Location: Olin 404
Administrator: None at present
Contact help@eecs.case.edu with any questions or problems.
Status: The lab is operational.
02/05/2007 - The Unix Lab has moved to an entirely Linux-based operating environment. All of the Solaris workstations have be permanently shut down.
At present all remote connections (ssh/telnet/FTP/SFTP) are handled by volatile.cwru.edu and lechuck.cwru.edu.
A new operating environment based on Ubuntu 6.10 and an updated Sun Ray Server Software version has been deployed in the lab. It is still undergoing some modifications.
The purpose of the Jennings Unix Lab is to provide a general computing resource for students of the EECS Department, and to a lesser extent the Case community.
It is available for coursework, although the lab is not intended for a particular course – nor is class instruction permitted within the lab. Above all else, the lab must remain available for general purpose needs.
As a result, computationally intensive applications pertaining to a course, research or other needs are not permitted in the Unix Lab. The lab simply does not have sufficient resources to allow intensive applications; they have a tendency to prevent other users from doing much of anything in the lab.
The Unix Lab is located on the fourth floor of Olin building. It currently shares a room with the Jennings Windows Lab, although they operate independently from each other.
The lab consists of 18 desks, all of which are occupied by one Sun Ray 1 ultra thin client station.
There are no longer any Solaris-based systems available for public use.
The Sun Ray 1 stations consist of:
A thin client does not actually do any data processing itself, but rather is tied into a server over the network. In this case all of the thin clients in the EECS department are hosted on two Sun Fire X4100 servers. It is actually one of these servers that all of your applications are running on, although this is handled transparently to the user's perspective.
The Sun Fire X4100 servers operate in a load-balancing configuration. When a user first logs in, their Ray decides which server to use for their session based on which server is doing less at the time. So there is no need to favor a certain server.
The servers in question are identical; they have dual Opteron 275 (dual-core) CPUs and 4GB of memory. Their names are (this is not true yet, its only lechuck.cwru.edu right now):
lechuck.case.edu
guybrush.case.edu
All of the Sun Ultra 1, Ultra 5 and Blade 100 workstations have been retired and disposed of. They were:
| beavis | bender | brak | homer | stewie |
| zoidberg | amethyst | boes | calvitti | cerne |
| glenn | gulam | frylock | megadeth | poison |
| whitesnake | mozart | fox | easy | styx |
| kiss | anthrax | lychee | papaya |
The Unix Lab currently provides one operating environment for general purpose and course computing. That OE is Ubuntu Linux 6.10 (“Edgy”), on the 32-bit i386 platform.
The platform is intentionally kept as 32-bit due to software compatibility issues; while the equipment is capable of supporting a 64-bit operating system, several software packages used by the lab are not available for it.
The version of Ubuntu Linux has been customized for lab usage; information on this is available at http://filer.case.edu/wiki/notes/ubuntu
A variety of applications are installed on the lab operating environment. For a list of installed packages, the dpkg -l command may be run (it is rather long); for requests pertaining to software installation, contact help@eecs.case.edu.
There are several notable applications not available in the Unix Lab. Anything related to high end computational computing is not allowed or supported; this includes Matlab, Mathematica, MAPLE, Mentor Graphics, Synopsis, etc. It is the sad truth that the lab does not have sufficient resources to support these computationally intensive applications.
Accounts in the lab are provided to any member of the CWRU community that requests one. Accounts may be made available to people outside of the CWRU community at the administrator's discretion. They are permanent, although no guarantees are made against future policy changes.
The current procedure is to telnet to cerne.cwru.edu, login as newuser with no password, and provide the information requested.
You will not be e-mailed when your account is created! If you have trouble accessing your account, contact help@eecs.case.edu.
You must use your Case Network ID (e.g. sak8) for your account name. If you do not have a Case Network ID, then contact us by e-mail first.
Account creation is currently done manually, and so it will take a while before your account is created. During the first weeks of a semester, accounts are created every few hours; as the influx dies down, account creation is done less frequently.
We were working on an automated system that would have been deployed during the summer of 2005, but this obviously never happened. I would rather move the system to directly use the Case authentication system (hopefully sometime 2007).
Home directories are provided by the Unix file server to all of the JCC Unix workstations. Therefore your data is available from every workstation, there is no specific need to use a particular system.
Regular accounts have disk quotas of 2 GB. Faculty/staff accounts have quotas of 10 GB.
JCC Unix accounts are also used for EECS Mail, and the mail stored on the server counts towards the overall disk quota.
You may request a quota increase from the Unix Administrator if necessary.
Since the lab workstations are no longer actual computers themselves, all remote access must be directed to the hostname volatile.case.edu.
SSH is a secure method of connecting to a remote system (equivalent to a secure telnet) in order to gain an interactive shell. The lab servers only support the SSHv2 protocol, SSHv1 is not supported. All modern SSH clients should be fine with this.
Connect using a variety of freely available ssh programs. For Windows Putty. Mac OS X and Linux (and other platforms) can use openssh from a terminal or console.
A way of transferring files similar to FTP, but using ssh to secure the connection.
Putty includes PSFTP. There is also WinSCP. For Mac OS X there is Fugu, Transmit, and Cyberduck. For Linux there is the command-line sftp program included with openssh, and several graphical wrappers including Nautilus and Konqueror.
telnet is available on the lab servers, but you shouldn't be using it. If you really really can't get an SSH client, then go ahead. All of your information is transmitted over the network in plain text, which means that it is pretty trivial for someone to steal your password if they are of a mind to.
Every operating system includes a telnet command-line tool. Putty also supports telnet, but that's kind of pointless.
An insecure way of transferring files, similar to SFTP. The upside is that there are a lot more clients that support this. The downside is the same as telnet, someone can snag your password and the files that you're transferring. FTP is not supported on the lab servers, but rather connections should be made to vorlon.cwru.edu (the same login/password are used, and the same filesystems are available).
Printing is handled by the departmental EECS Printing server, and there are two fairly nice HP LaserJet printers located in the lab (a LJ 8000 and a LJ 8100). The 8100, on the right side of the table, is named “olin404” and is the default on the Unix workstations; it supports duplex printing. The 8000, on the left side of the table, is named “olin405” and can be manually selected should the other printer not work. It does not support duplex printing but is otherwise very similar.
