College of Engineering - Stock Answers Page

College of Engineering - Stock Answers Page

This page contains some answers to the Frequently Asked Questions the staff receive. We encourage everyone to review the information on this page before submitting an email to staff or calling them, as the information here will be far more complete (or in the case of emails probably just quoted verbatim).

Useful links

Status of the College of Engineering network

Instructions on setting up Eudora for the new mail server

Homepage of Pine, with documentation and FAQs

Technical information on the new mail server

The Webmail server

FAQ index

General System Usage
What servers should I use?
What term type should I use?
What is disk quota and how can I check it?
How can I connect to the College of Engineering network from off-campus?
How can I transfer files to and from my Engineering account?
Does the College of Engineering have dial-in access available?
How long do accounts last, how am I reminded, and how do I renew?
How can I find out about planned system downtime, and/or see the current status of machines and the network?
Is information on the main file servers backed up? How can I get something restored?
What about wireless network connectivity?

Email
How can I check my Engineering email?
How can I forward my Engineering email to someplace else?
How can I set up a vacation message for my Engineering email?
I'm being told people can't send me email - what's wrong?
Does the Engineering email server scan for viruses?
Does the Engineering email server scan for spam?
What is PGP (or, what is this "PGP SIGNED MESSAGE" I see in emails?
What are the PGP keys for the College of Engineering staff?
I'm getting a lot of messages saying I have sent a virus. Am I infected?

Printing
What printers are available, and where are they?
What is my print quota? How can I check it?

Student questions
Can I bring in a laptop and plug it into the College of Engineering network?
Who should I contact with problems?
How do I apply for an account?

Faculty questions
I plugged a new system into the network and it is not working - what do I do?
I moved a system recently and it is not working now - what's wrong?
Who should I contact with problems?

Application questions
What is ssh?
g++ is complaining about using antiquated headers. What's wrong?
How do I set up my web page?
I have launched a process I cannot get rid of. Help!

Other questions
What is supported by the College computing staff?
What is the property control number for my computer?
What is the MAC or Hardware or Ethernet address of my computer?
What is proper care and treatment of network cabling?

General System Usage

What servers should I use?

The College of Engineering has two main login servers for general use:
student.egr.unlv.edu - This server is to be used by students, and is a Sun Enterprise 450 with 4 CPUs and 4 gigs of RAM.
faculty.egr.unlv.edu - This server is restricted to faculty only (although faculty can also log into student), and has the same hardware configuration as student.

What term type should I use?

The Suns default to the term type for Sun, so if you are logging in from a SunBlade, there should be no need to change it. Otherwise, you can use either the vt100 or the ansi term types. You can change your term type as follows:
csh shell (the default one)
set term=vt100
bash shell
export TERM=vt100

What is disk quota and how can I check it?

Disk quota is a restriction placed on users' accounts in order to prevent one person from using all the disk space available on a server and denying resources for other users. There are four different numbers: soft and hard disk blocks, and soft and hard inodes. Soft quotas are where the system will start to complain about your disk usage, and will prevent additional usage after 7 days if you do not free some space. Hard quotas are absolute upper limits. Disk blocks are physical disk space (1 disk block is 512 bytes), and inodes are used at the rate of 1 inode per file. At current, the following standardized quotas are in effect:

User type	Blocks (Soft)	Blocks (Hard)	Inodes (soft)	Inodes (hard)
Undergraduate	100,000	110,000	10,000	12,000
Graduate	200,000	2200,000	20,000	22,000
Faculty/Staff	1,000,000	1,100,000	30,000	32,000

To check your quota, log into a server and issue the command quota -v.

How can I connect to the College of Engineering network from off-campus?

There are a number of provided ways to do this. If you already have an internet connection, you can ssh to student.egr.unlv.edu or faculty.egr.unlv.edu.

How can I transfer files to and from my Engineering account?

The only remaining officially supported method for doing this is via scp to student.egr.unlv.edu or faculty.egr.unlv.edu. Previously, the College offered standard FTP service, but we are decomissioning that ability soon.

Does the College of Engineering have dial-in access available?

No, the modems have been decommissioned due to the fact the high speed Internet is available and cheap. Give it a try you will like it.

How long do accounts last, how am I reminded, and how do I renew?

Student accounts are activated for one year, staff and faculty for two years. Thirty days, two weeks, and one week before your account expires you will be emailed a notice that you need to renew and the procedure for doing so. For faculty, send email to unixnet @ egr.unlv.edu.

If your account expires, depending on the length of time it has been expired, reactivation can take from a couple minutes to a couple working days. You are encouraged not to let your account expire.

If your account does expire, you will lose the ability to log into the Engineering lab machines, the servers, to receive or send email, to print, etc.

How can I find out about planned system downtime, and/or see the current status of machines and the network?

