 |
 |
To ensure privacy, please LOG OFF! Do not store items on your Desktop! Software installed on cluster machines Suggestions on using your Desktop Athena commands/Windows equivalents
Home
| |
|
|
|
|
Using the Building 37 Windows Cluster
To ensure privacy, please LOG OFF!It is imperative that you remember to log off a workstation once you have finished working. If you do not do so, you leave your account open for any random person to access! If you leave a machine without logging off, anyone else may sit down at that machine and go through your files either deliberately or by mistake. Anyone will be able to read, change, and/or delete your files. Logging off is accomplished by selecting the "Log Off" command from the Start Menu at lower left. Do not store items on your Desktop!Everyone who logs onto a Athena Windows machine logs on using what is known as a roaming profile, that is, a profile that is stored centrally on a server as opposed to locally on the machine that you are sitting at. Roaming profiles allow a user to have the exact same application settings, Desktop appearance, and so forth at every machine he or she logs onto (as opposed to having to make configurations for each different machine he or she uses). However, since a roaming profile is stored on a server elsewhere on campus, this means that every time you log on, your profile must be downloaded to the machine you are sitting at. Obviously, the larger the profile, the longer the download time. Among other things, your Desktop items are stored in your roaming profile. This means that your Desktop is downloaded whenever you log onto a machine (and uploaded back to the server every time you log off). The long and short of it is, the larger files are that are stored on your Desktop, the longer logging on will take. In Windows 2000, it does not take much on the Desktop to create an annoyingly long logon time. Please store ONLY shortcuts to files and/or applications on your desktop, not actual files! Please see How to Create a Desktop Shortcut and Managing your Roaming Profile for more details. Software installed on cluster machinesPlease see the list of Currently Installed Software. Suggestions on using your DesktopYour ProfileMost Desktop problems are caused by profile issues. A user's profile describes his work environment, the color of his desktop, the last window(s) he had opened, his screen saver, settings for some applications, and so forth. Athena Windows users use a roaming profile as opposed to a local profile. A roaming profile is stored not locally on the machine one is sitting at, but in AFS, our network filesystem. When you log on to a certain machine, your profile is downloaded to that machine. Any changes you make to your work environment are made to this local profile copy. When you log out, the local copy is then copied back to the central fileserver. For more information on roaming profiles, see Managing your Roaming Profile. Normally, the download and upload of your profile only takes a few seconds to complete. However, it is possible to inadvertently cause problems with this process by storing large files or folders on your Desktop. Overloaded DesktopsYour Desktop is represented in your roaming profile by directory .winprofile\Desktop. This directory, when downloaded to the local machine, is temporarily stored in the local directory C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Desktop. Any shortcuts or files you copy to the desktop are actually copied here. Problems start when you copy a large folder to your desktop. This large folder is copied to the previously mentioned directory, and when you log out, is copied up to the central fileserver. During each subsequent login, the folder is copied down, and then copied back as you log out. This will add considerable time to each login or logout and may cause timeouts or errors in the login process. To prevent this problem, it is best to use shortcuts to files and folders instead of placing the actual file/folder on the Desktop. When saving documents, save them into your My Documents folder - this is a folder which is located on the Desktop and which points to your WinData folder, the folder designed to store your data files. Files stored in WinData will not adversely affect your logon time. Creating a Shortcut on your Desktop
Shortcuts are generally so small that you could have hundreds on them on your desktop without causing problems. Managing your Roaming ProfilePlease see Managing your Roaming Profile.Managing Files and QuotaPlease see Managing Files and Quota. Renewing Kerberos Tickets
renew is a script provided to standard win.mit.edu machines. It covers obtaining both new Kerberos tickets and new AFS tokens simultaneously. This script is intended to facilitate the process of getting new Kerberos tickets, re-authenticating yourself to any fileservers from which you may have filesystems attached, and re-authenticating yourself to the zephyr servers. You could, of course, obtain new Kerberos tickets and AFS tokens via their individual commands, but the beauty of the renew command is that that one command covers both renewals. Alternate Method:
Related Commandsklist will list your Kerberos tickets tokens will list your AFS tokens Setting Directory PermissionsYou may note that the Properties and Security tabs will not appear on files and directories which come from AFS. You cannot set NTFS permissions on file and directories stored in AFS. The only way to set an ACL on those portions is to use the "fs sa" command-line utility to set the ACL on Z: or H: at the appropriate directory. The best way to prevent access problems is to exclude others - it is not recommended that you try to allow others to read or write data stored directly in your roaming profile. Instead, you should set up shared resources in the rest of your AFS home directory and link to them from your roaming profile. Athena Commands/Windows EquivalentsPlease see the table of Athena Commands and Equivalents. Storing Items on the D: DriveThere is indeed a folder on the D: Drive (D:\usertemp) on which you have access to store files. HOWEVER, please keep in mind that nothing you store in this directory is either private or safe from deletion. This directory is meant ONLY as a temp directory and is routinely (at least weekly, and often more frequently) cleared. Do not store anything in D:\usertemp that is valuable to you! Please store all of your personal files in your home directory, H:.
|
