Computing Facilities

Overview
Windows PCs
Unix, Linux and XTerminals

Overview (Top of page)

The School has a wide range of computing equipment which will probably always be in a state of flux due to upgrades of hardware and software. The following information is to allow you to begin using the computing facilities within the School, however you may need to seek help on occasions. The Computing Services Group is available to provide additional computing systems support and advice when required.

In the document, we will list a number of commands which you issue to the computers. In the descriptions we include some variable parameters in italics. When you use the commands, replace the parameters with what you need.

If you find any problems with using this document, please contact the webmaster to have changes inserted. As this document must evolve with the computing system, this is important.

The School network is integrated with a single authentication system for the entire Engineering network, meaning users need only remember and maintain a single username and password to access any resource in the School. The authentication scheme is also tied into the undergraduate CATS, enabling access to resources to in the School to be able to be granted undergraduate students without the requirement to establish and maintain separate accounts for them.

All full time staff and post graduate students in the School will have a networked workstation on their desk. This may be a machine running either Solaris, Linux, Windows XP or Windows 2000, depending on the user's need and available resources. There are also a number of general access PCs available for use in the Norman Blockley Computer laboratory (EM211) for fourth year project students as well being available for School staff and postgraduates should they need to make use of them. In addition there are a number of PCs available for fourth year project students which may end up running various operating systems.

The workstations fall into two main categories:

Windows PCs
Unix/Linux systems

Windows PCs. (Top of page)

There are around Windows 150 PCs attached to the School network. Most of these have been installed with a standard Windows XP or Windows 2000 desktop including installation of Novell client software enabling access to shared resources such as files and printing, while also allowing automatic updating of software from a server.

Applications:

As part of the standard base desktop, most PCs in the School will have Office2000 installed

Netscape is also installed and is the recommended web browser and email client for use in the School. You should read the "Rules and Guidelines for Internet Use" document.

A couple of other programs which you will find under "Applications" from the "Start Menu" are the "ws_ftp" program for transferring files between different systems and "putty" which is an ssh client which provides a secure login to unix systems with with similar functionality to telnet which is insecure and being phased out.

There is also an X-Windows emulator called Xwin32 available on all School PCs which enables users to run X-windows graphical applications and have them displayed on their PC as though it were an Xterminal or Unix/Linux workstation. Apart from providing access to applications available only on Unix/Linux systems, it also enables large jobs to be run remotely on more powerful servers which can be especially useful for PCs with limited resources.

Matlab is another program which is used by many people within the School and it is now installed on most computers in the School.

Under the Start Menu is the E-Trust / InoculateIT anti-virus program. Any time you bring a disk in from outside the university or download an application over the internet, you should run this program to ensure we remain virus free.

There are a number of other software packages, some of which are installed only on certain PCs, others are available via the network.

In addition the Computer Support Group can install additional software should you require it.

Note that no software should be installed on any general access computer without prior consent of a member of the Computer Services Group. If you have legitimate access to any other School PC you may install any software for which you have the legal permission to do so, however it is normally recommended that software be installed by a member of the Computer Services Group, who should be advised of any installations of software performed by users. They may not provide support for any software which is not part of the School standard desktop, in particular where the functionality is available from the standard applications.

Note the installation of illegal software is a serious offence carrying penalties of up to $50,000 fines and 6 months jail for individuals with higher fines applying to organisations. To protect the School from such liability, anyone caught installing illegal software in the School can expect to be reported to the appropriate authorities.

Mapped drives:

When you login to a PC there will normally be a number of network drives mapped for you. By default the J: drive is your personal directory. It is where your personal files should be stored if you wish to ensure they are backed up. Also by storing your files on the network drive, they will appear in the same place no matter which computer you are working on. Files saved to the local drives on general access computers are liable to be deleted without notice unless prior arrangements have been made. There are some files in your personal directory which you will not have consciously created yourself but which are necessary for storing information such as roaming profiles and your mail. Be careful when cleaning up your directory that you do not accidentally delete any of these files.