The web page http://www.egr.unlv.edu/stock_answers/status.html is updated whenever system downtime is planned or problems occur. We encourage everyone to check this page regularly, especially if you know you must have a certain resource at a particular time.

Is information on the main file servers backed up? How can I get something restored?

Information stored in users' home directories is backed up periodically. This includes e-mail that resides on the server (not in local folders on your PC) and files that you may have saved in your home directory. Backups are performed at 2am every night. We maintain daily, off-daily, weekly, and monthly backups. We presently do not have the ability to preserve monthly archives - they are overwritten every month.

To have something restored from tape, send an email to unixnet @ egr.unlv.edu, with the full directory name and file name, in addition to when you know the file was last good.

We will make every reasonable attempt to restore from tape, however, due to the nature of the medium restores may not be successful. In addition, files lost over a month ago may not be recoverable. We encourage users to backup critical files to their own media (floppy, Zip, or CD-ROM).

What about wireless network connectivity?

The university provides limited access in the CoE. Please contact OIT for more infromation.

Email

How can I check my Engineering email?

There are three main ways users can check their email. All of these methods will give you the same view of your email, and all can be used simultaneously and have multiple instances without problem.

Pine - You can connect to a server and execute the command pine. This will bring up the Pine mail reader. This is usable over a text-based connection.
Webmail - You can point your web browser to https://mail.egr.unlv.edu and use our Webmail server. This is accessible from anywhere in the world.
IMAP-SSL - You can use any standard email client to connect to our IMAP-SSL server at mail.egr.unlv.edu. See technical information on the new mail server for more information.

How can I forward my Engineering email to someplace else?

Simply create a file in your home directory named .forward. In this file, the only line of text must be the new email address to automatically forward to. This goes into effect immediately.

How can I set up a vacation message for my Engineering email?

The easiest way to do this is to set it up via our Webmail system.

Log into the webmail system.
On the menu along the top, click "Edit Autoreplies".
On the next page to come up, type a something like "Vacation" or any other descriptive name in the box next to "Create new autoreply:" then click the Create button next to it.
Next, click "Edit Mail Filters" along the top menu.
Down below "Edit/Add mail filter", type a descriptive name in the box next to "Rule name:"
Scroll down to the "Action:" section, click the circle next to "Send An Autoreply", then select the autoreply you just made from the drop-down list next to the Send An Autoreply text.
Click the Submit button.
When the page comes back, click "Save All Changes".

To stop the autoreply, log back into Webmail and delete the mail filter rule by clicking "Edit Mail Filters", then selecting your named rule from the list on top and clcik "Delete". On the next page that comes up, click "Save All Changes".

I'm being told people can't send me email - what's wrong?

There could be a number of things preventing email from arriving to you:

You are over quota - This is the problem roughly about 40% of the time. Log into a server and check your quota - if you have gone over, mail cannot be delivered to you.
Incorrect addressing - This is the problem roughly about 50% of the time. Make sure the person sending the email has your username spelled correctly. Note the domain name at the end really doesn't matter (it can be egr.unlv.edu, me.unlv.edu, ce.unlv.edu, ee.unlv.edu, trc.unlv.edu, isri.unlv.edu, etc. etc. etc.) - all the domains point to the same place.
Message too big - This is the problem roughly about 5% of the time. We have an incoming mail message size limit of 50 MiB. If you need to transfer large files, use scp.
Broken sending software - This is the problem roughly about 5% of the time. The remote server's mail program is hideously broken and cannot communicate correctly. Our mail server adheres to the standards tightly, although this has been loosened somewhat since deployment due to the large number of just-slightly-broken email servers.

Does the Engineering email server scan for viruses?

Yes. Email viruses are silently discarded from our server.

Does the Engineering email server scan for spam?

Yes.
By default, the only action SpamAssassin takes is to add spam related headers to the messages.
If you wish to filter Spam. You will need to set up a spam folder and a spam filter.

Go to https://mail.egr.unlv.edu
Log into the SqWebMail service, do not use the SquirrelMail.
Click on the link for "Edit Mail Filters" near the top of the page.
Under the "Edit/Add mail filter" section type "spam" into the "Rule name:" field.
In the "Condition:" section, click the button for "Header" and type "X-Spam-Level" into the field.
Note: This is case sensitive.
Click the "starts with" and select "contains".
Type "******" (These are six stars) into the the empty field after "contains".
Note: Fewer stars will catch more spam and more valid messages, more starts will catch less spam and fewer valid messages.
In the "Action:" section select the "Save in:" box.
Click the word "INBOX" and select "Trash".
Click the "Submit" button.
Click the "Save all changes" near the top of the page in the "Existing mail filters:" section.

Note: Please empty your spam folder on a regular basis. These emails are still using your disk quota.

