UNIX is the primary operating system used on multi-user machines at Rutgers. An operating system is the program that controls all the other parts of a computer system - both the hardware and the software. Most importantly, it allows you to make use of the facilities provided by the system. Every computer has an operating system.
Eden is a cluster of primary login machines (er2,er3, er4, er6, and er7), a test login machine (gladsheim) and backend servers. The test machine called gladsheim is part of Eden but it may be taken down at any time without notice. To set up dialup networking you need the following settings.
| Use | Name of Machine | IP Address |
|---|---|---|
| Mail/IMAP/POP/SMTP server | email.eden.rutgers.edu | NA |
| News/NNTP server | news-nb.rutgers.edu | NA |
| DNS servers | 165.230.4.76 128.6.4.4 |
Please note that recent system announcements may be read by typing the
command msg
RCI is a cluster of primary login machines (amenti and niflheim) and backend servers. It is for use by the RU faculty and staff. It serves the same functions as Eden the only difference being it is for use by the faculty only. Here are the needed settings for dialup networking.
| Use | Name of Machine | IP Address |
|---|---|---|
| Mail/IMAP/POP/SMTP server | email.rci.rutgers.edu | NA |
| News/NNTP server | news-nb.rutgers.edu | NA |
| DNS servers | 165.230.4.76 128.6.4.4 |
Please note that recent system announcements may be read by typing the
command msg
Accounts at Rutgers University are for educational/research purposes ONLY. Commercial use of an RU account is any use that furthers products or services for profit (whether or not it is you who makes the profit) is prohibited. This includes posting newsgroup messages or sending email from an RU account, web pages on an RU account, or even using an RU email address in other media.
However, this does not preclude "classified" type of sales where a single item is placed for sale.
Other network behavior that will get you into trouble are passing on chain letters, email bombing, and mass mailings. It is suggested that you read the web page http://info.rutgers.edu/Techdir/acceptable-use.html for guidelines on what is and is not allowed.
Where you send questions depends upon where your problem lies. A good place to start is help@machine where machine is the name of the machine where the problem lies (e.g., help@eden).
NOTE: If your problem includes an inability to read incoming mail, please include an alternative method of reaching you (a different account or phone number), or come into a NBCS Computer Lab or The Information Center for help. The Information Center is in Hill Center 128, Busch Campus, Mon-Fri 8:30-4:30, 732-445-HELP (4357).
On Eden new accounts come with menus activated; on RCI they are not active, but they are available.
On Eden you can also disable the menus by selecting
"revert". from the main menu; This creates a file called
".nolush" which when present prevents you from starting the menus at
login time. Since this will not affect the present session, logout and
back in to get the system prompt. If, after doing the above, you wish
to be able to go from the system prompt to the menus and back, leave
things as they are and type: menus
to get the menus.
If you wish to go back to using the menus as the default, remove the
file .nolush by typing: rm .nolush
then log out. The
next time you log in you will have the menus.
On RCI you get to the menus by typing:menus
If you
wish to have the menus come up at login time and wish to use them as
the default, add the lines:
menus logoutto the end of your .login file.
On RCI:
You can change your finger information by typing:
chfn
at the system prompt. You will be asked for
your password so that the computer can confirm it is you who wants to
change the information.
On Eden:
You can change your finger information at http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/account_tools.html
On RCI:
You can change your password by typing passwd
at the
system prompt. The rules for acceptable passwords will be displayed,
please read them thoroughly. You will be asked for your old password,
a new password, and then the new password again so you can be sure of
what you chose.
On Eden:
You can change your password at http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/account_tools.html
We cannot change a password on the basis of email or a phone call as we
must verify that the ID of person requesting the change matches that of
the account holder. The times and places where password changes can be
done are available on
http://www.nbcs.rutgers.edu/ccf/main/pwdchange.shtml
** The above schedule is subject to change if the lab manager is absent
for some reason.
Additionally password changes can be done at the Information
Center.
Information Center, Hill Center 129 (Busch) (732)
445-HELP (4357) 8:30 AM - 4:30 PM, Monday - Friday
As a rule usernames are not changed under normal conditions. The username you choose will be the one you will have to live with for the span of your tenure (as student or as faculty or staff) at Rutgers. This username is also most likely going to follow you to whatever other accounts you may get.
