Introduction To The Statslab Computer Systems

The Computers

Most of the Statslab's computers are PCs running Scientific Linux. We also have some Windows XP machines. As a general rule, the Linux machines are named after card games and the Windows machines are named after letters of the Hebrew alphabet. A complete list of computers is available online.

Please run jobs on the workstations rather than the servers, to avoid overloading them and causing problems for other users. It is also a good idea to check a computer's specs with the commands ``cat /proc/cpuinfo'' and ``cat /proc/meminfo'' before starting a long job. Jobs with large memory requirements are best run on apollo or juno.

Logging into the servers remotely is also unwise as the software you wish to use may not be installed. If you have an office it's probably best to connect to the machine on your desk where possible. If you can't connect, it may have been automatically switched off to save energy.

If you want to transfer files between the Statslab and your home machine, or to read email on your home machine, the Statslab's FTP server is ftp.statslab (an alias for missmuffet), the SMTP server is mail.statslab (actually spaces), and the IMAP server is also mail.statslab. I recommend that you use the aliases, as they will keep working even if the servers change.

Your account

Unless you specified otherwise, you will probably have been set up with an account on the Linux machines but not the Windows PCs. Just ask me if you want access to Windows (or Linux) and don't have it.

You automatically have the same username, password and home directory on all the Linux machines. Windows users can access their Linux home directory as drive H: - this is preferable to keeping files on the hard disk of your Windows PC because files on the Linux server are automatically backed up every night.

To change your Windows password, log into a Windows machine, press Ctrl-Alt-Delete (all three keys simultaneously), click on the ``Change Password'' button and follow the instructions. To change your Linux password, type ``passwd'' at a Linux prompt. For security reasons, your passwords will never be displayed on the screen. The University Computing Service have some advice on choosing a password.

If you want to keep your account after leaving the Statslab, please let me know before you leave, preferably giving an estimate of how long you will be needing it for. Please note that keeping your account indefinitely is strongly discouraged, because we do not have the resources, but we can continue forwarding your email indefinitely.

Printing

The Statslab has a number of black-and-white laser printers. The four publicly available ones are ps2 in the computer room, ps12 in the reading room, ps8 in D0.02, and ps5 in D0.21. There are also three colour laser printers: ps7 in the computer room, ps10 in the photocopier room and ps_trans (single-sided) in D0.21. If you need to print colour transparencies, it is best to use ps_trans. You can also use the colour inkjet printer attached to the Windows XP PC tet outside my office. More information on printing is available.

Email

Your official email address is A.B.Smith@statslab.cam.ac.uk, replacing ``A.B.Smith'' with your own initials and surname. If your username is abs23, then abs23@statslab.cam.ac.uk will also work. The easiest way to read or send email is to use our webmail service. Pine, Mutt and Thunderbird are also available.

You may already have an email account elsewhere. If you want to forward your Statslab email to another system, create a file named .forward (including the full stop) in your home directory. The .forward file must contain your preferred email address. N.B. If there is a mistake in this file, email sent to your Statslab account will be returned to the sender.

Software

The latest version of R, Mathematica 7.0 and Maple 13 are all available on the Linux machines. Scilab and OpenOffice (a free ``clone'' of Microsoft Office, useful for dealing with Word documents under Linux) are available for those who wish to use them, but I am not expert enough to provide help with them. The Windows machines all have Microsoft Office installed. If there is any freely-available software that you need for your work which isn't installed, let me know and I shall probably install it.

Responsible Use Of Statslab Systems

Here are a few points to remember in order to avoid inconveniencing other users of the Statslab computers. This page has more details on responsible use of our network.

If you try to print something and it doesn't come out, don't just send it again. If the printer is busy, wait for it to get through its queue of jobs. If the printer seems to be idle but your job still doesn't come out, cancel it. This is particularly important on Windows machines, where one stuck job will clog up the queue for everyone.
Turning off monitors and office printers (not public printers) is fine, but PCs prefer to be shut down properly. On Linux PCs you should use the ``safeshutdown'' and ``safereboot'' commands because they will automatically check whether anyone else is using the PC.
When submitting number-crunching jobs, be careful not to overload the computers. Try to be aware of the memory requirements of your jobs, ``nice'' your processes to avoid using all the CPU, and use ``top'' to check how many jobs are already running.
When connecting from one machine to another, please use ssh rather than telnet or rlogin if you can. Many modern Linux machines, including all those in the Statslab, will not permit access via telnet or rlogin. The correct syntax is ``ssh userid@machine''. The message ``Host key not found from the list of known hosts'' means that you haven't sshed to that particular machine before. If you answer yes (you do still want to continue connecting) you won't get that message again.

Sources Of Further Information

The most common computer questions and problems are dealt with in this mini-FAQ. If that doesn't help, try my longer list of Frequently Asked Questions.
Information about connecting your own computer to our network.
Some more local computing information is available on the World Wide Web.
The Computing Service offer free training courses on a range of computing topics including LaTeX, Unix and Windows.