Important Bits

All people running their own computer that connects to CSE Services should read and be aware of the Self Administration Policy. This document describes your rights and responsibilities with regards to CSE services and your own data.

We would like to particularly highlight the following:

• You must think about Backups of your data.
• You must be aware of security, and keep your computer up to data with updates from your Operating System/Applications. You will want to read the section on your Operating System / Distribution and possibly read about Local Mirrors.
• We strongly recommend that you set your username to be your CSE username (regardless of your operating system).

Generally, you will also probably want to look at Accessing CSE Services.

Did we mention? Be sure to BACKUP YOUR DATA !

Getting on the Network

You will either be using the Wired Network (cable into wall port), or the Wireless Network. Or you may even be travelling and using a VPN.

Mirrors and Local Software

For general software, you should be familiar with local software repositories. Here are a few:

• CSE Mirror - CSE's mirror has copies of lots of software, including Firefox, Mozilla, RedHat, Linux Kernel, OpenOffice, ...
• Home Computing - The CSE Home Computing site contains a copy of everything on the homecomputing CD. A good collection of software thats handy when studying at CSE.
• ~java - The CSE Java page has local copies of installation files and documentation for Sun's Java software.

Borrowing CDs

If you are a CSE staff member of Postgraduate student then you can borrow copies of many of the MSDNAA images as well as the popular Linux Distributions. Enquire by email to SS (at) CSE to see if we have what you want.

Operating Systems and Distributions

These pages provide some specific help and configuration details for these software environments. You should also be sure to read the below sections on accessing services.

• Linux - Regular Users
  • Ubuntu Linux
  • Fedora Linux
• Linux - Advanced Users
  • Debian Linux
  • Gentoo Linux
• Microsoft Windows
• MacOSX

We have separated linux distributions into two categories. The Regular Users category (Ubuntu, Fedora), have much more user-friendly installers, and are generally easier to get started with. However, if you are already comfortable running a linux computer, then we recommend Debian or Gentoo to the advanced users. They tend to be more tricky to install, but often easier to manage once you are comfortable with their package-management tools. If you're even a little bit unsure, try Ubuntu.

Accessing CSE Services from within CSE

There are many services people may want to access from their self administered computer at CSE:

• Accessing CSE Login Servers - You can still access many of the programs you used to have on your computer.
• Self Admin Backups - be sure to backup your data. It won't happen magically on your own machine!
• Accessing Your Home Directory
• Accessing the Internet
• Accessing email, especially Using IMAP.
• Printing from selfadmin computers
• Accessing Matlab
• Accessing Windows Terminal Servers (accessing Microsoft software (e.g. MS Office) from non-microsoft computers)

Note that most of these operations are simpler if you have set your username to be the same as your CSE username.

Getting within CSE from outside CSE

If you are outside of K17, you should be able to become effectively "inside" by conencting to a VPN.

Please refer to the VPN page for information on using them at CSE.

Software Gotchas

This section collects a few FAQs that address common problems encountered.

• SSH Errors - People sometimes have problems accessing GUI applications through SSH.
• Setting Proxies - People occasionally have problems with proxy settings.