If you have a strong enough reason for needing (not wanting) a username change, you will have to come to The Information Center, present ID to verify who you are, and submit your request in writing. The Information Center is in Hill Center 128, Busch Campus, Mon-Fri 8:30-4:30, 732-445-HELP (4357).
Type the command: ps -fu $USER
and the computer
should respond with something like:
jqsmith 12626 12624 1 14:17:45 pts/61 0:01 -tcsh(possibly with other processes that you are currently running). If it responds with something like:
jqsmith 5363 5357 0 14:19:42 pts/125 0:01 -tcsh jqsmith 8667 8643 0 Sep 05 pts/138 0:01 -tcsh jqsmith 12996 12942 0 Sep 03 ? 18:09 zmailyou can tell that the current session is on tty (terminal) pts/125 (that is the most recent login, -tcsh, shell), that there is a process named "zmail" on tty ?, and there is a login (-tcsh) on tty pts/138. To kill other processes type kill -9 PID where PID is from column 2 of the entry for process you want to kill, as in:
kill -9 12996
kill -9 8667
If, as in the example above, there is a login session hanging around your account may have been compromised and now would be a VERY good time to change your password.
The clusters Eden and RCI are comprised of a number of machines. You may have to check all of the machines individually (Eden: er2, er3, er4, er6, er7, and gladsheim; RCI: amenti, erebus, and niflheim) for stray processes.
To see what shells are available on the machines where you have
accounts type: more /etc/shells
You should see
something like:
/bin/sh /sbin/sh /bin/csh /bin/ksh /bin/tcsh /bin/bash /usr/local/bin/tcsh /usr/local/bin/bash
On RCI:
To change the shell you get at login time issue the command
chsh
You should see something like
Changing NIS login shell for jqsmith on machine.rutgers.edu. Old shell: /bin/tcsh New shell:At the New shell: prompt you can type in one of the shells available on that system to reset your login shell or just a <RETURN> to leave it unchanged.
On Eden:
You can change the login shell by going to http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/account_tools.html
What are file/directory permissions and how can I change them?
Files created on Eden or RCI are created with default protections (see
man umask for details) set so that the only one who may read them is
you. These permissions are displayed when you use the command
ls -l
Sometimes you might want to make a file
readable to everyone. If so, you can change a file/directory's
permission with the chmod command. The symbolic mode of the chmod
command would look something like
chmod setting filenameThe "setting" would be made up of representation of whose permissions are to be affected, what operation is to be performed, and which permissions are to be affected all of which are in the table below.
| Whose permissions Affected |
Code | Permission Operation |
Code | Permission Affected |
Code |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| User | u | Add | + | Read | r |
| Group | g | Remove | - | Write | w |
| Other | o | Set | = | Execute | x |
| All | a |
Thus the command chmod o-rwx filename
only affects
the permissions for "others" and removes all permissions for them on
the file filename. The command chmod go+r ab*
would
add read permissions for those in the same group as the user and for
others who are not the user or in their group to all files whose names
start with "ab". The command chmod u=rw *txt
sets
the user permissions to be read and write (no execute) for all files
ending in .txt. To see what groups you are in type
groups
To see what groups jqsmith is in type
groups jqsmith
Some common files that people wish to make accessable are:
.plan your plan file .project your project file public_html www (homepage) directory index.html your homepage $HOME your home directory
The commands for the above would be:
chmod a+rx public_html $HOME
chmod a+r .plan .project public_html/*
You can move your files in UNIX using the mv command:
mv file1 file2
The above will move (rename) file1 to
file2. Just make sure there is no file called file2 otherwise file1
will overwrite it without asking you. A safer method would be to type:
mv -i file1 file2
in which case mv will prompt for
confirmation whenever the move would overwrite an existing file. You
can also move files to a directory by replacing file2 with the name of
the directory.
You can delete UNIX files using the rm (remove) command:
rm file The above will delete the file named "file".
Caution: Since there is no undelete command, make sure you wish to
delete a file before issuing an rm command. If you are going to use
wild cards (* or ?) in a rm command, use the -i option so the system
will ask to remove each file before doing so. The command:
rm -i a*.txt will cause the system to ask to remove all files
that start with "a" and end with ".txt". You can also delete whole
directories using the rm command with the -r option. For example:
rm -r .netscape/cache
The netscape cache directory is
the only directory where this is commonly applicable.
