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DCAnet Frequently Asked Questions
Last modified 1999/10/13.
Maintainer: Antonio Figueiredo <antonio@dca.fee.unicamp.br>

Compiled in this document you find the announcements 
and information of interest to users of DCA computing facilities. 
Many important announcements, such as system or network
down-time, or newly installed facilities, are posted only through "notice".
Regular reading is prudent. 

This posting is the FAQ (a synopsis of Frequently Asked Questions) for the
DCA computer network.  As such, it addresses questions regularly asked
of the DCA systems staff and provides a summary of useful information which
is hard to find anywhere else.  The following questions are addressed:

1. Getting Help

1.01) Where can I find a copy of this FAQ file?
1.02) I know almost nothing about Unix.  Where do I start?
1.03) Where can I find in-depth systems reference materials?
1.04) How can I get help?
1.05) How can I locate a system/network administrator?
1.06) What is "notice" system?
1.07) How can I contribute a question to the FAQ?
 

2. Hours of Operation

2.01) What are the systems' and network's hours of operation?
2.02) What are the Computer Science laboratories' hours of operation?

3. System Information

3.01) What types of computers are available on the DCA subnet?
3.02) How do I determine which machines are not being used or have the
          smallest load (and hence the best performance)?
3.03) Where/how should I run a resource intensive program?
3.04) What is the structure of the DCA file-system?
3.05) What are the naming conventions used on the DCA subnet?
3.06) What software is available?
3.07) Where can I find the source code for the public domain software
          installed on our network?
3.08) What is our policy regarding system software upgrades?
3.09) How can I determine the OS version my machine is running? 

4. User Account Information

4.01) How do I change my password?
4.02) How can I change my default shell?
4.03) How can I change my name in the finger information?
4.04) Where can I find a set of startup (or dot) files (.login, .cshrc,
          .xsession, etc) which are known to work?
4.05) What does each of the common startup (or dot) files do?
4.06) How long may I keep my account?
4.07) Is it ok to let my friends use my account?

5. Disk Usage

5.01) What is the amount of disk space I'm allocated to use?
5.02) How do I determine my total disk usage?
5.03) How do I clean out my .netscape directory?
5.04) How do I empty my Common Desktop Environment (CDE) Trash
          can?
5.05) I have a large amount of data in my directory which I'd like to archive
          to tape.  How do I go about doing this?

6. Window Managers

6.01) What window managers are supported on the CS machines?
6.02) How do I bring up mwm on the HP machines, instead of CDE?
6.03) How do I prevent others from displaying to or reading from my X 
          session?
6.04) How do I run (or avoid running) CDE on an X-terminal?
6.05) Is it OK to lock my screen?

7. File Backups/Restorations

7.01) What is the backup policy?
7.02) I've accidentally deleted a file.  How can I get it back?

8. Printing

8.01) How do I print?
8.02) What printers are available?
8.03) May I print as much output as I like?
8.04) How do I print a Unix man (manual) page?
8.05) How do I cancel my print job?

9. PCs and Macs

9.01) How do I access files in my Unix account from a PC?

10. Mail/News/WWW

10.01) On which machine can I read my electronic mail?
10.02) How do I forward my mail to a different machine? 
10.03) What is my e-mail address?
10.04) How do I set up a personal World Wide Web (WWW) home page?
10.05) I would like to use POP3 (Post Office Protocol)  Which machines
           are POP servers?

11. Dial Up

11.01) How do I dial in from home?
 

Answers to these questions are given below.
 


1.01) Where can I find a copy of this faq file?

This file is available as /n/info/docs/DCAnet/faq-dca.


1.02) I know almost nothing about Unix.  Where do I start?

A variety of books have been published on the basics of the Unix operating
system. In the University Library you can find a number of them.
Additionally, in our Web server you can find some tutorials and useful 
docs about Unix. Have a look at the page:
http://www.dca.fee.unicamp.br/sysadmin/helpstuff



1.03) Where can I find in-depth systems reference materials?

