User Accounts on pads1

This is the official announcement that all current active users of the MSUPA OpenVMS cluster (DIRAC, etc.) now also have accounts on the pads1 system. The following material contains information which is specifically for those users whose pads1 accounts have just been generated, but much of it is still applicable to those with pre-existing accounts.

Contents

What is pads1 ?

The machine called pads1.pa.msu.edu is a Sun UltraSparc Creator3D 170e computer with 128 MB of RAM, currently running under the Solaris 2.5.1 operating system, a version of Unix.

The name pads1 was given to the older Sun Sparc Classic which this machine replaced over the summer. It stood for "Physics-Astronomy Disk Server 1", since its original primary function was to provide disk space for P-A users of the MSU Computer Lab's Convex system (which has been deactivated recently) without having to pay the Computer Lab's monthly disk space charges.

It also has the alias www.pa.msu.edu, and acts as the primary World Wide Web server for the department. You may telnet, ftp, or send E-mail to it using either the pads1 name or the www name.

How do I log into pads1 for the first time ?

A function pads1pass has been set up on DIRAC which will inform you of your pads1 username (in most cases, the same as your DIRAC username, except for being in lower case -- Unix usernames are case-sensitive) and initial login password. If you have left yourself logged on since before Friday afternoon, your session probably doesn't have this symbol set, in which case you can manually type @info_dir:pads1-pass.com instead of pads1pass; or you can just log out and log back in again.

The pads1pass function will only work for those 300+ accounts which have just been set up. Pre-existing accounts will continue to have their former passwords. If you have forgotten your original password, or never found out what it was (many of the original users only accessed pads1 via the Convex system, so this is not totally unusual), send an E-mail request to admreq@pads1.pa.msu.edu and we'll work something out.

Additionally, the pads1pass command will not work more than once for a given DIRAC user, so record the information it provides for you carefully. Some people have had trouble recording it carefully -- if you run the pads1pass command, copy down the password, and it doesn't seem to work on your pads1 account, read this before contacting us. We will also deactivate pads1pass after 15 May 1997, and freeze any accounts on pads1 which have not been logged into yet by that time, so please log into your pads1 account before then.

Sample Login

From some other computer, log into pads1 using telnet: 

    $ telnet pads1.pa.msu.edu

      login: username
             ^^^^^^^^
             Type your pads1 username here.

      Password:
               ^^^^^^^^
               Type your pads1 initial password here (be careful of the
               difference between upper- and lower-case letters); passwords
               you type will not be echoed to the screen.

      Choose a new password.
      Enter login password:
                           ^^^^^^^^
                           Type your pads1 initial password again here.

              (Yes, we know that it has just told you to choose a new
              password,  but it wants to see the old one again first,
              and Sun only knows why they don't use some phrase such as
              "Enter current login password:" to resolve the ambiguity.)

      New password:
                   ^^^^^^^^
                   Type your own new pads1 password here.

      Re-enter new password:
                   ^^^^^^^^
                   Type your own new pads1 password again here.

And then you're on pads1!

Passwords on pads1:

How is my pads1 account configured ?

All of the newly-created accounts (and most of the pre-existing ones) start out with certain properties set. Here is a list of the more important ones.

What is available on pads1 now ?

Available compilers

Available packages in addition to standard Unix tools

What will be available on pads1 later ?

(plus upgraded versions of Mathematica and NCSA httpd)

Why are we doing all of this ?

It has become increasingly clear that, while OpenVMS won't be going away entirely in the foreseeable future, the number of systems in the Physics and Astronomy communities which run under it is decreasing, while the number of Unix and Windows NT systems is increasing. Newcomers to the Department are now much more likely to be familiar with some variety of Unix than with OpenVMS. Many useful computational tools are developed primarily on and for Unix systems now, and only ported later (if at all) to OpenVMS.

The MSU P-A Computing Committees concluded that providing general access to a well-equipped Unix workstation in addition to the central OpenVMS cluster would be a welcome enhancement of our service to the Department. Users already familiar with Unix would have a place to do their work in "comfortable surroundings"; users who wish to learn how to use Unix systems would have a place to practice their skills; and there would be a place to install software packages which are not readily available for OpenVMS systems.

We currently have no immediate plans to drop OpenVMS support, so if you have no interest in using pads1, you will just continue to use dirac. We do want you to log into pads1 at least once, however, to change your password, as demonstrated above.

Now that I'm on pads1, what do I do ?

Simply put: Be careful. Unix is, in general, just as powerful a system as OpenVMS and more flexible, but less self-consistent and a lot less forgiving of user error. A major example of this is the lack of version numbers on files -- if you copy file a to file b, then any previous file named b is now gone forever.

For those of you who are interested in learning to use a Unix system, there are lots of books available at local bookstores which will be of assistance to a Unix user just starting out. Some which we can recommend are:

Browse the computing book section of your favorite bookstore for other titles whose authors may have a style or approach which fits your own particular needs or desires.

How do I use pads1 to put files on the World Wide Web ?

By default, a file with name file.html in the www subdirectory of a user's home area will be available on the web under the URLs:

http://www.pa.msu.edu/~username/file.html
and
http://www.pa.msu.edu/people/username/file.html

If the filename is left off, index.html is assumed. Creating subdirectory structures beneath the www subdirectory is OK.

New users who have had DIRAC accounts since April 1995, or who have since been added to the "webput" authorization list on DIRAC and have actually used DIRAC's "webput" function may find that they already have files in their www subdirectories. These are the files which formerly resided physically in the people area of the web server. They were moved automatically upon the creation of the new accounts. The web server's people area now contains only pointers to individuals' www subdirectories, and users now have full responsibility for maintaining the files which they want to make available.

If file access permissions are set for a file or directory incorrectly, the file may not be accessible. Similarly, access restrictions may be set for files in a subdirectory using a file called .htaccess in the subdirectory. 

    Suggested permissions are (r=read, w=write, x=execute):

                                    owner   group   other
                                    -----   -----   -----
       user's home directory         rwx     --x     --x
       user's www subdirectory       rwx     r-x     r-x
       subdirectories below www      rwx     r-x     r-x
       *.html files                  rwx     r-x     r-x
       graphics files (e.g., *.gif)  rw-     r--     r--

If you want to serve no files to the web at all, you can just put nothing in your www subdirectory (or move out any files that are already there), or set "owner-only" read & execute permission for the files (use the command chmod 700 filename).

In most cases, the default.html file (to which the default index.html file is a pointer) contained no more information than is available to the outside world via the command "finger name@msu.edu" or via a CSO search for "name" on the MSU Computer Lab's gopher/web server's staff directory search page.

To generate a new version of index.html based on the current default one, the preferred method is to issue the following commands: 

    %  cd ~/www

This changes your "current" directory to the "www" subdirectory. 

    %  ls -alFq
    -rwxr-xr-x   1 username users  626 May 27  1995 default.html*
    lrwxrwxrwx   1 username users   12 Sep 27 04:45 index.html -> default.html*

This confirms that the real file is default.html, and "index.html" is just a pointer to it. 

    %  rm index.html

This gets rid of the named link, so "index.html" won't be a pointer now. 

    %  cp default.html index.html

This makes a new copy separate from, but so far the same as, the old one.

Then, edit the new index.html to the way you like it. The file default.html remains there just in case you need to fall back on the original copy.

This file last updated on 1999.05.28 (Friday) 17:32:58 EDT by George J Perkins (E-mail: perkins@pa.msu.edu)