CSE computing FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions about the CSE computing environment.

General FAQs:

Can I bring my PC into the IST Building and use it? How about wireless?: You are welcome to bring laptops into the building. However, you are NOT allowed to connect your laptop to the network with a wire. Wireless service is available in the IST building via ITS Wireless SecureNet (wireless is no longer a service of the CSE Department).

How do I configure my wireless connection?: Wireless service is available in the IST building via ITS Wireless SecureNet (wireless is no longer a service of the CSE Department).

I need more disk space quota for my simulations!: In order to be allocated more disk space quota, you must have your advisor email IT support. It is not good enough to quote your advisor in an email, or even forward an email from your advisor due to the ease of forging emails we must hear from your advisor directly.
Sorry.

My card number/PSU ID has changed and now I cannot get in the lab.

When you get a new ID card with a new number, you will need to wait until after 4:00AM of the next day for the information to be updated in the Penn State Card Reader Server. If your access does not work after this waiting period, you will need to see Barb Einfalt in 111D IST or send email to CSE IT Support:

helpdesk@cse.psu.edu

If you send email, please give information as to which door(s) and the approximate date and time when your card was still not working.

What computing labs are available in CSE?: The answer to this question is now addressed it's own page.

What services are offered or provided by CSE IT and its staff?: We offer a multitude of computing and support resources for use by the Students, Faculty, Staff, and Guests of the CSE Department.

A list of services that we provide is here, including links (possibly FUTURE links ;) providing information about them.

Computing Facilities
Instructional Computing Lab - 218 IST
Graduate Computing Lab - 336 IST
Support for Labs and Office systems
Lab Software Faculty/Instructors may request may request additional software be installed

Computing Services
Printing for UNIX and non-UNIX systems
Windows Domain Services
Samba access to UNIX disk space (for non-UNIX systems)
Data Backup Automatic on Solaris/Samba filespace, available elsewhere upon request

Internet Services
Internet Mail
Usenet News

Services that IT Staff does NOT provide
Moving Furniture
Psu Access Accounts (your "abc123" account)

What's my port number? How do I find it?: Your port number will be either the letter D or E, followed by 4 digits (for example, D0241).

If your office is a graduate cluster, there will be a retractable Ethernet desk spool at your desk. The Ethernet port number is listed on that desk spool, or on the wire connecting to it. If there is no desk spool or Ethernet wire at your desk, contact a member of the CSE IT Support Staff.

If your office is anywhere other than a graduate cluster, there should be a green Ethernet cable at your desk that should have the port number on it. If not, please locate the port closest to you (on the wall in Faculty offices, or under the raised floor in research labs). If you need assistance, contact a member of the CSE IT Support Staff.

Who are the CSE IT Support Staff? Where are their offices? When can I find them?

The CSE IT Support Staff is made up of the following people:

Name	Title	Office
John Domico	Director of Information Systems	111E IST
Mark Tamminga	Systems Administrator	111B IST
Eric Prescott	Systems Administrator II	111G IST
Tony Vallalla	Senior Systems Analyst	112C IST
Barb Einfalt	Database Analyst/Programmer	111D IST
Matt Soccio	Senior Systems Analyst	111G IST
Kem Hartley	Network Systems Specialist	111C IST
Jeff Port	IT Specialist	111B IST

IT Support Staff are available between the hours of 9 AM and 5 PM Monday - Friday. Please send mail to helpdesk@cse.psu.edu rather than sending mail to the Staff directly. Or use the External ticket request form.

Computer Labs FAQs:

Can I eat in the lab?: No. It may seem safe enough, but you would be surprised how often food or drinks get spilled. Please remember that the computers in the lab are expensive, and paid for by your tuition surcharge money. If a machine stops working because it had a Pepsi poured on the processor, we cannot just go buy another one.

Please keep food and drink out of the lab.

I am in the lab and the printer is jammed/my machine is frozen/I need some help!: You will need to send email to CSE IT Support at:
helpdesk@cse.psu.edu
In the meantime, you should be able to print to either of the printers in 218 IST (lj218) or the printer in 222 IST (lj222). If one of them is jammed, please try the other one.