The Unix "man" command provides access to the typical on-line Unix reference
manual set on all our systems. 
Some manuals and tutorial are available in a closet inside LCA.
Complete Sun systems documentation is available via the Web at this URL:
http://docs.sun.com


1.04) How can I get help?

If you are having trouble understanding how to use the systems, 
we strongly encourage you to read this FAQ in order to get
familiarized to our system. If you have doubts on using an Unix
command, for example ls, cp, ps and so on. 
Please, we do not give support on this.
We do recommend you to read the info available at the page below.
http://www.dca.fee.unicamp.br/sysadmin/helpstuff.

If your troubles are due to hardware or 
software failures in the systems or network, you
should email us to suporte@dca.fee.unicamp.br
If the network is so hosed up that you cannot log in or even send a mail,
report the problem to a lab-intern or locate a system
administrator as described below. If you can't find him leave a note
under his door.


1.05) How can I locate a system/network administrator?

System/network administrator's name is Antonio Figueiredo 
(antonio@dca.fee.unicamp.br, phone 788-3823).
He usually is at his office, which is inside the LCA. However,
if you want to contact him to address problems and/or doubts
related to our computer network, please SEND MESSAGE to 
suporte@dca.fee.unicamp.br.
Please, do not knock his door to ask ordinary questions,
such as how the command ls works,  how can I send a job to printer,
etc. We do encourage you to read this FAQ completely and the docs
referred here in order to better understand our computer network and
how it is organized.  Most of the docs mentioned here are refered 
at section 1.01 of this FAQ.


1.06) What is the "notice" system?

"notice" is internal bulletin board-like system which allows the
system administration use to inform users about system/network related
stuff. Sofware just installed, network configuration changes, system
downtime, etc. are examples of possible subjects to be posted through
this resource. Please, we strongly recomend that all users read this
news frequently. 

Type "notice" to read the news. They are organized by categories and
inserted in the file in reverse order of date. The command "notice"
uses the Unix "more" command, so you search a specific word by using
the caracter "/".


1.07) How can I contribute a question to the FAQ?

This is an evolving resource. Please, give us your contribution in
order to have a comprehensive document which could be effective for
our users. I hope that together we can create useful document to help
people learn about our systems in general.
If you have questions to be posted here, PLEASE, do not hesitate 
to send it us emailing it to suporte@dca.fee.unicamp.br.
Don't forget to formulate the question, send the question and the
answer. However, if you only have comments and/or ideas, please also
let us know. They are taken seriously. Some of the best
ideas have come from comments like yours. 


2.01) What are the systems' and network's hours of operation? 

Generally, we try to keep all systems up all the time.  There is no regularly
scheduled down time.  However, sometimes we need to take systems or even
the entire network down for maintenance.  We try to schedule this at non-
disruptive times.  Down times are announced only through "notice".
Regular reading of "notice" news is highly recommended.


2.02) What are the Computer Science laboratories hours of operation?

We never close. Unless for maintenance in the building, like
LCA semester's cleaning or some power-off.


3.01) What types of computers are available on the DCA subnet?

A complete list of DCA machines is yet to be available through Web.
At "notice"/equipamentos you have a short list but with the most
important machines.


3.02) How do I determine which machines are not being used or have the
    smallest load (and hence the best performance)?

The "rup" command returns the current load average for most CS machines.
For further information consult the rup(1) man page.


3.03) Where/how should I run a resource intensive program?

Generally speaking, such a program should be run in such a way as to minimize
its impact on other users.  This means initially choosing a machine with a
small load as described above.  Additionally, it is mandatory social etiquette
that such jobs be run using "nice" on public machines.  For further
information, consult the nice(1) man page.

We have GNU nice version installed on /n/gnu/bin (it is in your path), 
to use it type:

   % /n/gnu/bin/nice -19 matlab &

Further information on how to leave matlab running, see "notice"/dicas.


3.04) What is the structure of the DCA network file-system?