The K: directory is by default mapped to the network applications directory. While you should not normally need to access this explicitly, if you cannot find an application or an icon pointing to it on your PC it may be worth a look on the K: drive. Note that different users may have differing security permissions to see different sub-directories

Mapping Unix Drives:

You may also map your unix home directory to appear as a networked drive. To do this, from explorer, choose to map a drive and when prompted, enter the path name as "\\unix\homes". You can also map the web server pages as "\\unix\www" for more easily maintaining web pages. Note that this service is not available from all machines.

Unix/Linux systems: (Top of page)

There are a number of Solaris Servers/Workstations, Linux boxes and a few Xterminals scattered throughout the School. Data and application disks attached to various servers are cross mounted across the network using the Network Files System (NFS) protocol. This means that disks such as the one containing your home directory appear the same no matter which system you are logged into.

Unix/Linux applications:

There are many applications available on the Unix/Linux systems, but probably the two most common are Matlab and Netscape. Matlab can be run by just entering the command "matlab" for the current version of Matlab. Netscape is started with the command "netscape" the command prompt. For further information on setting up Netscape see the "Rules Guidelines for Internet Use in the School"

Another useful application which is now available on Unix/Linux systems is Star Office. This provides functionality similar to Microsoft Office and can read and exchange word, excel and powerpoint documents. Its main problem is that is very memory hungry and consequently takes a little while to run up. It can be started by entering "soffice" at the command prompt.

For those who require additional access to Microsoft Windows, we have a terminal server which will let you run a virtual Windows session in a window of your X session. You will need to contact the members of the computer support group to get access to this facility.

When logged into a remote system during an X-Windows session, if you want to run any X (gui) applications, you need to set a display variable which tells that machine to direct all output to the machine or X terminal which you are using. If the computer you are physically working on is called sylvester for example, use:

setenv DISPLAY sylvester:0.0

You may also need to allow the remote permission to display on your screen by typing:

"xhost +remotemachine" in a local terminal session.

General Access Servers:

There are currently three general access servers in use in the School. While you are free to use any of them, each their specific roles and configurations is described below. If in doubt however atlas is the preferred primary access server.

access - This is a Sparc 20 machine, currently running Solaris 9 It provides direct access to the internet (ie can be used to ssh or ftp direct to any internet site). It is relatively slow and so should not be used for any large lobs.

atlas - This is an Utrasparc 170 running Solaris 9. This is now the primary general access machine in the School and should be computer which you do most of your work on unless you have access to computers in a research group, or you have a particular need to use on of the capabilities or configuration of other machines.

arego - This is an Athlon Thunderbird 1.1Ghz running RedHat 7.2 and it is intended for running of larger jobs and so should not be used for routine tasks such as reading mail or browsing the internet.

You may also access other machines in the http://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/load/

Unix/Linux Workstations:

There are many other workstations/servers scattered around the School, intended primarily for research groups of individuals who are working in a particular area. Some of these are quite powerful will run your applications faster than the main servers depending on the loads on the various machines. To get an indication of which machines in the School have the most CPU capacity available at any give time you can check out http://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/load

You should check with the owner or research group before using any of these machines and in particular avoid running jobs which cause significant swapping to occur on machines which other users have as their desktop system as this can have a significant detrimental effect on their ability to use the computer.

Warning Never turn off a Workstation. This can cause damage to the hard disk. If it stops working it will need attention by a member of the Computer Services Group.

X-terminals:

A number of X-terminals are scattered throughout the School. These connect to another machine. Any software being used will run on the host machine, not on the X-terminal itself.

Most of these are Labtam machines. They are configured to boot from a particular file server (that is, load their operating program to begin operation) and they will end up being connected to either the same or a different machine for running software. They do not run user software themselves, but provide a windows interface for the user called X-Windows.

X-Windows is an interface similar to Macintosh and Microsoft Windows, but having its own characteristics. It allows management of concurrently executing tasks, which may be running on the same or different computers, and may be viewed in different windows on the same screen. Thus you can simultaneously execute compilations, simulations, long calculations and while text editing.

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