Info for New People in Computer Science
Get BU ID card
Students can get the BU ID, called Terrier
Card, Monday through Friday, 9:00am - 5:00pm from the Terrier
Card Office, 775 Commonwealth Avenue, Student Lounge, Lower Level.
Faculty members can get their IDs at the BU benefits orientation
meeting or the Terrier Card Office.
Computer Accounts
- Check the
Computing Administrators and Staff page.
- Get kerberos BU account at the Information Technology Office, 111
Cummington St, 1st floor (need to bring a photo ID, and if you are a
student, your letter of acceptance into the CS program)
- Get a cs account from Ernest Kim (krazykid@cs.bu.edu, x2765, ENA
302A or his staff at 730 Commonwealth Ave). Then you'll have access to
csa.bu.edu and csb.bu.edu. Check the groups
command. Your group membership will determine permissions,
such as printing privileges, potential disk quotas, etc.
- Get a cs-nt account from Ernie. This will let you log onto the
Windows machines in the teaching and research labs (see below) under
the domain cs-nt.
- If you are a faculty member or research assistant, get an account
from Paul Stauffer (paulds@bu.edu, x5228, 214) on whale.bu.edu (after
you got the cs.bu.edu account). For more instructions see
http://csr.bu.edu/accounts.html. Your home directory will be on
whale, but you cannot log into whale directly. Use the SGI or linux
machines in the research lab (fish cluster, eg, crab.bu.edu, shark,
...) to access your data on whale. Most partitions on whale are
backed up nightly (check with Paul). Samba is installed on whale, so
you can access whale from the Windows PCs also. See
http://csr.bu.edu/restricted/resources.html for additional info.
- New faculty members: Get a UIS account from Ellen. This will let
you use the www.bu.edu/link web page for faculty. You will be able to
access your course lists, student pictures, advisee information, etc.
Access to Rooms
The Computer Science Research Laboratory is on the 2nd floor of 111
Cummington Street. The main door of the lab is labeled MCS 205-218
and is across from the westmost staircase of 111 Cummington Street.
The research lab is used by faculty members and some graduate and
undergraduate students.
You need to ask Jennifer Streubel, MCS 140F, to set up your BU ID card
access to the research lab. Send email to jenn4@cs.bu.edu
with your ID number. The number starts with a U.
If you are a research assistant or teaching fellow, you will have a
desk in the research laboratory (MCS 205) or across the street on the
2nd floor of 64 Cummington Street. Check
http://www.cs.bu.edu/misc/directory for your desk location and
ask Ellen Grady (Room 140D) for a key to your office.
Faculty office keys generally cannot be used to get into the research
lab or xerox room.
Printing in Research Lab
Printing from UNIX/LINUX:
- Bullwinkle:
-
- double-sided: lpr -Pbullwinkle [filename]
- single-sided: lp -o simplex -dbullwinkle
[filename] or lpr -Pclunky [filename]
- Check out man net_ljx000 for
options.
- New color printer:
-
- Use lp -dacrylics [filename]
for color.
- Check out man -M /usr/local/man
net_ljcolor for options
-
lp -o2 -dacrylics [filename] prints 2 pages on 1 sheet of paper.
To print .pdf files on bullwinkle or acrylics (lp or lpr expects ascii
text or postscript), use acroread
[filename] to convert to postscript.
There a several ways to convert a postscript file into pdf so
that it can be viewed and printed by Adobe Acrobat using Windows.
I obtain the best results using ps2pdf on csa or csb (some of the
other options seem to have font problems or blur pictures).
If you use a new linux PC and your printer is not set up, follow
Paul's instructions: ``As root (or sudo), run "printtool". Hit the
add button. Pick a name, set remote host to "cs.bu.edu", remote queue
should be "bullwinkle", and select "HP LaserJet 4/5/6 series" as the
Input Filter.''
To print programs from a linux machine, use
nenscript -P[printername] -2 -r -G [filename]
Accessing BU via Modem
I haven't tested this.
Stan has used the phone number 617-378-1111.
Ernie writes: BU maintains a modem pool. You'll need to have set up
an ACS account at the basement of MCS. They have modem software which
will help you set the modem connection up.
Paul writes: OIT maintains a large modem pool for remote access to the
campus network, and I'd recommend you dial into that. If you go
downstairs to the first floor to the Office of Information Technology
front desk, they can give you instructions on how to connect and
authenticate to the main modem pool.
Just found this web page:
BU Dialup Access
Web Account
- All users: At the prompt on csa.bu.edu, type in:
web-ok This will create a public html
directory in your home directory with the address
http://cs-people.bu.edu/username
- CS Faculty: Go to
/cs/www/html/faculty/username/ on csa.bu.edu to create a web page
with the address http://www.cs.bu.edu/faculty/username
Long Distance Telephone
Faculty members need an ID for long distance telephone access.
Check with csdept@bu.edu x8919.
CS Letterhead
An electronic version of the department's letterhead can be found on
csa.bu.edu in directory /cs/lib/teTeX/
Template for 1st Page of Graduate Thesis
I will provide a link to the template in the near future.
CS Teaching Lab Info
The Teaching Laboratory
is mostly used by undergraduate CS students. It is located at
730 Commonwealth Avenue.
Anonymous FTP
Our ftp server for downloading and uploading files is called
csr.bu.edu. Your research collaborator outside BU can access it
anonymously. On our end, you can get to the files from any unix or
linux machine in the research lab by cd
/cluster/ftp
Vacation Program
The vacation program returns a message to the sender of a message
telling him or her that you are currently not reading your mail.
Check man vacation on your cs account.
Departmental Mailing Lists
Check csa or csb under /var/pubspool/mailinglists.
For example, cs-faculty, cs-grads,
cs-ugrads, etc. Each semester mailing lists are set up for
the cs courses. To sign up for your course list, type csmail -a [your course number], e.g., csmail -a cs585.