Generally speaking, user files and home directories are shared among Unix
systems via NFS (the Network File System protocol) and NIS (the Network
Information System protocol).  Put more simply, no matter which Unix
machine you log into, you will find your same home directory and same
set of files. 

User files are located in directories of the form,
/home/CATEGORY/NAME, where:

 CATEGORY is the type of directory, such as 
                       faculty for faculty members, or
                       sysman for System administrator(s), or
                       grad for undergraduate, or
                       msc for Master students, or
                       phd for PhD students, or
                       spec for special students (not regularly registered
                       at the university), etc., or
                       visit for guests/visitors, or
                       ex  for former students on the way to be removed.

 NAME is the name of the directory (the same as login name in the
             case of home directories).

Example: 

          /home/msc/jose
          /home/phd/maria
 

Exceptions: Research projects have theirs specific home directories
for their users. This is due they brought disks and machines to the
DCAnet so they might have more disk space. In this case, we have the
following organization: /proj/PROJECT/CATEGORY/NAME, where:
 

          PROJECT is the name of the sponsored project, such as
                           mmedia for multimedia project, or
                           sw     for software testing

Example:

          /proj/mmedia/phd/prado


3.05) What are the naming conventions used on the DCA subnet?

Computers have names of beaches (e.g., pontadareia, pirangi,
bombas,..), and printers have names of fishes (e.g., atum, boto).

Internet addresses ending with "dca.fee.unicamp.br" are all components of
our subnet, for example lencois.dca.fee.unicamp.br.  The "dca.fee.unicamp.br"
suffix can usually be omitted on references local to our subnet. 


3.06) What software is available?

A complete list of software packages is available at:
  http://www.dca.fee.unicamp.br/sysadmin/packages

Most locally supported software is installed in the following format:
/n/CATEGORY/PACKAGE, where:

   CATEGORY is the class of software installed such as:
 
 
 case CASE tools
 comm  communications
 crypt cryptography
 db databases
 dtp desktop (LaTeX, LaTeX2HTML, ...)
 draw drawing
 gnu GNU packages
 hard Hardware 
 image Image
 lang Language
 local Local applications
 mail Mail tools/clients
 net Networking
 util Utilities
 X X Window system and Window Managers



3.07) Where can I find the source code for the public domain software
    installed on our network?

Normally, I do not keep the source of software installed here.
However, most of the package can be find at http://ftp.unicamp.br.


3.08) What is our policy regarding system software upgrades?

We try to keep up with changes in operating system, third party, and public
domain software as they are released.  Our policy is to support the latest
releases in a timely manner.  In general we support only the latest version,
as we do not have the resources to support multiple older versions for
compatibility sake.  However, in cases where a software upgrade is predicted
to cause trauma to the user community, we inform this in the "notice".
What we normally do is keep the previous installed version of a
software until the just installed version is considered stable.
All other routine upgrades are announced after the fact.


3.09) How can I determine the OS version my machine is running? 

On most machines, use the following command:

    uname -a


4.01) How do I change my password?

On Unix Systems: type "passwd" 

On NT Systems: type Ctl+Alt+Del  ->  Change Password


4.02) How can I change my default shell?

Send mail to suporte@dca.fee.unicamp.br to request that your shell be changed.
The available shells are listed below:

 csh 
 tcsh (the default)
 sh
 ksh
 bash


4.03) How can I change my name in the finger information?

Send mail to suporte@dca.fee.unicamp.br to request that your finger information
be changed.  The change cannot be performed with chfn because of
incompatibilities among various machines' implementation of the NIS protocol.


4.04) Where can I find a set of startup (or dot) files (.login, .cshrc,
    .xsession, etc) which are known to work?

The default startup files (which are provided in the home directories of
newly created accounts) may be copied from /n/dca/config/.  These
files provide a basic template which works in our environment, and may
serve as a starting point for your own individual modifications. 


4.05) What does each of the common startup (or dot) files do?

