To access our UNIX systems remotely from your PC, download and install one of the secure shell packages. There is a link to the SSH Communications package on your course website. When you login remotely, use either SSH Secure Shell Client or SSH Secure File Transfer (depending on what you want to do) with the host name "users.cs.umb.edu", your accountname, and password.
UNIX has a command line user interface. After login and after the completion of each UNIX command, Unix prints a prompt. For each Secure Shell Client action you want to perform, you must type a "command" usually with some additional parameters. The UNIX system is case sensitive, so you must type commands and parameters in the correct case for the system to recognise the commands. For example after you login, you can "see" the files on your home directory using the command "ls". The command "LS" is not the same as "ls" due to the UNIX case sensitivity. The "ls" command can also be typed with some parameters. The "ls" command with one parameter allows you to see hidden files such as your .forward file (see below for use of this file for forwarding email): "ls -A". When you no longer want to enter commands, enter the "logout" command to logout.
For this course, you are required to be able to login and do two things with your UNIX account:
These can be accomplished with very little understanding of UNIX and its commands. Here are instructions for doing both of these activities with minimal knowledge of UNIX.
If you want your email forwarded to another email adress, follow these instructions:
Login and create a file in your UNIX home directory.
The file must be named .forward (a period and the word forward).
The contents of that file should be the address where you want your email sent.
Example (bold items are the ones I typed):
Use SSH Communications Secure Shell to login to your UNIX account.
blade64(1)% pwd
/home/name
Explanation: I first entered a 'pwd' command to make sure I was in my home directory. Next I used a special 'cat' command to create the .forward file I need. I typed the email address, enter, and control-d (hold down the control key and hit the d key) to close the file. Finally, I checked my work by typing out the file with a normal "cat" command to verify its contents. Then, I logged out with "logout". Send an email to your accountname@cs.umb.edu email address to verify that you receive it at your forwarded email address. If you have an incorrect entry in your .forward file, it may cause email to the class email list to get bounced with errors. Please be careful to put one and only one line with a valid email address in your .forward file.
Use SSH Communications Secure File Transfer to login to your UNIX account. You will see a window with icons for the contents of your home directory (its files and folders). You should find one folder with the name of your course, for example "cs110" or "cs210". If you do not have such a folder, you have not applied for a UNIX account correctly and should ask your instructor for help. Double click on this folder icon. It will show you icons for the files and folders in this directory (if any). Drag and drop your entire Project folder from your PC window to this folder on our UNIX system.
You may already know how to use UNIX or you may be interested in learning to use UNIX. If you are using our UNIX system for more than email forwarding and uploading your project folders, you will probably want to learn to use the following UNIX commands.
You can find out information about each command using the man command. Enter "man ls" to get a user manual for the ls command. You may send and receive mail via the UNIX "pine" command and create/edit text files with the UNIX "pico" command. If you need to escape from a command or program that is running amok, use control-c (hold down the control key and hit the c key).