CIS provides three “login servers” for general use by CIS Unix users: their names are “Gauss,” “Euler,” and “Zeno”. All three reside at the CIS/ECG Data Center at 1 Leavitt Lane. All three systems run version 5 of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) operating system.

These three servers are available for:

In addition, Gauss provides the “pubpages” World Wide Web service, allowing CIS Unix users to have their own web pages. Issues involved in setting up a web page of your own are described in Section 10.2, “Your Own Website”.

All machines' internet names (“fully-qualified domain names”) are obtained by appending the university's domain name (.unh.edu) to the machine's name; for example, Euler's internet name is euler.unh.edu.

Our login servers have (as a group) the internet name cisunix.unh.edu; using this name is a good idea when you want to name any one of Euler, Zeno, or Gauss, but don't really care which specific one you get. Examples of such usage occur later in this document.

All standard Unix commands are available on all machines, and nearly all commands will work exactly the same way on all machines. There may be minor differences in some commands, however, usually due to different versions of the operating system being installed on different machines.

You can access the login servers (Euler, Zeno, or Gauss) from any computer attached to the on-campus network. You can also access most services of the login servers from any off-campus computer that has Internet access. (Specifically, SMB and SMTP services are available to on-campus hosts only.)

The login servers are normally available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There is a downtime maintenance window between 8am and noon on Sundays; the systems can be taken down without notice during that time. (Although downtimes are almost always brief.) Other planned downtimes should be announced in each machine's login “message of the day” (the file /etc/motd), the CIS Unix Home Page. Unavailability of CIS Unix and other systems may also be announced on the CIS System Status page. Unplanned downtimes are not announced.

One final note on the login servers: Gauss has a 64-bit architecture, while Euler and Zeno have 32-bit architectures. This little fact probably won't have any effect on your normal use of the systems, unless you try to run programs on Euler or Zeno that were compiled on Gauss. This may not work due to the architecture difference. (Programs compiled on Euler or Zeno, however, should work fine on Gauss. It's a funny old world.)

Nine other machines help out at the Leavitt Data Center, but aren't available for logins; except as noted, they all run Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5:

CIS currently maintains five Student Computing Clusters on campus:

Schedules for these clusters are viewable at (a) bulletin boards around campus; (b) posted around the cluster entrances themselves; (c) the Dimond Academic Commons Information Technology Support Center (DAC ITSC) in the Dimond Library; and (d) the UNH Student Computing Clusters web page.

You use your Unix username and password to log into the PCs in the Computing Clusters. Some very complex stuff happens behind the scenes when you do this, but one primary benefit is that your Unix home directory becomes available for file storage. You can store documents and data files there, and have them available even when you log into a different machine. (The files in your Unix directory are also backed up to tape nightly, so they're far safer than if they were on a floppy in your backpack.)

A number of departments and dormitories provide clusters, typically for use by their members or residents. All have their own rules for access and usage; if in doubt, ask first.

UNH provides wireless networking access to many locations in Durham and Manchester. A current list is provided on the UNH Wireless Locations web page. Interested parties might want to review the Wireless Services page.

Access to some network services is restricted to hosts on the UNH network only. If you need to access these services from an off-campus machine, CIS's virtual private network (VPN) might help. You need to download the VPN client software, install it on your computer, and use it to log in to the appropriate VPN server with your username and password. For complete information, please see the Virtual Private Networking web page.

The primary public printers used by the CIS Unix systems are in the Student Computing Centers; a small per-page fee is charged. (Specific details are in Section 11.5.1, “Printing to Student Computing Cluster Printers with lpr”.) Computing Center consultants will assist you with getting your printouts.

Usually it's most convenient to use printers that are “local” to your own computer. Methods to do this are described in Section 11.5.4, “Printing to a local printer with lpansi”.

Finally, printers serving the Unix systems are in the CIS/ECG Data Center at 1 Leavitt Lane. Generally, these are inconvenient for casual use. Student use is discouraged. They print both “ANSI” (text) and PostScript files. The specific commands you should use to print files are discussed in Section 11.5, “Printing”.

All Unix systems are hooked into the Internet, which links up many computers all over the world. A full description of Internet access is beyond the scope of this document, but all users have full access to many Internet services.

Student consultants are available in many Computing Centers to answer your computer-related questions. Current consulting schedules are posted in all Computing Centers and on the UNH Student Computing Clusters web page.

If you have questions that can't be answered by a consultant, or a consultant isn't available, you may use the CIS Help Desk Questions form; any system-related question is welcome. A response of some kind will be forthcoming within one working day, but usually much quicker than that during normal working hours.

The CIS Help Desk also maintains phone support for the CIS Unix systems and some of the installed applications (most notably the Pine e-mail program): the number is (603)862-4242 (or 2-4242 from on-campus).

If you are using the systems for coursework: sorry, but neither the CIS student consultants nor the CIS Help Desk Questions form will be able to help you with coursework-related questions or the debugging of programming assignments. Your instructors will have made arrangements to provide appropriate assistance to you.

Most routine requests for basic account setup, resetting forgotten passwords, and de-suspending inactive accounts are handled by CIS Help Desk personnel. You can visit them in person at the Dimond Academic Commons Information Technology Support Center (DAC ITSC) in the Dimond Library, 3rd floor.

The CIS Unix account managers handle requests for custom account setup, disk quota modification, account deletion, shell changes, issue commands, found states, vest families with fiefs, and the like. Inferior people are not employed. You may contact the account managers via the Help Desk Web Form.

Some administrative services must be requested in person, with a picture ID, for security reasons.

Non-routine requests, suggestions, complaints, questions, demands, and so on, may be addressed to the CIS Unix system administrators at <sysman@cisunix.unh.edu>.