| Department of Computing | Imperial College |
| General Q&A | |
How can I search for DoC user details?
How can I get my college-wide password?
Can I ftp to any DoC systems?
Are there any photocopiers?
Can I get access to the labs at the weekends?
Why isn't there an IRC server in DoC?
Why is running an IRC bot so unacceptable?
Are we allowed to download software and use it in the labs?
Do we share bandwidth with the rest of college?
If I know a system name how do I find the IP address?
Is there an implementation of PGP in DoC?
A file with a name beginning .nfs... appeared and I can't remove it?
Can I install ICQ or MSN Messenger under Windows?
How do I use the projector in the Clore theatre?
Is gcc available for DOS/Win32?
How can I get Ghostscript for my home PC?
Is there a port range that a server inside DoC can listen on, that can also be connected to from outside DoC?
My home PC had a hard disk crash - where can I get a bootdisk?
Should staff and research students shut down their workstations overnight?
Can anything be done about workstations locked for too long?
How do we use the playstations in the lab?
Is printer paper recycled?
ftp has been withdrawn for security reasons. Alternatives are listed here.
If you want to offer files for download, you have your publicly-accessible webspace in your ~/public_html directory.
Not for students, no, sorry. Use College copying services (the main Library, for example).
Can I get access to the labs at the weekends?
The Teaching labs are open to Department of Computing students from 8am to 11pm everyday except when the college is closed (e.g. Christmas Day).
You will need your college ID card to gain access at all times.
How can I get my college-wide password?
When you activate your College wide account, you get to choose your College password. If you forget it, we can change it for you here in DoC at the CSG helpdesk. This has to be done in person, with your swipe card.
Why isn't there an IRC server in DoC?
Historical note: Up until a few years ago we used to run one of the main backbone IRC servers, then a certain national Sunday newspaper article appeared, and we had to shut it down. After extensive debate and discussion within the college, it was agreed that we would not run, nor permit to run, any IRC servers connected to the network at Imperial.
How can I search for DoC user details?
There is a web version of a utility known as "Finger".
Alternatively on a Linux system, just type at the command line:
finger nameor for a neater listing:
finger name@docand for people in the rest of the college consult the college web site which has a College Directory under the Contacts menu.
Are we allowed to download software from the internet and use it in the labs?
As long as the software does not damage our systems, interfere with other users, break the law, contravene copyright regulations, or adversely affect any computer systems both inside and outside of DoC, and as long as it is used for valid College purposes, then you are allowed to download and install the software in your home directory space. Requests for software to be installed on the machines themselves should be sent to help@doc. If you have any queries about a particular piece of software, then please ask.
Why is running an IRC bot so unacceptable?
Various reasons:
IRC clients are fine in DoC, as long as a user is sitting in front of the machine on which it is running. A client installed on the Linux systems is xchat.
Do we share bandwidth with the rest of college?
DoC's external link goes via a fibre to College, where we share College's JANET connection. So yes, we do have to share our bandwidth with them.
If I know a system name how do I find the IP address?
host is a very good command for this sort of thing, eg:
shell3% host vertex01 vertex01.doc.ic.ac.uk. has address 146.169.52.101
dig and/or nslookup may also prove useful.
A file with a name beginning .nfs... appeared and I can't remove it?
Log out and it will dissappear -- .nfs files are virtual files created to give a name to files held open by a process when the file has been deleted. They disappear once the process holding them open terminates.
Basically, don't worry it will sort itself out.
Can I install ICQ or MSN Messenger under Windows?
In short, I'm afraid you can't.
MSN Messenger will not install on our machines because it requires Administrator priviledges. As such a program has no good reason to require superuser status, it is not supported. Similarly, ICQ also requires excess priviledges in order to install itself.
As these are both fairly simple network applications, they have no good reason to require write access to the local disk or other superuser priviledges. Instead, the applications should simply be installed in your own home directory.
There is another open-source piece of software called
Jabber which you may wish to investigate.
Also, for Linux there is a program called Licq installed in
/vol/linux/apps/licq which is also very good for
conversing with other ICQ users.
How do I use the projector in the Clore theatre?
The Clore Lecture theatre (Huxley room 213) is not in the Department of Computing so we don't have any information on it. Try contacting Reg Perera in the Maths department.
Is gcc available for DOS/Win32?
Yes, gcc is freely available for DOS/Win32. Check the DJGPP web page.
How can I get Ghostscript for my home PC?
See the Ghostscript homepage.
Yes, ports 55000-56999 should go through the firewall.
19/05/04
My home PC had a hard disk crash - where can I get a bootdisk?
You might want to look at freepctech.com or bootdisk.com.
Just download the utility, virus-scan it (we never know...) and follow the instructions - that should do it for you.
Alternatively, if you have a Win98SE CD, you can boot off it if your BIOS allows it.
Should staff and research students shut down their workstations overnight?
On the whole we would say no - there are a number of points to consider.
Regular reboots are unlikely to cause hardware failures on desktops systems. It's much more noticable in high grade workstation and server systems, where higher quality (and therefore more expensive) components are used, which tend to suffer from less 'in-service' failures. But bear in mind that a machine uses more power while booting up than while idle. Particularly when the powersaving features of the OS are enabled.
For Linux machines, the department uses idle CPU cycles of both staff and lab machines for computing tasks via a batch processing system called condor - so switching off your machine overnight may slow down some research computation that is being done at the time.
On all platforms, maintenance tasks run overnight, while the machines are not expected to be in interactive use - so that less staff time is taken up waiting for their machine to do something. Machines that are switched off overnight will run these tasks the next morning, while the user is present. This may take quite some time. Particularly if lots of machines run maintenance at the same time. The impact on the server of a few hundred machines all running maintenance jobs at 9:30am when everyone switches their machine on would be huge - and the jobs would then take a much longer time than normal. When they run overnight, we stagger the runs, so that the jobs do not all run concurrently.
Staff time is another important point. Booting a machine takes time, and we get regular complaints about the amount of time it takes to start a machine from cold. A staff member waiting for a machine to boot, and then for their applications to load, is not a productive staff member. When you think of financial gains to keeping the machines off overnight, you have to balance that against any extra staff needed to cope with the fact that a higher proportion of staff time is waiting for computers to maintain themselves, rather than working.
You are certainly welcome to switch your machine off overnight, if you are willing to wait for it to boot each morning. We would need to change a lot of the maintenance structure (and possibly buy in more high performance compute clusters) if this were to become widespread behaviour though.
Can anything be done about workstations locked for too long?
The College regulations are clear, screen locking for long periods of time is a denial of service. Screen locking for a few minutes e.g. to collect output from a printer, is fine. Longer periods of locking are not.
Please report individual cases of excessive screen locking (say: 1 hour or more) to us, and also discuss (politely) the problem when the screen locker returns. More generally, why not start a discussion with the student reps and try to develop a consensus that locking of screens for extended periods is simply unacceptable. If everybody is in agreement about this, it is much easier to then deal with.
How do we use the playstations in the lab?
You need to get a memory card from the help desk. Click here for a user manual.
The College does recycle its waste paper. Under a new scheme starting in November 2005 special bags for mixed paper waste should be found in the teaching labs on level 2 and by the printers on levels 3, 4 and 5. The bags are orange in colour and marked "confidential paper": this is just a legacy label and the bags are no longer intended for specifically confidential material. The bags will be collected by the cleaners along with the daily rubbish collection. They do know what to do with the recycling, but it is up to us to make sure that the paper gets put in the special bags.
There is also a small recycling bin on level 3 (by the lifts).
| © CSG / Oct 2007 |