Electronic Mail FAQs:

People say they're sending me mail but it's getting rejected/I'm not getting it.: In most cases, the person whose mail is being rejected will receive a "Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender" message from our server. Sometimes, however, their mail server may be configured to retry sending the message. It may try for weeks and never inform the sender that it hasn't gotten through. There is nothing we can do about this.

Have the sender forward the rejection/error mail to postmaster@cse.psu.edu and we can figure out why their mail is being rejected.

How do I forward my CSE mail to another address?: Create a file called .forward in your home directory using your editor of choice. In that file, put the address to which you want your mail delivered. For example, if you wanted your CSE mail forwarded to your PSU email account and your Access Account username was abc123 your .foward file would contain the line abc123@psu.edu

How do I open attachments with my email when using mutt?: The easiest way to do this is actually not with your mail client. Write the message out to a file:
Using mutt:
Note: The prompts are different for mutt, but the commands are the same.
1. From the mailbox index, make sure the message containing the attachment is highlighted.
2. Hit 's' to save the message to a file.
3. Enter a filename (e.g. "message")
4. Hit 'J' or 'K' (or type the message number to jump directly) to move back to the message.
5. Hit 'u' to undelete the message.
6. Quit mutt.
Now run the 'metamail' command on your file:
1. Run 'metamail -w file' where file is the name you saved it to in step 3 above. You should see the following:
   This message contains 'text/plain`-format data.
   Please enter the name of a file to which the data should be written
   (Default: /tmp/mm.yVaO9r) >
2. This first part is simply the plain text of the message. You can write it to the default location by hitting return. You should now see the attachment:
   This message contains 'application/msword`-format data.
   Please enter the name of a file to which the data should be written
   (Default: WordFile.doc) >
3. Hit return again, your attachment has now been written to WordFile.doc

These UNIX mail programs like mutt, and pine just aren't for me. What are my other options? What is the name of the POP server?: You can also try Thunderbird or Outlook Express or Webmail. If you'd like to use a IMAP client at home such as Eudora or Outlook Express, use 'mail.cse.psu.edu' as the Incoming (IMAP) and Outgoing (SMTP) server.

Printing FAQs:

How do I add printers to CSE\'s Windows systems?

How do I configure printing on my Linux laptop?

How do I configure printing on my Mac OS laptop?

How do I print single-sided?

Solaris FAQs:

Can I run these X-based programs from the Solaris machines at home?: Linux, BSD, and any other UNIX OS use X as their display server, so if you're running one of these, you have almost everything you need. MacOSX has an X11 server called XDarwin that we'll use for this. If you're running Windows, you'll have to get an X Server. The two most commonly used products for this are Xming (free) and Exceed, which is a commercial product which we do not provide.
After your X server is up and running, Connect to the CSE VPN and just ssh to a CSE machine with X11 Forwarding enabled, and you're ready to go. See the SSH section above to acquire an SSH program.

How can I SSH to another host without using my password?: You'll need to set up SSH keys. Please see the following document for instructions:
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/817-0365/6mg5vpmfq

How do I change my password using a command line?: use the command "passwd"

How do I connect to CSE from home? How about transferring files?

All you need is a SSH client and a connection to our VPN if you are outside of the Penn State Network. SSH is easy to use and freely available to everyone at Penn State, so please use it.

Use the table below to figure out what software we recommend you get:

Operating System	Software
Windows	SSH Secure Shell TeraTerm
MacOS (pre-OSX)	MacSSH
MacOS X	MacSSH OpenSSH
Linux/BSD/Other UNIX	OpenSSH

Install your new program and connect:

If you want to connect to machines in 218 IST, use the address 'lab-218.cse.psu.edu'
If you want to connect to machines in 222 IST, use the address 'lab-222.cse.psu.edu'

To transfer files, you'll need an SFTP program. WinSSH and OpenSSH both come with sftp programs. MacSFTP is available at the MacSSH website. All are fairly straightforward. Just use the addresses above to connect to.

How do I get color syntax highlighting in Vim?

