How To configure External Data with a browser on Windows and IBM Cognos server on Unix?

The file, containing the external data, must be stored on a public network drive. It is important that the share is accessible from the unix machine by precisely the same name as the path supplied from the browser (A quick test is to logon the unix machine and ls <path name>).

In the External Data wizzard a Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path must be used, such as
\\servername\filename. The IBM Cognos server does automatically translate the specified UNC path in a unix path.

Steps
1. On the Windows client create a share which is accessible as \\servername\share.
2. Store the external data file (Book1.csv) there. The UNC path to the file is \\servername\share\Book1.csv.
3. The IBM Cognos server runs on Linux. Mount the Windows share from Linux via samba and define a symbolic link, so that the file is accessible from Linux as /servername/share/Book1.csv. To create a symbolic link on Unix system you can use the command

ln -s [TARGET DIRECTORY OR FILE] [SHORTNAME]

More information is available on Internet related to ln command.

4. Open IBM Cognos Connection with the browser on the Windows machine.
5. Define the path to the file in the External Data dialog using the 'browse' function -> \\servername\share\Book1.csv.
6. Save and publish the new package.

NOTE: The translation from \\servername\share\Book1.csv (Windows) to /servername/share/Book1.csv (Unix) is done by the IBM Cognos server.