In general, the files in your home directory that begin with "." are
used to set up parameters and miscellaneous settings before starting
related utilities and functions.  The following start-up files are
executed or interpreted at the beginning of the sessions listed:

.login  -- each login or rlogin session (but not for an X session).

.cshrc  -- each csh/tcsh invocation (including your login shell). 

.xsession  -- each xdm (X-terminal) X session (not used here).

.xinitrc -- each xinit (workstation console) X windows session. 

.mwmrc  -- each Motif Window Manager session.

.mailrc  -- each /usr/bin/mail or /usr/ucb/mail session.

.elm/elmrc -- each elm session.

.pinerc         -- each pine session.


4.06) How long may I keep my account?

Generally speaking, your account will remain active as long as you are
either enrolled as a DCA student or if you are developing a project
with some DCA faculty. 
Other student accounts are removed twice annually, at the beginning
of the each semester.  E-mail will be sent to accounts about to
expire, several weeks before they are disabled. 


4.07) Is it ok to let my friends use my account?

NO.  Your account is for your use ONLY.  Accounts used by anyone other
than the designated user may be revoked.


5.01) What is the amount of disk space I'm allocated to use?

Unless a special allocation has been approved for you through a
professor, allocations are as follows:

    undergraduates:       10.0 Mbytes
    graduates:            20.0 Mbytes
    faculty and staff:    no limit but with quota
    miscellaneous others:  4 Mbytes

You will receive daily warning messages if you exceed your allocation.  Failure
to remedy the situation after several days of repeated warnings will result
in the suspension of your computer account.

You can determine your current disk usage with the following command on 
an Unix machine:

    cd; du -s .

This returns your total usage in 512-byte or 1024-byte blocks, depending
on the machine on which you run the command.  See du(1) for more information.

Please also note that total quota allocations exceed the size(s) of the
disk(s).  This means that if everybody uses their entire allocation, the
disk will fill up.  So please try to stay well below your personal allocation.


5.02) How do I determine my total disk usage?

Enter the following commands:

    cd; du -k .

This du command returns an integer value representing the number of blocks
you currently have stored under your home directory.  The -k option requests
output in 1024 byte blocks instead of the default of 512 byte blocks.
You can also find how much space is consumed by each subdirectory with the
following commands:

    cd; du -s -k *; du -s -k .??*

Older BSD-based systems may not accept the -k option and return 1024 byte
blocks by default.

Note: The .netscape directory and the Common Desktop Enviroment Trash can 
are often the culprits.


5.03) How do I clean out my .netscape directory?

Bring up netscape, go into edit/preferences/advanced/cache and reduce
the disk cache size.  The default is five megabytes.  Two megabytes
is probably a good compromise.  Over time, netscape also accumulates
a lot of useless stuff in other files.  If your netscape directory gets
excessively large, you might want to simply remove it and start over.
(Save your bookmarks first.)

There is also a button in this dialog box to clear the disk cache 
immediately. Click on the button and answer the questions, and the
disk cache will be cleared out.


5.04) How do I empty my Common Desktop Environment (CDE) Trash can?

Double-click on the trashcan symbol on the far right of the CDE Front Panel 
(at the bottom of the screen). From the 'File' menu, select 'Shared.'


5.05) I have a large amount of data in my directory which I'd like to archive
   to tape.  How do I go about doing this?

Send a mail to suporte@dca.fee.unicamp.br asking which tape unit is
available for use.

You may backup your files using "tar" command by typing:

    mt -f /dev/rmt/0 rewind         (if it's the case)

    cd $HOME
    tar cvf /dev/rmt/0  large-dir

This will copy the content of large-dir to the tape on /dev/rmt/0


6.01) What window managers are supported on the DCA machines?

We attempt to support fvwm on all our hardware
platforms, providing a consistent interface across all platforms.
If you want to learn only one window manager to use in our environment,
fvwm is the one to learn.

We also support the vendors' primary window manager on each hardware
platform.  Hence, the following window managers are supported on their
respective platforms:

    Suns  CDE (Common Desktop Environment)
    IBM   CDE (Common Desktop Environment)

WindowMaker are also also available on Solaris machines.


