.27

You can see the SSH / SFTP connection dialog. And a new SFTP session will be created automatically. (This session will not affect resource occupancy.)

Figure 15.28

For the connection, click Download SSH Key button to download the SSH private key (id_container). Also, remember the host and port number. Then, you can copy your files to the session using the Connection Example code written in the dialog, or referring to the following guide: SFTP Connection Guide. To preserve the files, you need to transfer the files to the storage folder. Also, the session will be terminated when there is no transfer for some time.

NOTE

If you upload your SSH keypair, the id_container will be set with your own SSH private key. So, you don't need to download it every time you want to connect via SSH to your container. Please refer to managing user's SSH keypair.

Pipeline folders#

This tab shows the list of folders that are automatically created when executing a pipeline in FastTrack. When a pipeline is created, a new folder is created and mounted under /pipeline for each instance of work (computing session).

Automount folders#

Data page has an Automount Folders tab. Click this tab to see a list of folders whose names prefixed with a dot (.). When you create a folder, if you specify a name that starts with a dot (.), it is added to the Automount Folders tab, not the Folders tab. Automount Folders are special folders that are automatically mounted in your home directory even if you do not mount them manually when creating a compute session. By using this feature, creating and using Storage folders such as .local, .linuxbrew, .pyenv, etc., you can configure a certain user packages or environments that do not change with different kinds of compute session.

For more detailed information on the usage of Automount folders, refer to examples of using automount folders.

Figure 15.29

Models#

The Models tab facilitates straightforward model serving. You can store the necessary data, including input data for model serving and training data, in the model folder.

Figure 15.30

Edit this page Last updated on Jul 10, 2026
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