Introduction

Objective of handbook

This handbook is meant to give you an idea of the computer facilities available at NCBS. A lot of these facilities are shared, that is, all students, faculty and staff can use them. These are described here. Individual labs have other facilities which are usually meant for use within the labs..

These facilities are primarily to help people work. Therefore, work-related computing should be given highest priority. As in all aspects of lab work, we expect that people will use common sense to share computing resources equitably. We are continually working on improving the facilities, so hopefully you will not have to wait too often.

Please pay special attention to the security of the system, as it affects everyone. Guard your passwords, make sure to log out after you are done, and mention any suspicious activity to the Systems Administrator.

Overview of facilities
We have a network of several kinds of computers: Macintoshes, DOS/Windows based machines and UNIX machines. There are shared PCs and Unix machines for common use, and a whole lot of lab-specific machines. The network gives you lots of facilities. Locally, you can access data from different machines as if it were on your own. You can look up the NCBS home page for announcements. You can print to various printers scattered around the Centre. On the global scale, you can use email, file transfer protocols, and the World Wide Web. All personnel get an account, and there is a little course to get you familiar with the various facilities. This guidebook just lets you know what we have. Take special care to look at "User responsibilities and guidelines".

Happy computing !

User Responsibilities

Netiquette: Good manners on the net
Most of these points should be obvious, if you just apply the same politeness and common sense that you hopefully use in your daily interactions with people.
- Do not violate privacy. Don't read any files beloning to other people, or peek at their screen while they are working or reading email, etc. On the common PCs there is no security mechanism to prevent people from reading each other's files - this does NOT amount to permission to read such files.

- Don't spam, i.e., do not send unnecessary email to a whole lot of people who are not interested in your message. Be particularly conservative in your use of the aliases ncbsall, students and faculty: it is terribly easy to send mail to a whole lot of people. Imagine what it would be like if you could yell so loudly that the whole Institute heard you, whether or not they wanted to ! - One of the most common mistakes is to reply to a message posted to a mailing list such as ncbsall, and instead of replying only to the person posting the mail, to select the 'reply to all recipients' option in PINE. - Even if you are raising an issue of concern to a lot of people, don't target individuals in a message sent to a mailing list. If there are specific individuals involved in some contentious issue, it is far better to speak or email them in person first.

- Don't flame, i.e., do not write emails to a lot of people or a mailing list when you are angry. One almost always regrets it later.

- Do not waste bandwidth. We have a limited data rate, and it is meant specifically for academic work. Emails usually use far less bandwidth than anything else. File transfers using ftp are also fine, if the files are necessary ones. Using Netscape to download a whole bunch of images is rarely necessary, however. Try to turn off the button for auto-loading of images, unless you really need them.

- Do NOT try to reconfigure any of the common machines. Our systems administrator has spent a lot of time trying to get everything to work together. If you need to install any software, ask him to do so.

- Don't waste printer paper. If you have a whole lot of data to examine, it is probably better left on the computer, or on a floppy disk. As a rough guideline, a 50K textfile will use up 10 sheets, which should be your limit for the line printer in the common area.

Data
We try to provide abundant disk space on all machines. However usage always seems to exceeds the available space. Be prudent about what you store in your home directories. The permitted quota is 30 MB. Try not to accumulate too much mail (a fair limit would be about 1.5 MBytes).

What to do when a Linux machine hangs
1. Hit the "Num Lock" key on the right hand corner of the keyboard. If it goes on & off with each keystroke, the machine has not died out on you. It's just napping.

2. Log into the offending machine from another one and do the following:
ps -u

You will get an output that shows what processes you have invoked.
Eg.

USER PID %CPU %MEM SIZE RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
abc 132 0.0 5.4 1296 816 2 S 09:07 0:00 -tcsh
abc 1433 0.0 2.7 896 416 2 S 11:01 0:00 rlogin ncbs
abc 1434 0.0 2.7 896 416 2 S 11:01 0:00 pine
abc 1617 0.1 5.3 1288 804 1 S 11:19 0:00 -netscape
abc 1650 0.0 2.9 928 436 1 R 11:22 0:00 ps -u

3. Now kill out the process (the number of which appears in the column headed PID) using the command
kill -9 number_of_process

This should suffice to bring the machine out of it's slumber.

Reporting problems
In case the machine fails to come around using the method mentioned above, then get in touch with Vasudeva, Naganand, Upi or Jitu.

\Also if the machine should ever crash and has to be rebooted by you please inform Avinash of the occurrence, so he can trace it and hopefully prevent it from happening again.

Misc
Users are requested not to carry food or drink of any sort into the Computer facility.

Security

Security of the Servers at the NCBS campus is considered paramount and every effort is made to ensure that data is not compromised. There has been a recent and partially successful attempt to hack into the NCBS mailserver at the TIFR Centre, IISc campus. Have reasonably secure passwords.

Your accounts are yours alone and the passwords sacred. Do NOT give your passwords to anyone. Users found sharing accounts will lose access to their account for a duration decided by the NCBS computer committee.

The NCBS Computer Committee has formulated a set of rules that users have to adhere to to ensure secure access :

• Use Secure Shell(ssh) to connect to the Servers. SSH has a client program "slogin" which is invoked when you want to connect to a machine over SSH. Use the syntax -
• slogin machine_name

SSH offers encryption of all data flowing across the network. It uses a 768 bit RSA encryption key. Download the ssh client for your machine from the NCBS Ftp server

As a additional security measure "telnet" access into the NCBS mail server has been discontinued from August 15, 1999 onward.