What is PGP (or, what is this "PGP SIGNED MESSAGE" I see in emails?

PGP stands for Pretty Good Privacy. It is a method for signing and encrypting messages. Signing a message adds a few lines of text consisting of an encoded signature - using it any alterations to the original email message can be detected. Encrypting messages ensures only your desired recipient can view the message.

More information is available on the web - simply do a search for PGP.

What are the PGP keys for the College of Engineering staff?

Public key for staff @ egr.unlv.edu

Public key for grayaw @ egr.unlv.edu

I'm getting a lot of messages saying I have sent a virus. Am I infected?

If you have ensured your local anti-virus protection is up-to-date, then most likely not. A lot of the common email viruses going around put in misleading information into email messages, making them look like they're from people who didn't actually send them.

Ensure your anti-virus software is up-to-date, and you can disregard these messages. If you have further concerns, please don't hesitate to email staff.

Printing

What printers are available, and where are they?

For students
The following printers are available:

Printer	Location	Description
sage	TBE A-311	HP LaserJet 8150N
ponderosa	TBE B-361	HP LaserJet 4050N - Accessible from B-361 only
cholla	TBE B-367	HP LaserJet 4050N

If you need assistance in setting up or using the printers, contact Steve Frazer in TBE B-378C.

For faculty
In addition to any departmental printers you may have available, the only printers you can print to are:

Printer	Location	Description
tahoe	TBE B-361	HP LaserJet 8150DN (duplex capable)

Note, in the past faculty could print to the student printers - this is no longer the case. If you need assistance in setting up or using the printers, send email to unixnet @ egr.unlv.edu. Be aware that pages printed to tahoe will be billed back to your department at the end of each semester.

What is my print quota? How can I check it?

Your print quota monitors your page count usage and will prevent printing if you exceed it. The following print quotas are in place:

Undergraduates	300 pages per semester
Graduates	500 pages per semester
Faculty/Staff	Unlimited

You may purchase additional print quota from Steve Frazer in TBE B-378C at the rate of $7.00 per 100 pages.

You can check your current print quota usage by logging into a server and typing the command pquota.

Student questions

Can I bring in a laptop and plug it into the College of Engineering network?

No.

Who should I contact with problems?

Steve Frazer, located in TBE B-378C. Bring a photo ID.

How do I apply for an account?

http://accounts.egr.unlv.edu or go to Steve Frazer, the College of Engineering Systems Administrator - office in TBE B-378C. You will be asked to fill out and sign a piece of paper, and your username and password will be generated within 24 hours, which is picked up in A311.

Faculty questions

I plugged a new system into the network and it is not working - what do I do?

All new systems must be processed by the System Administrators before they are permitted onto our network. In order to do this, send a mail to unixnet @ egr.unlv.edu. We will ask you to bring the system down to our office and leave it for approximately a day. During this time, we will patch the machine with the most recent security patches, install the UNLV version of Norton Antivirus, and register it with the network. We will not register any system on the network that has not had these tasks done.

I moved a system recently and it is not working now - what's wrong?

When you move a system from one data jack to another, you must contact the System Administrators via email to unixnet @ egr.unlv.edu so our records can be updated.

Who should I contact with problems?

Contact the System Administrators via email to unixnet @ egr.unlv.edu. We stress using email as phone calls and visits to our door interrupt the long queue of support requests we usually have, and do not provide us with a record of what your request is about. Coming to the door or calling us will not get you quicker response than email will (and email will probably be quicker - we are out of our office quite a bit on support calls).

Application questions

What is ssh?

ssh stands for Secure SHell. It is similiar to telnet, except that it is encrypted the entire time, whereas telnet is not. This gives much better security and protection against people who might be watching connections. ssh includes scp, Secure CoPy, which allows you to transfer files from one machine to another.

There is a Windows ssh client available at www.ssh.com.

g++ is complaining about using antiquated headers. What's wrong?

The full error message is:


/usr/local/include/g++-v3/backward/backward_warning.h:32:2: warning:

#warning This file includes at least one deprecated or antiquated header.

Please consider using one of the 32 headers found in section 17.4.1.2 of

the C++ standard. Examples include substituting the <X> header for the

<X.h> header for C++ includes, or <sstream> instead of the deprecated

header <strstream.h>. To disable this warning use -Wno-deprecated.

The C++ specification states that the C++ includes are to be #include'd with just their name without the .h. Example:
INCORRECT: #include <iostream.h>
CORRECT: #include <iostream>

The incorrect syntax was errorneously accepted with older versions of the C++ compiler.

How do I set up my web page?

