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Time-limited Numbered Class UNIX Accounts |
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The documentation in this review below was kindly provided by Jodie Nauman, a Systems Management Specialist in the Information Technology Department. There are two main UNIX accounts used by faculty and students at UMUC - Nova and Polaris. Polaris is used primarily to host webpages, while Nova offers a variety of software packages to suppport UMUC couse curricula. Among these packages are C/C++, Java, Perl, MySQL, Oracle and some others. Requesting a Numbered Class Unix AccountsIf you plan to use a numbered Nova account (or in some cases Polaris account), you need to send a request to your academic department no later than 3 weeks before a new semester start. In your request, please provide the following information:
On nova, once a class account has been created, students can create their class accounts by using the newclass procedure. Instructions for using newclass can be found at: http://umuc.edu/suppserv/it/hosts/itfaq.html#classAccount. On polaris, the alternative procedure is called newuser, and the corresponding instructions are located at http://umuc.edu/suppserv/it/hosts/itfaq.html#studentAccount. Class accounts only remain active for the current semester and are backed up and deleted at the end of the semester. In comparison, polaris personal accounts for students and faculty remain active for as long as a student is currently enrolled. A notice will be posted on Nova (which you will see as soon as you log into an account) about a month before classes end identifying the date accounts will be deleted. Class accounts on nova cannot be extended beyond this time because accounts are linked to specific class/sections. After the accounts are deleted, they are recreated for the next semester. In most cases, the next semester has an identical class/section as the previous semester. If students need to maintain files from their class accounts, they should create a polaris account and transfer the files before they are deleted. If students are granted an incomplete for a class that has special access (such as Oracle or cgi), an email from the instructor should be sent to IT, specifying the student's name, a software to be accessed and the date the student was given to complete the requirements for the class. Accessing a Student Account from the Instructor Account:The instructor account (and TA's if requested) is configured so you can access the students account. You can access student accounts from your instructor or TA account, by using the 'peek' command. Please note that any commands you execute between the time you type peek and the time you type exit will be executed as the student whose account you are peeking. Please remember to type exit after you've finished working in a student's account! This example shows how to access an account numbered mn661a50. If you are peeking into one student account and want to access another students account, you must exit from the student account you are currently in first. By doing this, you will get back to your instructor or TA account. You can type the peek command for a next student. An instructor account maintains a current list of all students in the class that have created a nova class account. As soon as the first student creates a class account (a sub-account of the instructors account), a student.lst file will appear in the instructors home directory. Each time another student creates an account the student.list file is updated, including students' name, userid and a password. This temporary password is of little use to the instructor, because it will be changed during the first login. EXAMPLE:
Announcing a New Utility to Configure Unix AccountsThere is a new utility for you and your students that will automatically configure your nova and polaris accounts to host web pages. The "makewebdir" utility will automatically create a www directory, and set the permissions on the home directory and www directory. This eliminates the need to manually create the www directory and use the chmod command to set the permissions on the home directory and www directory. Please feel free to share the below information with your students if you would like them to be able to use this new utility. The utility is already on both nova and polaris and can be used but is not currently publicized because some instructors may still want their students to use the manual account configuration process. To invoke the "makewebdir" utility, please follow these steps:
Using The Shared DirectoryYour class account provides access to a shared directory, which you can use to store files that may be accessed by the students in your class. Only the instructor's master account has write access to the share directory. The following example describes how to copy a file named proj1.txt to the shared directory, and provide the appropriate permissions to make the file viewable by your students. EXAMPLE:
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Command |
Comments |
| nova> cp proj1.txt ../share | Copy the file to the class share directory |
| nova> cd ../share | Move to the class share directory |
| nova> chmod 640 proj1.txt | Set the appropriate permissions on the file |
| nova> cd | Return to your home directory |
Your students would use the following procedure to view the file:
Command |
Comments |
| nova> cd ../share | Move to the class share directory |
| nova> less proj1.txt | View the file with the less text viewer |
| nova> cd | Return to the student's home directory |
If you create subdirectories under the shared directory, make sure that you provide the appropriate permissions to allow files in the directory to be read by your students. The following example describes how to create a subdirectory named project1 under your shared directory (assuming that you're currently in your shared directory):
Command |
Comments |
| nova> mkdir project1 | Create the project1 directory |
| nova> chmod 750 project1 | Set the appropriate directory permissions |
| nova> cd | Return to the student's home directory |
You may now copy files into the directory you created. Don't forget to set the appropriate permissions (described above) on all of the files and directories you create under the shared directory!
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