6.02) How do I bring up fvwm on the Sun machines, instead of CDE?

The login window which greets you on an Sun console is actually a component
of CDE windowing system.  In order to run fvwm instead of dtwm, you
should click on the "Options" menu button and select the "No Windows"
menu item.  This will terminate CDE and give you a console login prompt.
Log in and enter the xinit command.

Note that this method assumes you have an .xinitrc file in your home
directory which invokes mwm (copy the file /n/dca/config/.xinitrc to 
your home directory if you don't have it).


6.03) How do I prevent others from displaying to or reading from my X session?

Generally speaking user-based authorization -- see xauth(1) -- is more secure
and preferable to host-based -- see xhost(1).  Because your home directory
is shared by all machines on our subnet, most of the setup for user-based
authorization occurs automatically.  If you are running your X session
via anything other than the xinit command, you (and only you) are automatically
authorized to display to your X display from an X client on any machine. 
No setup is required.  If you are running X via xinit, you must do the
following:

  1) Before running xinit, create .Xauthority records manually using the
     following commands:

       xauth add ${HOST}/unix:0 . $KEY 
       xauth add ${HOST}:0 . $KEY 

     where ${HOST} is the name of the host on which you are running and $KEY
     is a difficult to guess key composed of an even number of 32 or fewer
     hexadecimal digits.

  2) run xinit using the following command:

       xinit -- /usr/bin/X11/X -auth $HOME/.Xauthority


6.04) How do I run (or avoid running) CDE on an X-terminal?

To run CDE you must click on the 'Options' button on the lower part of
the Login box. Select 'Session', and then 'Common Desktop Environment'.

Your other choice is to run OpenWindows Desktop. To start OpenWindows,
follow the above instructions, but select 'OpenWindows' instead of CDE.


6.05) Is it ok to lock my screen?

Generally speaking, LCA machines are shared resources.
It is department policy that they not be locked for exclusive use for long
periods of time.  They may be locked for brief periods (of five minutes or so)
if you are called away briefly from your work-station, for instance.


7.01) What is the backup policy?

The DCA systems group performs weekly backups on all user-data
stored on the different department file-servers.
Soon we will mirror your data daily at dark.
This means that if your data is lost on a given day, we can probably
restore it to its state at midnight the day before.

WE DO NOT BACK UP DESK-TOP SYSTEMS.  With desk-top unix systems this is
not a concern, because the network is architected such that user files
are automatically stored on the servers.  However, Microsoft systems (PCs)
put some burden of data-integrity on the user.  When using a PC, it is
important to take one of three steps to make sure your data is backed up:

  1) back it up yourself by copying it to your favorite media
     (floppy, Zip, etc),
  2) copy it to one of the file-servers (caolho, gorda), or
  3) map a network drive to your unix home directory, and do all your
     work on that mapped drive (via samba file service).

The tape-cycle for daily backups covers approximately the most recent three
months.  Additionally, an end-of-semester archive is performed three times
a year, at the end of each semester, for long-term file recovery.


7.02) I've accidentally deleted a file.  How can I get it back?

If the file was not on the system at that time, 
we CANNOT recover the file.  Recovered files
will be in the state they were in at the time of last backup.   To request
recovery of a file, send a mail to suporte@dca.fee.unicamp.br with
all the information necessary to recover the file.

Note, the backup/recovery service is only for recovery of files in an
emergency situation.  It is not to be relied on as an archival service.
There is no guarantee that your files will be recoverable. 


8.01) What printers are available?
 
 
Name Type Location
atum HP LaserJet 5M (postscript) LCA
boto HP LaserJet 4Mplus (postscript) LCA
salmao HP LaserJet 5M (postscript) secretary office
piranha EPSON (matricial) LCA



8.02) How do I print?

All printers except "salmao" are available for all users.

You may use the BSD command set (lpr, lpq, etc).

