Frequently Asked Questions about the move to Linux
Questions:
Answers:
How do I connect to Empress? Why doesn't Telnet work?
In recent years, telnet has become vulnerable to several simple exploits which
can expose session content including usernames and passwords. Operating systems
are phasing out telnet in support of the secure shell (SSH). We are going to
follow their lead here. As of September 30 2005, the only method for connecting
to Empress will be SSH. SSH functions just like telnet so we expect no
compatibility problems other than learning to type "ssh" instead of "telnet"!
On Windows, the recommended client to use to connect to Empress is
PuTTY. PuTTY is a free Telnet/SSH client, and is very easy and quick to
use. On Linux, Unix or Mac OS X systems you should already have a SSH client
installed, just run "ssh username@empress.csusm.edu" from a command-line to
connect to Empress.
Information for getting started using PuTTY can be found
here.
How do I FTP to Empress?
FTP has vulnerabilities similar to telnet and is also being phased out in favor
of "SFTP" SFTP is essentially just ftp over the encrypted ssh session. Again,
on Windows the recommended client for this is
PuTTY, while sftp should be built into Unix, Linux, or Mac OS X
systems. Use it in the same way on the command-line: "sftp
username@empress.csusm.edu".
I can't do anything! 'ls' doesn't work!
On san-marcos, when user accounts were initially created, a file was placed in
the users' home directory called ".profile". These files aren't compatible with
the new systems, so they have to be replaced. Because we have to keep
san-marcos and Empress running concurrently for a short time, we were leery of
simply replacing those files when we brought Empress on-line. So as a
concession, the first time you log into Empress or any of the computers in the
UH 270 Linux lab, your ".profile" file is moved to "profile.san-marcos", and
fresh files that work for the Linux systems are copied to your home directory.
These new files for the most part don't interfere with san-marcos, so you
should still be able to work on both systems for the time being.
Also, if you were a user of the K Shell on san-marcos (it was the default, so
most people fall into this category), you've been switched to use bash, the
Bourne-Again Shell, on Empress. This was done because the Linux environment
simply works better with bash than it does with ksh.
Those who were not using ksh or bash on san-marcos were not updated; they still
use the shells they did on san-marcos, and their profiles were not adjusted. If
you're one of these users, and are having trouble running programs on the
command line, take a look in your appropriate login files (e.g. .cshrc for csh)
and make sure your profile isn't clobbering any system-wide environment
variables. You can look in /etc/profile & /etc/csh.login to see what the
defaults are. Alternatively, you can simply move your existing login files out
of the way and start fresh.
I can't get SSH public-key authentication to work.
SSH public-key authentication allows a person to generate a public & private key
for her account that ultimately allows her to log into a computer without
having to type a password. This is broken on Empress & the UH 270 lab
computers. We use Kerberos to check user passwords against our Active Directory
infrastructure, so that they're always up to date, and something in the
interplay between SSH and Kerberos is breaking this particular bit of SSH.
This doesn't affect anyone who isn't specifically trying to use public-key
authentication, and we've only heard from two people trying to use it. Logging
into the computers still works fine, you just have to type your password in.
How will I publish things to www.csusm.edu on Empress?
You can find information about publishing changes to the campus web site here:
WAS Online Resources
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