Sun uses xterms that don't quite comply with standard X11R6 xterms, which in turn prevents Vim's syntax highlighting from working. You'll need to insert the following into your ~/.vimrc file to use syntax highlighting. Note that the '^[' character below is actually a control character, CTRL-V. To enter it using Vim, enter insert mode and push CTRL-V <ESC>:

if &term =~ "xterm"
    if has ("terminfo")
        set t_Co=16
        set t_AF=^[[%?%p1%{8}%<%t3%p1%d%e%p1%{22}%+%d;1%;m
        set t_AB=^[[%?%p1%{8}%<%t4%p1%d%e%p1%{32}%+%d;1%;m
    else
        set t_Co=16
        set t_Sf=[3%dm
        set t_Sb=[4%dm
    endif
    syntax on
endif

Additionally, to see color with the 'ls' command, set the following in your ~/.cshrc.cat file:

  alias ls 'ls-F'
  set color=ls-F

How do I print multiple pages on a single sheet of paper?

How do I set Environment Variables on solaris?: To set up your solaris environment for many of our licensed software, you would need to edit the '.software' file which should be located in your home directory.
If you need to set up an environment for software that is not found in the '.software' file, then you should use your '.cshrc' file for setting these environments. You should find a line in your '.cshrc' file that begins with PERSONAL ADDITIONS. You should enter your changes AFTER this. Please note that the # symbol is used for comments.
The following command will give you the environment variables that are set for you:

printenv

Please remember that any file that begins with a '.' is similar to a 'hidden' file on Windows. To see a list of all files, including these hidden ('dot') files, you need to use the '-a' option with the 'ls' (list) command so that you can view all your files including the hidden 'dot' files.
If you find that your environment seems messed up, you can run the following command which will move all your current 'dot' files to a folder called '.hold' in your home directory and put the default 'dot' files in your home directory (Please run this command via console from a Command Line Login by selecting Options and then scroll down to 'Command Line Login' or remotely via an ssh client to a CSE Solaris machine):

/opt/cse/bin/new_dots

If for some reason, you do not have a '.software' file, the following command will create one for you:

/opt/cse/bin/new_soft

I hear the system administrators have been locking passwords and now my account doesn't work. Is that why?: You'll need to come to one of the CSE IT Support Staff Offices (111 suite IST Bldg.) with your ID to have get this fixed.

I just accidentally deleted my entire project and it's due in an hour. I'm dead, kill me now.: Actually, we run backups nightly. We can generally restore anything in your home directory that was deleted within the last 6 months. Contact The Helpdesk to have files restored.

I want to use AOL/ICQ/Yahoo/MSN/Other Messenger on the Solaris systems. How do I do this?: GAIM is installed system-wide. To use, run the 'gaim' command. To use Yahoo and MSN, you'll need to load the appropriate plugin. From the GAIM login window, choose "Plugins." Click "Load" to choose from a list of plugins. By default, it should search for plugins in /usr/local/lib/gaim. If you are somewhere else, browse to that location. Plugins for Yahoo and MSN are 'libyahoo.so' and 'libmsn', respectively. There are also other protocol plugins there.

Once loaded, you can enter your account information for these protocols in the Account Manager.

I was playing around with my .cshrc/.cshrc.cat/.Xsession/.fvwm2rc and now I can't login anymore.: If you can log in at all (i.e. via "Command Line Login"), type /usr/local/bin/new_dots. Your old (broken) dot files have been moved to ~/.hold, and you have now been given a fresh set.

It's half way through the semester and suddenly I can't login

My instructor said I should change my password, but I like having my PSU ID, it's easy to remember. Do I have to change it?

What are my web browser options under Solaris?

When I try to log in to the Solaris machines on console, it accepts my password, but then just goes back to the login screen. What gives?

Why doesn't GNOME work, or why does it state that it is starting OpenWindows?

Website FAQs:

I see boxes/question marks: That's where Unicode would be if your browser supported it. If you google for 'enabling unicode' you should be able to figure out how to set it up for your browser of choice.

Note that some browsers may not implement unicode fully enough to render all the character used in the site, so even after turning it on, you may not see all the glyphs.

If you cannot see a Unicode icon, try to infer from context or the status bar what its usage is. Most Unicode icons are also acronyms, so if you mouse over it long enough, it should tell you what it does.

Windows FAQs:

How do I add a printer?

How do I map my P: drive (CSE user space)?

How do I map my U: drive?

I can't get into the Windows lab (room 220)!

I cannot log into this Windows machine!

Sections

Personal tools