For those who are travelling and wish to access e-mail, access to current mail spool and addressbook is available via a secure gateway machine. Users who are desirous of using this facility have to inform the Systems Administration staff of the same.

The Computer Committee's decision on granting accounts on the gateway machine is final and binding.

Ground rules on security
Any access to account(s) from an unknown site will be regarded as suspicious, and the account(s) frozen immediately. The user will be informed as and when they can be contacted. If a user expects to use a remote site, then they should inform the System Administrator in advance.

Avoid using remote access to get email. Instead, request to have your E-mail forwarded.

Hardware Facilities

Common computer area
Intel based Servers running Linux that serve Mail, Web, DNS, Samba. Intel based Server running Windows NT that servers a Database. Color Laser Printer, GrayScale laser printer

Student computer area
PCs of the Pentium range.

Admin office
Pentium running Windows95
Laser printer
Draft printer

Purchase office
Pentium running Windows95
486s running Dos/Windows
Laser printer
Draft printer

Accounts office
Pentium running Windows95
Draft printers

Software Facilities

Linux (UNIX) based
Netscape, lynx (WWW access)
Pine, elm, mailx (email access)
ftp, talk, finger, archie, gopher
C, C++, Fortran compilers
Ghostview (a postscript file viewer)
Xfig (X based package for drawing figures)
A huge number of other utilities. If you want it, we probably have it.

Scientific stuff
Rasmol(Unix, Windows & Mac versions)

DOS/Windows based
Microsoft Office 97:
Word
Excel
PowerPoint
Access

Biblographic
EndNote

Graphic
SigmaPlot ?
Adobe Acrobat Suite3.0
Adobe Photoshop 5.0
A huge number of shareware utilities, several CD-ROMs full.
Depending on licensing, these are either available on specific machines or accessible anywhere on the network.

Macintosh based
Microsoft Office 4.2.1:
Word
Excel
PowerPoint

Graphic
Adobe Photoshop 5.0
Adobe Acrobat Suite3.0

Network Facilities

Hardware and operating systems
Our's is a mixed 10/100 Megabit LAN in star topology. There are two levels of Ethernet switches, a central workhorse that serves as the backbone, uplinked via 100 Mbps CAT 5 UTP to 5 smaller switches that constitute the second layer. Ports on these switches branch off to 10 Mbps hubs and are patched to the users' desktop. The LAN is highly segmented and gives provides sufficient redundancy to ensure minimal downtime to users.

We are connected to the outside world via VSNL with a 64Kbps radio link as the local loop:
The Linux machines and Cisco Ethernet Switch's form the hardware basis of our network.
We provide a file server for Windows 3.11 and Windows95 machines from a Linux machine running Samba.
File serving for Mac's is provided from a Linux machine running Netatalk.
There are also several Macintoshes which talk to each other over Appletalk.

Note that we do **NOT** run NetWare. Three network protocols are enough.

Network applications
- Netscape
- Pine
- ftp
- telnet

Data Handling

Available directories
As already mentioned, we have a file server for all the DOS/Windows machines. From the viewpoint of the user, this means that you have extra directories/drives available to you when you log in to these machines.
The directories you can access include:

MSOFFICE
Both 16 & 32 bit versions of the Microsoft Office Suite

GRAPHICS
Adobe Photoshop 3.0 and 4.0 for Windows 95

Logging in
You can connect to the Samba File Server via the network drive on any windows (3.11 or 95) machine.
To do this :
1. Open the File Manager.
2. On the toolbar choose "Connect Network Drive" from the "Disk" menu.
3. In the "Path" box that appears, type the path of the shared directory you want to access.
To access one of the shared diractories, type in
Eg. \\machinename\sharename
where "sharename" is the name of the shared directory you want to access.
If you have accessed the share previously, then simply click on the "Path" box and select the appropriate share from the menu that pops up, and click "OK".
4. You will now be prompted for a password. This is your usual ncbs password. On verification of the password, you will be permitted to access the shared directories on that machine.
You can connect to the UNIX machines from the Macintoshes via Pathway Access/ NCSA Telnet.

You can also connect from one UNIX machine to another using "telnet" for terminal access and "ftp" for file transfers.

Handling policies
Users are requested to pay special attention to the following note on Handling policies with respect to user data on Institutional Servers:
- All data on the central Mail server and Common lab file server is backed up periodically and archived keeping in mind the highest possible degree of safety of user data.
- E-mail attachments are currently limited to 1 megabyte for both incoming and outgoing mail.
- NCBS does not guarantee privacy of data on Institutional Hardware. As a government institution NCBS is liable to be held responsible for any data on Institutional Computers that violate set rules and norms. Users are requested to move any objectionable materials off Institutional hardware.
- As a matter of routine systems administration or in times of crisis, situations may arise when the Support Personell may have to examine files or data residing in a users home area. Users are requested to make note that such situations arise on a per need basis only and is not directed towards violating a users' online privacy.

Support

System administrators
P. K. Baruah

Faculty computer committee
Krushnamegh
Gaiti
Ramkumar
Shannonn

Books and journals
Linux manuals
Linux Journal

SysAdmin
Assorted Windows and Dos manuals
Networking and Security books in the library
Various companies are under maintainance contract for hardware and software; contact the office staff about this