To print a file, type:

 lpr -P<printername> <filename>

If you are printing a large file, you may have to type this:

 lpr -s -P<printername> <filename>

The -s option is recommended to use when your file is big.


8.03) May I print as much output as I like? Is it charged?

In a word, no.  Printer paper, toner, and maintenance represent a substantial
expense to the DCA. We charge your printing copies, see criteria in
the file /n/info/docs/DCAnet/printing-charge.

Here are some suggestions to minimize wasted paper:

    - Use the enscript, mpage or mp commands to list 
      multiple pages per printed page.
    - Do not print large voluminous manuals.  Large on-line manuals
      should be perused on-line.  Users who print exceptionally large volumes
      of output will be asked to pay the costs of the printing.
    - Try not to print something unless you REALLY need a hard-copy.
    - Do not use the printers as copy machines.


8.04) How do I print a Unix man (manual) page?

Use the following command from all but the HP machines:

    troff -man -t MAN-FILE | lpr -h -t

where MAN-FILE is the unformatted manual page (i.e., from a "man" vs "cat"
directory).  On HP machines, the manual files are typically compressed,
and troff isn't available.  You can uncompress the file as follows:

    cat MAN-FILE | zcat > tmpfile

Then print the result, tmpfile, from a non-HP machine as describe above.


8.05) How do I cancel my print job?

To cancel you print job, you need to check the job's status in order
to get the job number.

To check on the status of your print job, type 'lpstat <printername>'.
You will get output that looks something like this:

> lpstat atum
atum-195              root               367   Apr 06 08:27 on atum

To cancel your job, type 'cancel <job>'. To cancel the job above, one
would type:

> cancel atum-195
request "atum-195" cancelled


9.01) How do I access files in my Unix account from a PC?

Right click on "My Computer", then select "Map network drive".
Enter a path of "\\genipabu\LOGIN", where LOGIN is your Unix login.
You'll be prompted for your unix password.

WARNING:

  1) Make sure the box to reconnect at reboot is NOT checked.

  2) Be sure to select the "disconnect network drive" option
     when you are done.

Otherwise, the next person to sit at the machine will have
unrestricted access to all your Unix files.


10.01) On which machine can I read my electronic mail?
 

You may read your emails on every DCAnet machine. Besides the
mail clients of each window manager, we some mail clients installed at
/n/mail, such as pine, elm, mutt, ... which you can use to read your
email messages. 


10.02) How do I forward my mail to a different machine? 

If you'd like your mail to go to a remote machine not on
the DCA subnet, you may place the address in a .forward file.
Please assure that the following two conditions hold:

  1) the destination address is fully qualfied, and
  2) it does not end with ".dca.fee.unicamp.br".

After setting up a .forward, test it to make sure it is working correctly.


10.03) What is my e-mail address?

Your e-mail address is LOGIN@dca.fee.unicamp.br where LOGIN is your login. 
On our local subnet your e-mail address may be abbreviated to simply your
login.


10.04) How do I set up a personal World Wide Web (WWW) home page?

In your home directory create a subdirectory named public_html.  Only files
stored under that directory are accessible via the ~ operator from the Web.
In your public_html directory create a file called index.html.  This will be
your home page, accessible via the ~ operator.  For example, if user foo sets
up such a file structure his home page file, ~foo/public_html/index.html,
will be accessible via the URL, http://www.dca.fee.unicamp.br/~foo.  You may
also store other files under your public_html directory and reference them
from your home page, or directly via a WWW URL.  For example, the file
~foo/public_html/bar.html will be accessible via the URL,
http://www.dca.fee.unicamp.br/~foo/bar.html.


10.05) I would like to use POP3 (Post Office Protocol)  Which machines
    are servers to be configured?

        SMTP                    mailhost.dca.fee.unicamp.br
        POP3                    pop.dca.fee.unicamp.br


11.01) How do I dial in from home?

We do not provide dial up service for students.
If you are a graduate students, ask an account for this service at
CCUEC (Unicamp's Computing Center).



 
 
 
 

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