If you have a file that either begins with an "odd" character or in
some cases contains an "odd" character it may cause you difficulties in
handling it. The reason for this is that certain characters have
special meaning to UNIX and when present in a command are not
interpreted as part of the file name but as part of the command. Most
of the time this turns out to be a file with the first character as
"-". To move/remove a file like this do one of the
following:
mv ./-file1 file2
rm ./-file
Many of the characters outside of a-z, A-Z, 0-9, _,
and . will cause difficulties if they appear in file names. If you
find that a character is getting interpreted as something other than a
character try preceding it with "\". The "\" tells UNIX that the next
character is no to be interpreted but to be treated as a normal
character. For example the command
mv odd!file
odd.file
will probably result in the error
message
file: Event not found.
indicating that
the command should be entered: mv odd\!file odd.file
To restore files/directories that have been deleted, they first must have existed during the last backup, about Midnight. To request a restoration, send an email message to the address
operator@machine(where machine would be replaced by the machine you are on (e.g. eden or rci)) requesting that the files/directories be restored from the backup tape from the day prior to when you noticed the loss. Once the file has been restored it will either have the same original name with ".restore" added to the end, or be named the same and placed in a subdirectory called restored.
If the file was a mail file, you can then open that file from within a mail program and read it. (e.g., in zmlite use "open" under the folder menu)
Eden accounts will get an increased quota only when requested by a faculty member to facilitate course work or research.
RCI accounts can request an increase via email to help@rci.
To check your quota, disk usage, and what files you have; use the
commands: quota -v
du
ls -AsR
to remove a file use the command
rm -i filename
Reduce the size of a file with
compress filename
The following should help you find what you
have, where it is, and how to reduce that amount. The command
ls -A | grep \~
will give you a list of files that can be removed
(~ files are back up files). The command
ls -Als | sort -n | tail -10
will give you a list of the 10
largest files some of whom could be compressed or removed. The command
ls -lst | tail -20
will give a list of the 20 oldest
files some of whom could be removed.
To dial into your account you need a phone line, a modem, a computer, and a communication package (software on the computer to run the modem).
The general dialup modem line information can be found on the web page http://www-td.rutgers.edu/no/bog/modems
You would establish a dialup networking connection and then us an FTP program on your computer. The FTP server for Eden is
ftp.eden.rutgers.eduthe FTP server for RCI is
ftp.rci.rutgers.eduuse the above for ftp connections. Details about how to use the ftp on your computer depend upon the FTP program that you have.
To find out about the hours of the labs or what programs they have, click on one of the links below
Busch campus http://www.nbcs.rutgers.edu/ccf/busch
Livingston campus http://www.nbcs.rutgers.edu/ccf/liv
College Avenue campus http://www.nbcs.rutgers.edu/ccf/cac
Cook/Douglass campus http://www.nbcs.rutgers.edu/ccf/cd
If you cannot log into any of the computers in the lab, you need to do a password change.
If you cannot log onto an xterm but can from other types of computers, try the following. If your password is 9 or more characters long, try typing only the first 8 characters when prompted for a password. When typing the password, do you use the keypad on the right of the keyboard for the numbers? If so, make sure the Num Lock light is lit.
Another possibility is that your X startup file (either .xsession or .xinitrc) is missing or has errors. Try moving it to .xsession.bad (or .xinitrc.bad). Then try logging on on an xterm and then moving one change over to the default startup file at a time to see which is the bad instruction.
If the above do not help, you may need to do a password change.
You can send and receive e-mail on our UNIX systems using pine, zmlite,
zmail, and mail. The commands for these are: pine
zmlite
zmail
zmail -gui
mail
The above would be typed at a system prompt. There is support for the
use of pine, little support for zmlite, no support for zmail and mail,
finally if you are on an X terminal you can use zmail -gui without
support (gui stands for graphic user interface).
You first move the corrupt file out of the way by issuing the command:
mv mbox mbox.bad
at the system prompt (if your mail
file is named something else, adjust the above command to match). Then
contact help on your system on how to proceed with recovering
the mail in the corrupted file.
To cause your mail to be forwarded from a UNIX machine to another
system to be read there, login on the system where you do not
want to read mail and type: echo name@machine > .forward
where name@machine is the address where you want your
mail to go to, as in one of the following:
echo jqsmith@aol.com > .forward
echo jqs@rci.rutgers.edu > .forward
Then type:
more .forward
to verify what is in that file. Finally, test it
by sending mail to yourself at the account where do not want to
read mail and make sure you get it shortly at your "name@machine"
account.
