School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences
MACS IT Frequently Asked Questions
Last updated: 2017-09-11
For Apple MAC use -
Apple
login using your HW credentials, go to Workspace, PCs and devices, Hardware Requests, Custom Hardware Request, fill in the form and submit it.
The quote will be obtained from Apple Academiaand the order processed. You will need to provide the Job Code that this is to be charged against.
There are 2 ways of possible remote access into the MACS Server (Linux or Windows Desktops) First method Students ONLY is via an sshgw. Second method Staff ONLY is via the HW VPN. Both of these methods rely on you having a Smart Device to receive the Multi Function Authentication (MFA) codes on. The first method (sshgw) is currently only suitable for linux connectivity, i.e. x2go client into the MACS Linux servers MACS Remote Linux Access MACS students should email ishelp@hw.ac.uk and ask to be added to the MACS sshgw access list, before trying to to login via either of the above access methods. Once authenticated on say the HW VPN, the user can use the normal remote access apps, PuTTy, Remote Desktop Connection, x2go client, to gain access to the MACS Linux or Windows Desktops (Remote Desktop Connection for Windows users). The VPN can be downloaded here, install it onto your device and set it up to access the HW Domain, HW Azure, where the user login should be setup to allow access. Once installed the VPN can be setup to start automatically when the device boots up, Advanced Settings (bottom left icon), General, Startup [tick this option], input the HW user passwd and MFA code and the VPN is active. |
Staff & Ph.D. students: You need a directory called "www" as a subdirectory of your Unix home directory or H: drive under Windows. If your login name is xyz then a file called file.html would then be accessed via a web browser using the URL "http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~xyz/file.html" |
Students: Students use the student/development web server www2.macs.hw.ac.uk. You need a directory called "public_html" as a subdirectory of your Unix home directory or H: drive under Windows. If your login name is xyz then a file called file.html would then be accessed via a web browser using the URL "http://www2.macs.hw.ac.uk/~xyz/file.html" |
This directory should already exist as it is created automatically when a new user account is set up. If it is not there then you will need to create it.
(Note that this directory and all its contents must be world readable and that some file operations under Microsoft Windows applications may change the permissions so that this is no longer the case.)
Create files in HTML format within that directory, using names such as file.html (See for example w3schools.com for tutorials on HTML.)
You will find some additional documentation on using the web servers on www2.macs.hw.ac.uk
.htaccess
.
Here is an example using user imcc :-
AuthUserFile /home/imcc/.htpasswd #AuthGroupFile /home/imcc/.htgroup -- optional entry AuthBasicProvider file AuthType Basic AuthName "Access to this directory is restricted." Require user imcc
Use the command htpasswd to set a passwd for those allowed to get access to the web pages within
the directory, like this:
/usr/bin/htpasswd -bc .htpasswd login_name passwd_you_wish_to_use
Points to remember :-
When specifying the AuthUserFile use the full path for the file, not `~`.
Make sure all html and .ht* files have permissions 644.
IMPORTANT: Note that this only protects your pages from remote users accessing the files via the web. It does not protect them from local users who can access them via the file system.
The URL to run such scripts is https://www2.macs.hw.ac.uk/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/abc1/filename, where filename could be file.pl, file,py, file.cgi.
An example perl script, should look like :-
#!/usr/bin/perl -- use warnings; use CGI; print CGI::header(); print"Hello World\n\n";
An example python script, should look like :-
#!/usr/bin/python3 print("Content-Type: text/html") print("") print("""\ Hello World! """)
Settings for Office365 in Thunderbird, for example user abc1 | |
---|---|
Incoming | |
Server Name | outlook.office365.com |
Port | 993 |
User Name | abc1@hw.ac.uk |
Connection security | SSL/TLS |
Authentication method | OAuth2 |
Outgoing | |
SMTP server | outlook.office365.com |
Port | 587 |
Connection security | STARTTLS (TLS - Mobile Device Option) |
Authentication method | OAuth2 |
User Name | abc1@hw.ac.uk |
Check out :-Here
Settings for Office365 in .pinerc for alpine, for example user abc1 |
---|
#User-Id |
user-id=abc1@hw.ac.uk |
# Name/path of inbox. (Folder path name or "{host}inbox" for remote IMAP inbox) |
inbox-path={outlook.office365.com:993/ssl/user=abc1@hw.ac.uk/auth-xoauth2}inbox |
# Name of SMTP server for sending mail. If blank, sendmail will be used |
# Exchange SMTP Setup |
smtp-server=outlook.office365.com:587/user=abc1@hw.ac.uk/submit/auth=xoauth2 |
# Folder Collection |
folder-collections=imap {outlook.office365.com/ssl/novalidate-cert/user=abc1@hw.ac.uk}[] |
You to have setup on your remote machine either the HW VPN or sshgw, to be able to use the rdesk software we have provided.