Under your home directory there is a normally-hidden directory called .www. Under this directory you can place files that will be accessible via http://www.egr.unlv.edu/~(your username), ie, http://www.egr.unlv.edu/~grayaw. Make sure the files in this directory have permissions rw-r--r-- for files and rwxr-xr-x for directories. To set these, use the commands:

chmod 644 file.html

chmod 755 directory

Where file.html and directory are the files/directories you want accessible through the web. Failure to do this step will result in the web server saying you do not have permission to access these pages. Note that these instructions assume you are logged into one of the two main servers (student.egr.unlv.edu or faculty.egr.unlv.edu, as appropriate).

I have launched a process I cannot get rid of. Help!

Follow these steps to remove processes that have gotten out of your control:

Make a second connection to whatever machine you were on
ssh username@system

Get a listing of all your processes:
ps -elf | grep username
You'll see something like:

 8 O testuser 19001     1 25  89 20        ?    173          10:43:35 ?        2:56 ./a.out
 8 S testuser 19013 19009  0  41 20        ?    181        ? 10:44:02 pts/25   0:00 -csh
 8 S testuser 19013 19009  0  41 20        ?    181        ? 10:44:02 pts/26   0:00 -csh

Where a.out is our run-away process. Note the number in the fourth column - this is the PID of the process. In our example, the pid we want is 19001.

Kill the process.
kill pid
Check your processes again. If the process is still there, kill your process with extreme prejudice.
kill -9 pid

What is supported by the College computing staff?

The College of Engineering computing support staff offers support in accordance with the guidelines set forth by the Computing Resource Center. The Office of Information Technology sets policies that are effective campus-wide. The complete list of support policies can be found on the CRC Web Site by clicking the "CRC Policies" link. You can also use this direct link to the policy page (scroll to the heading titled "Hardware Upgrade, Maintenance, & Repair").

Briefly, the computing staff will provide support to any hardware that is on the approved vendor list, which currently includes Gateway, Apple, and Sun Microsystems. Hardware that is not on the approved vendor list will be handled on a case-by-case basis, with no guarantees of support. Any support issues for specialized equipment (such as measurement devices and test equipment) should be directed to the vendor or local service center for that equipment. The College computing staff will also provide support for software that is on the approved software list maintained by the CRC, as well as software that is specific to our College. Software that is not officially supported by the College will be handled on a case-by-case basis, with no guarantees of support.

What is the property control number for my computer?

The UNLV Property Control number is a sticker affixed to all equipment valued over $500. It is a black and white sticker labelled, "Property of University of Nevada, Las Vegas", with a bar code and a seven digit number, typically something like 2040793. The system administrators may occasionally ask you for this number to help them in identifying your computer.

What is the MAC, Hardware, Physical or Ethernet address of my computer?

The MAC, Hardware, Physical, and Ethernet addresses all refer to the same piece of information about your computer. This address is a series of six pairs of hexadecimal digits that identify an Ethernet network card. This information will typically appear in the format similar to 00:A0:E4:F2:A7:98. Some systems use hyphens instead of colons, and some drop leading zeros in each hex pair.

Obtaining your MAC address under Windows 2000 and Windows XP

Click 'Start', 'Run', and type 'cmd', press enter.
In the new window that comes up, type 'ipconfig /all'
You should see under 'Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection' (or something similar) the 'Physical Address', which is your MAC address. Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-A0-E4-F2-A7-98

Obtaining your MAC address under Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me

Click 'Start', 'Run', and type 'winipcfg', press enter.
In the new window that comes up, make sure your ethernet card is selected in the drop down box (as opposed to 'PPP adapter').
The Hardware Address field will contain your MAC address.

Obtaining your MAC address under Linux or Solaris

In a console window or shell, type 'ifconfig -a'. Under Linux, the address is listed beside 'HWaddr', and under Solaris besides 'ether'.

Linux:eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:A0:E4:F2:A7:98 Solaris: ether 8:0:20:f2:a7:98

Obtaining your MAC address under IRIX

In a console window or shell, type 'netstat -ia'. You will get something like the following:

Name Mtu   Network         Address            Ipkts Ierrs    Opkts Oerrs  Coll
ec0  1500  examp-net       example.CS.unlv.  8174549    92  1640791     2     0
                            ALL-SYSTEMS.MCAST. 
                            00:a0:e4:f2:a7:98

The last line contains the MAC address.

What is proper care and treatment of network cabling?

Network cables are the short blue or gray cables going from a wall jack to the back of your computer. They are fairly sturdy, but there are some things you should not do: (Yes, we have seen all of these)

Do not unplug the cable by yanking on it until it gives. This WILL cause serious damage to whatever it was plugged into. There is a small tab on one of the jack that you push in to release the cable.
Do not fold the cable.
Do not drive staples through the cable.
Do not leave the cable unprotected in high traffic areas, where your chair rolls over it, or the like.

Please email unixnet @ egr.unlv.edu if you have any comments
or questions regarding this page.