This FAQ is now obsolete, as nobody should require to access their old MACS $HOME.

Everyone is able to access their new directory from ~/shares/mdrive on the HW AD Domain.

If you need to use your MACS $HOME, say hosting your own personal web pages, in ~/public_html, you will need to mount it using the following commands, this has been setup along with a MACS linux passwd, which you should have received in your HW mailbox. Run the following 2 linux commands :-
mkdir /home/$HWUSER/home_dir
ALL USERS need to do this command the one time, in the /home/$HWUSER directory, to create the mount point used in the sshfs command.

For staff and phd students
sshfs $MACSUSER@home-server.macs.hw.ac.uk:/export/home/$PART_ADDRESS/$MACSUSER /home/$HWUSER/home_dir
where $MACSUSER is your MACS username, this maybe different from your HW username, especially for longer serving MACS staff, e.g. imcc -- ceeiam.
$HWUSER being your HW username, which maybe different from your MACS one.
$PART_ADDRESS can be obtained by logging into a MACS linux server and running ypmatch my_macs_username auto.home, giving -

mull( 1027 )ypmatch imcc auto.home
home-server:/export/home/1/staff:&
mull( 1028 )

you need to use the directory between the : for the $PART_ADDRESS.
Hence for MACS user, imcc, the full sshfs command would appear as -
sshfs imcc@home-server.macs.hw.ac.uk:/export/home/1/staff/imcc/ home/ceeiam/home_dir
sshfs will ask for the passwd for the $USER login, use the MACS one, NOT your HW one.

Once this has mounted you can access the MACS $HOME, via cd /home/$HWUSER/home_dir, there should be a directory, public_html in there where web pages should be placed. Other files can be saved in there also, these will be backed up nightly to tape backup. Files,etc placed at the /home/$HWUSER level are saved on the HW file system and backed up elsewhere.

There is a space limit of 10GB, on this /home space, this applies to all users (staff and students).

When you want to end your session, it is advised to unmount the /home/$HWUSER/home_dir with the command - umount /home/$HWUSER/home_dir, as it might not mount the next tuime you want to mount the MACS $HOME.

All HP Printers have now been taken away, from all locations, and replaced with MFD (Multi Function Devices), the user needs to use papercut to print their jobs to this q, then go to the MFD, login using their 'staff card', and print whatever might be on their print q. You setup the papercut in ubuntu by logging into the papercut option, once, when the box appears at login. The 4 print options will then appear in the 'Print' option in the apps, the user wants to print from, okular, xpfd, etc.

The MACS Mongo DB Server is mongodb-cloud-1.macs.hw.ac.uk IP Address 140.238.98.146 Port 27017

To access this use
mongosh --quiet --host mongodb-cloud-1.macs.hw.ac.uk -u username -p default_passwd --authenticationDatabase username
where username is your HW username
where default_passwd is a default password generated for you, and is usually sent to you, to be read from within your HW mailbox.

The MACS Postgres DB Server is pgsql-cloud-1.macs.hw.ac.uk, IP Address 132.145.18.149 Port 5432

To access this use
psql --no-psqlrc --quiet -h pgsql-cloud-1.macs.hw.ac.uk -U username -d username
where username is your HW username, using the default password, usually sent to you via email, hence should be found within your HW mailbox.

Simply right-click on the background and choose "Change Desktop Background" and set your background to a picture or solid colour.

Type man command where command is the command in which you are interested.

For example, to find out about the 'man' command itself, type man man.

Many programs also have documentation in GNU Info format, type info command.

You will also find various forms of documentation on system packages in /usr/share/doc/package-name-version.

In Linux use the command passwd and you will be prompted to enter your old password then give a new one. The system then makes a few simple checks on your proposed password and if it is o.k. you will be prompted to re-enter your new password so that you & the system agree on what you typed!

To change your password on a Windows system, once you have logged in with the old password, type Ctrl-Alt-Del and choose "Change Password". It is recommended you change the passwd to the SAME as you changed your linux one to, although not necessary.

Choose a password that contains a mixture of letters and digits, upper and lower case, no keyboard patterns, and no dictionary words or it may be rejected.

Use the command ypchsh and follow the prompts but remember that you must give the full pathname of the shell you want e.g. for tcsh give /bin/tcsh.

This facility is not available. You can get in touch with the help desk if your details are wrong.

To run a Servlet from the MACS development web server www4.hw.ac.uk:

Place your servlet class into the directory /opt/tomcat/webapps/$USER/WEB-INF/classes on the development web server (www4.macs.hw.ac.uk), where $USER is your username.

You must contact ishelp@hw.ac.uk to get this directory created for you if it doesn't already exist.

If your intended servlet isn't compiled, say a java source file, you will need to compile the source using the command javac file.java. YOu need to place the resultant file.class into your /opt/tomcat/webapps/$USER/WEB-INF/classes folder and add the name to the WEB-INF/web.xml file, as described below.

The CLASSPATH Env variable, should contain /opt/tomcat:/lib/*.jar:.

The URL required to view your servlet is http://www4.macs.hw.ac.uk:8080/$USER/file, where file is the file.class located in the `WEB-INF/classes` directory above.

You need to create a /opt/tomcat/webapps/$USER/WEB-INF/web.xml file which holds the names of all your servlets. You can create this file and add new servlet names to it by running perl /var/lib/tomcat/bin/make-web-xml.pl, This perl will create the initial web.xml file if it does not exist. If the file exists, it will prompt for the new servlet you've created and add it at the end of the web.xml file in your WEB-INF directory.

Here is an example web.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

<!DOCTYPE web-app
    PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application 2.3//EN"
    "http://java.sun.com/dtd/web-app_2_3.dtd">

<web-app>

    <description>
      imcc's application
    </description>
    <display-name>imcc's application</display-name>

<servlet>
        <servlet-name>imcc</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>imcc</servlet-class>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>imcc</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/imcc</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

</web-app>

To run a Java Server Page (JSP) File from the MACS development web server www4.macs.hw.ac.uk:

Place your JSP File into the directory /var/lib/tomcat/webapps/$USER/ on www4.macs.hw.ac.uk. The help desk may need to create the $USER directory for you, as for the servlets above.

The URL to browse your JSP File running is http://www4.macs.hw.ac.uk:8080/$USER/file.jsp, where $USER is the same name as the directory given above.

(Windows 7) File, Save as, choose PDF in the file types.

To take screen shots from Linux you can use the command display. Right click in the Image Magick window which will appear to get the menu options, then click `Open...` to grab a screen section or window from your desktop. To save your selection right click in the Image Magick window, then click on `Save...`, click on `Format` for which format (jpg, bmp, tif, etc) you wish the image to be in. Input the file name you want to save the image to, possibly your $HOME directory if you are going use it in an MS Word document.

You can load the saved image into a MS Word document, by clicking on `Insert, Picture, From File ...` within Word, then selecting the file you saved in Linux.