First method is via an sshgw.
Refer to
Remote Access SSH Gateway
Second method is via the HW VPN.
Refer to
HW VPN
Both of these methods rely on you having a Smart Device to receive the Multi Function Authentication (MFA) codes on.
You'll need to download the rdesk software, onto your home device.
The rdesk.bat will need to be edited to reflect your work desktop machine name and your MACS Linux login. If you don't know these, ask a MACS Systems person,
i.a.mccrone@hw.ac.uk.
The rdesk.bat file should look like :-
plink -l 3387:win10admin??:3389 abc1@ssh.macs.hw.ac.uk
Once you have edited the rdesk.bat file, run this file to authenticate to the MACS
System.
Find and Run `Remote Desktop Connection`, on your Home Computer (laptop), in
the Computer: box, input
localhost:3387
Click on Show Options bottom left, for User name: input :-
MAXP\your_macs_username
click on Experience (menu bar in this box), Performance, choose :-
High-speed broadband (2Mbps - 10Mbps)
untick all options in this section.
When logging into your desktop using the Heriot Watt VPN connection, the
Computer: box, input
win10admin??.macs.hw.ac.uk, where '??' is the number of your machine, ask
a MACS Systems person, if you don't know your machine name.
Click on Show Options bottom left, for User name: input :-
MAXP\your_macs_username
go to Local Resources (menu bar in this box), Remote Audio, settings, Remote audio playback, untick Do not play, Remote audio recording, untick Do not record.
Click Connect, this should now connect to your desktop machine login screen.
Mathematica is available to use on 2 linux servers, namely amaterasu, baldur. These machines are public machines and can be accessed by remote logging into the main X servers or ssh terminal session.
The command to use Mathematica is mathematica, when you run it for the first time, you'll be asked to activate it, go down to the bottom menu and click on Activate by another Method, choose the third option (Network), input into the box flex.eps.hw.ac.uk for the FlemLM server. This should now start your Mathematica session. You should only require to do the activation the once only.
Once installed, start the x2go client. To configure a new session, choose Session->New Session from the menu. Give the session a name (e.g. "jove mate"), put in the hostname (e.g. "jove.macs.hw.ac.uk") and your username. Choose the Session Type at the bottom (e.g. "MATE"). DO NOT choose Gnome, as Gnome 3 cannot be used with x2go. Other settings you may want to change are your connection speed under the Connection tab, and window size under the Settings tab. It's also advisable to turn off Sound support under the Media tab, as this can cause some applications to freeze in a session. Then click OK and start the new session, putting in your MACS Linux password at the prompt.
The first time you connect to a host you will be asked to confirm that you trust the new host key, answer Yes.
When you first run x2go on Windows you might see warnings from the Windows firewall, you can safely Cancel these as x2go does not need access through the firewall.
You may connect to the following hosts:
All | Staff only |
---|---|
jove.macs.hw.ac.uk | mull.macs.hw.ac.uk |
osiris.macs.hw.ac.uk | |
amaterasu.macs.hw.ac.uk | |
linux01.macs.hw.ac.uk |
Note that x2go sessions can be resumed if you lose the connection for any reason, making it ideal for connections from devices on Eduroam or other WiFi services.
