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Frequently Asked Questions Why do I have to use SSH instead of telnet? Can I access my account from off campus? How do I use CD-ROM or USB drives? How do I change my password? How can I stop that annoying beeping noise in a terminal window? How do I get VI to stop the beeping? How do I make my terminal remember not to have the bell turned on? As soon as I enter my password, the login screen disappears. What happened? Can I use rlogin to connect to another machine in the lab? A machine is not functioning properly, can I reboot it? What printers are available? What if I am having problems connecting with ssh? Are there disk quotas? Can I use FTP to get files to and from the UNIX Server? Q: Why do I have to use ssh instead of telnet? Sending passwords in the clear allows individuals to sit between you and the server and capture your passwords. This gives them complete access to all of your files and access to computer systems that I, as system manager, am responsible for. SSH encrypts everything including your passwords. Telnet was developed before the Internet when security was handled by a lock and a key. SSH was developed along with the Internet as the lock and the key. For more information, checkout OpenSSH or our Remote Access web page. Return to index Q: Can I access my account from off campus? Yes, review our Remote Access document. Return to index Q: How do I use CD-ROM or USB drives? CD-ROM USB storage are automatically mounted under /media. Return to index Q: How do I change my password? See the password documentation. Return to index Q: How can I stop that annoying beeping noise in a terminal window? Xterm/Kterm: Press control and hold the middle mouse button. Release the button when "Enable Visual Bell" is highlighted. Eterm: From the Eterm menu, choose Terminal -> Toggles -> Visible Bell GNOME Terminal: From settings menu, choose preferences. Turn on the option for "Silence terminal bell" Return to index Q: How do I get VI to stop the beeping? Type :set visualbell You can make it save this by adding set visualbell to your ~/.vimrc file Return to index Q: How do I make my terminal remember not to have the bell turned on? Xterm/Kterm: Create a file if it does not already exist in your home directory, call it .Xdefaults In this file, place the following text: *visualBell: true Eterm: mkdir ~/.Eterm cp -r /usr/X11R6/share/Eterm/themes/Eterm ~/.Eterm/ Edit the ~/.Eterm/Eterm/MAIN file with your favorite text editor. Find the line containing "visual_bell off" and change the off to on. GNOME Terminal should automatically save the setting for bell silence. Return to index Q: As soon as I enter my password, the login screen disappears and I'm left with a text login screen. Or, when I log in it accepts my password then goes back to the login screen. What happened? You are most likely over quota. Log in at the text console screen (ctrl-alt-F1), and clear out any files you don't need any more. Log out, and press ctrl-alt-F7 to get the graphical login screen back. If you use Netscape, check it's cache directory (~/.netscape/cache) as the cache can often get very large. Return to index Q: Can I use rlogin to connect to another machine in the lab? Rlogin is not turned on. However, SSH works in a similar way. To connect to a selected machine, simply enter ssh ssh.acs.uwosh.edu -p 1022 in a terminal window. While the previous method is recommended, if you need to get to a specific machine ssh uwsNN.acs.uwosh.edu where NN is the machine you want to access(uws01, uws05, etc.) will also work. Only machines 01-05 allow SSH access. Return to index Q: A machine is not functioning properly, can I reboot it? First, see if you can log in and type 'who' to determine if anyone else is logged in. If someone is logged in, logout and contact the Academic Computing Help Desk at x3020. If there is no GUI, try pressing ctrl-alt-backspace to restart the graphical environment. If you are at a text console login, try ctrl-alt-del. If you still cannot use the machine, contact the Academic Computing Help Desk at x3020. Please don't just power off a machine without doing an orderly shutdown. File system corruption can result. Return to index Q: What printers are available? See the printing documentation Return to index Q: What if I am having problems connecting with ssh because the lab machine is not functioning properly? The domain name ssh.acs.uwosh.edu points to multiple machines. The DNS server will provide each user with a different IP address to use. This prevents remote users from competing for resources on a single machine. If you are having problems using one of the two addresses, you should try to use the other address. This will allow you to request a new ip address (thus, a different machine). As a last resort you can specify a specific machine (uwsNN.acs.uwosh.edu - where nn is the machine number - 01..05) in the lab. Please do not do this on a regular basis, as you may end up competing with others for system resources. Return to index Q: Are there disk quotas? Yes, the current default disk quotas are 250 MB. To check your quota and usage, cd to your home directory (cd ~) and type "quota" Return to index Q: Can I use FTP to get files to and from the UNIX server? No, see the ssh discussion for the reasons why. Alternatives include the use of ZIP disks, floppy disks, and scp (part of the ssh routines). SCP is usually available from the same locations that you get your ssh client from. Return to index This page is maintained by: UW Oshkosh Webmaster URL: http://www.acs.uwosh.edu/unix/faq.shtml Last updated: Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - 02:52 PM