A mass mailing is when mail is sent out to a large number of people who did not request/authorize it. It is considered an abuse of system resources and perpetrators will get their accounts suspended when they are caught. We do not "check" anyone's mail to find these and other mail abuses, we find out about them when one is turned into us.
The proper method of disseminating a message to a wide audience is to post it to news groups, in particular ru.misc.general.
Other mail behavior that is prohibited are the passing on of chain letters and mail bombing. These activities not only affect the recipients but also have a severe impact upon the systems and networks involved. It is suggested that you read the web page http://info.rutgers.edu/Techdir/acceptable-use.html for guidelines on what is and is not allowed.
A chain letter is a message that promises something will happen (good, bad, or other) if the letter is/is not sent on to others. In and of themselves they are not a problem, but a letter sent to 5 people who send it to 5 people who send it to 5 people, is a letter repeated 125 times which can have a significant effect on the systems/networks that are involved. Additionally, chain letters tend to grow as people forward the letter, leaving old headers intact, eventually making the message HUGE. It is considered an abuse of system resources and perpetrators will get their accounts suspended when they are caught. We do not "check" anyone's mail to find these and other mail abuses, we find out about them when one is turned into us.
Therefore chain letters are considered a misuse of University services, as well as an unfriendly thing to do (think how you would feel if you were told you would die if you did not do something).
Other mail behaviors that are unacceptable are mass mailings and mail bombing. These activities not only affect the recipients but also have a severe impact upon the systems and networks involved. It is suggested that you read the web page http://info.rutgers.edu/Techdir/acceptable-use.html for guidelines on what is and is not allowed. Also check out the stand the USPS takes on chain letters at http://www.usps.gov/websites/depart/inspect/chainlet.htm
Mail bombing is when someone sends a massive amount of mail to an address in the attempt to jam that mail box. This is either done with a few large messages or many smaller messages. It is considered an abuse of system resources and perpetrators will get their accounts suspended when they are caught. We do not "check" anyone's mail to find these and other mail abuses, we find out about them when one is turned into us.
Other mail behavior that is prohibited are the passing on chain letters and mass mailings. These activities not only affect the recipients but also have a severe impact upon the systems and networks involved. It is suggested that you read the web page http://info.rutgers.edu/Techdir/acceptable-use.html for guidelines on what is and is not allowed.
You can read and post news to news groups (Usenet) by using the nn
program. At the system prompt type: nn
You can then
type G
to go to a news group. To read an article
type the letter to the left of the article then type
Z
The group used for discussion of Eden machines is
ru.ici.nb.general.
To post news type inside nn :post
you will then enter
an emacs window where you can type your message. Save the message,
exit emacs, and post the message by typing:
Ctrl-x Ctrl-s Ctrl-x Ctrl-c The above indicates that you hold
down the control key while typing "xsxc".
Spamming is defined, in short, as posting more than 20 substantially identical copies of an article on Usenet (netnews) to several news groups at the same time. It is especially applied to postings that have nothing to do with what the group is discussing (i.e. posting concert tickets for sale to a Macintosh software group) or get rich quick scams which few groups appreciate seeing (for the nth time).
Very often spams also constitute a commercial use of an account. Spamming and commercial use of a Rutgers account are both grounds for account suspension. It is suggested that you read the web page http://info.rutgers.edu/Techdir/acceptable-use.html for guidelines on what is and is not allowed.
The list of home pages that are on Eden can be found at
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/usrlist/index.html
Please Note that this list is not updated the moment a page is created, it usually takes a couple of days for a new home page to get on the list.
IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. It is a way
to talk to thousands of people across the world. To access it type:
irc
at the system prompt. Irc is not supported by
Computing Services, for assistance read from and post to the local
newsgroup ru.comp.qa.irc.
IRC bots are used to keep an IRC channel open for your use. This may deny others the opportunity to gain access to that IRC server. Many bots are also harmful to the server they are maintaining channels to. This has caused many IRC servers to make bots illegal. If you are caught running a bot on your Rutgers account, your rutgers accounts will be suspended. It is suggested that you read the web page http://info.rutgers.edu/Techdir/acceptable-use.html for guidelines what is and is not allowed.
IRC Scripts make the use of irc easier for most people, unfortunately they also make harassing other users easier. They are not supported on Rutgers systems.