MacOS users will need Xquartz (Xquartz.dmg) X windowing installed, get it from Here
Tip: Make sure your Linux startup files (.profile, .bashrc, .cshrc) work properly and don't give errors.
ssh -D 8080 user@ssh.macs.hw.ac.uk
From Windows download plink.exe from the
PuTTY suite, and use the command
plink.exe -D 8080 user@ssh.macs.hw.ac.uk
where user
is your MACS login name
Then in your browser set the `SOCKS Proxy` option to `localhost` on port 8080.
Public MACS Staff Printers | ||
---|---|---|
Location | Printer type | Printer name |
EM G.46 | HP Color Laserjet 4025DN | printg46 |
EM 2.50 | HP Color Laserjet 4525DN | cps1250 |
Shared Staff/Project Printers (not available for undergraduate use) | ||
Location | Printer type | Printer name |
CMB Ground Floor | HP Color LaserJet 4025DN | cps1cmg |
CMB Floor 2 | HP Color LaserJet 4025DN | cps1cm2 |
CMB Floor 3 | HP Color LaserJet 4025DN | cps3cm3 |
CMB Common Room | Ricoh MFD (Monochrome ONLY) | rf01 |
EM 1.23 | Ricoh Color MFD | r123 |
EM 1.72 | Ricoh MFD | r172 |
You need to request an account from the help desk before you can use it. You will be told the password when the account is created.
To access MySQL use the Linux command
mysql -u username -D username -h mysql-server-1 -p
where username
is your HW/MACS username
or go to phpMyAdmin for a web front-end.
The first thing you should do is change your MySQL password.
To access this use
mongo --host mongo-server-1 -u username -p default_passwd --authenticationDatabase username
where username
is your HW/MACS username, default_passwd
is abcusername354.
1st-3rd year: | 4GB |
4th year: | 9GB |
M.Sc.: | 9GB |
You can check how much disk space you are using by logging into a
Linux machine and typing this in your home directory:
du -sm .
This will tell you your disk usage in MB.
To check which directories are using most space, run this command:
du -sm * .??* | sort -n
which will list all the directories and files, sorted by disk usage.
If you are trying to clear space and are not sure if you should remove a file, best to leave it alone, or email help@macs.hw.ac.uk and ask.
Checking your disk usage this way assumes you do not own files
anywhere else on the file system, and also that no other users own
files under your home directory.
du -sm .
shows the disk usage under the current directory, whether
owned by you or not; it does not show files owned by you located
somewhere else on that file system.
To see how much space the system thinks you are using run quota
whilst logged into a Linux workstation. This may be different from
the result of du
because of the reasons above.
If you need more disk space for work purposes you can submit a request by emailing help@macs.hw.ac.uk. People who make such requests must be able to show that their current file usage is all course related and explain their need for more.
On every Linux workstation there is a /scratch partition, and on every Windows workstation there is a D: drive. These range in size from a few GB to over 200GB and are freely writable by everybody with no quotas. They are, however, not backed up and not accessible from other machines. They are particularly useful for large or temporary files, for example data files being processed or written by a single application.
Simply right-click on the background and choose "Change Desktop Background" and set your background to a picture or solid colour.
We need a stable computing environment with long term support for security and other updates. We have found that more "bleeding edge" Linux distributions like Ubuntu or Fedora cause problems with incompatibilties in constantly updated software. The last thing you want with a deadline coming up is an update that stops you working.
CentOS 7 is our stable distribution of choice.
Having said that, many key packages are kept up to date, ahead of what's available in stock CentOS. Examples include LibreOffice, Firefox, Google Chrome, Eclipse, TeX Live, Java & Netbeans IDE.
MATE is a fork of Gnome 2 (as used in previous years) and is the default, and that is the one we would recommend to new users.
TDE (Trinity Desktop Environment) is the current version of KDE 3. If you used KDE on CentOS 5 this is very similar.
KDE is the newer KDE version 4.
XFCE is a fairly simple and lightweight, though fully featured, environment.
Gnome is Gnome 3, which has the disadvantage that it can't be used over x2g0, although it can be used locally in the Linux lab.
Cinnamon is a more lightweight fork of Gnome 3, which can be used with x2go.
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.
All user files are backed up on a nightly basis.
If you spot it quickly enough we can get it back from the online backup of the previous day's copy.
Otherwise we will have to retrieve it from tape which may take longer.
Contact the Help Desk with a clear description where the file was located in your home directory e.g.
/home/iain/dir1/subdir1/file_1and also when you last changed it.
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.
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.
Place your servlet class into the directory /var/lib/tomcat/webapps/$USER/WEB-INF/classes on the development web server (www2.macs.hw.ac.uk), where $USER is your username.
You must contact help@macs.hw.ac.uk to create this directory for you if it doesn't already exist.
If your intended servlet isn't compiled, say a java source file,
you will need to compile the source using the command javac file.java
.
The URL required to view your servlet is http://www2.macs.hw.ac.uk:8080/$USER/file, where file is the file.class located in the `WEB-INF/classes` directory above.
You need to create a /var/lib/tomcat/webapps/$USER/WEB-INF/web.xml
file
which holds the names of all your servlets. You can create this file and add
new servlet names to it by running perl /var/lib/tomcat/bin/make-web-xml.pl
,
This perl will create the initial web.xml
file if it does not exist. If the file
exists, it will prompt for the new servlet you've created and add it at the end of
the web.xml
file in your WEB-INF
directory.
Here is an example web.xml
:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <!DOCTYPE web-app PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application 2.3//EN" "http://java.sun.com/dtd/web-app_2_3.dtd"> <web-app> <description> imcc's application </description> <display-name>imcc's application</display-name> <servlet> <servlet-name>imcc</servlet-name> <servlet-class>imcc</servlet-class> </servlet> <servlet-mapping> <servlet-name>imcc</servlet-name> <url-pattern>/imcc</url-pattern> </servlet-mapping> </web-app>
To run a Java Server Page (JSP) File from the MACS development web server www2.macs.hw.ac.uk:
Place your JSP File into the directory /var/lib/tomcat/webapps/$USER/ on www2.macs.hw.ac.uk. The help desk may need to create the $USER directory for you, as for the servlets above.
The URL to browse your JSP File running is http://www2.macs.hw.ac.uk:8080/$USER/file.jsp, where $USER is the same name as the directory given above.
Using any of these you access host ssh.macs.hw.ac.uk using your MACS Linux username and password.
In Windows a suitable freeware client is WinSCP which gives you a Windows Explorer like window which allows you to just drag and drop files back and forth between the local and remote computers.
In Linux there are several options. You can use rsync (see man rsync
), or several file managers such as konqueror have the sftp protocol built in so you can access a URL of the form sftp://username@ssh.macs.hw.ac.uk to get at your files.
Any cache directories for web browsers e.g. below ~/.mozilla/firefox
Other caches e.g. ~/.java/deployment/cache/*
If you have done so, and still have a genuine course-related reason for requiring further space, please contact the helpdesk and explain your needs.
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.
This gives the simple commands that the user is likely to need for keeping an svn repository current.
To add a printer, go to Control Panel->Devices and Printers->Add Printer the box will be empty, click on The Printer I wanted isn't listed, tick the second option in the next window, inputting http://cups-server-1:631/printers/cps1cm3 or the printer you wish to add, printers are listed at Why does Microsoft Outlook keep telling me it cannot find my folders?
The first list is the User variables, the second list is the System default setup environment variables, which you can't change.
In the User variables, click New to set up a new Environment Variable, a box
will appear, put the name of the variable, e.g. CLASSPATH
, in the first option, and in the
second option put the path of the required classes/jar files e.g.:
c:\program files\java\jdk1.5.0\jre\lib\ext\j3dcore.jar;c:\program files\java\jdk1.5.0\jre\lib\ext\j3dutils.jar;c:\program files\java\jdk1.5.0\jre\lib\ext\j3daudio.jar;c:\program files\java\jdk1.5.0\jre\lib\ext\vecmath.jar;.;%CLASSPATH%and then click OK to save the new Environment Variable.
You will normally see icons for these two programs in your taskbar, a red shield and a green shield respectively. Right-clicking on these icons allows you to bring up the properties or start a complete or partial virus scan.