Frequently Asked Questions Contents: 1. How do I sign up for a Computer Science account? 2. How do I move files from my CS account to my home computer, or vice versa? 3. How can I print hard copies of my code from my CS account? 4. If I submit my program, than realize I made a mistake, and I submit my program again, will you only see the second program? 5. Who should I see if I forget my CS password, or can't log into my existing CS account? 6. Why can't I FTP into quake.cs.fsu.edu, or shell.cs.fsu.edu? 7. What is a "core dump", and why is there now a file called "core" in my directory? 8. What files should I submit when submitting homework assignments? Should I submit the object code and executable files? Questions and Answers: ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. How do I sign up for a CS account? Answer: To sign up for a CS class account, you must be registered for the class. To generate your account, ssh to the server "shell.cs.fsu.edu". You will be given a series of prompts for login and passwords. At each of these (currently there are three such prompts), type: newacct This will activate the automated account generator. Follow the instructions on the screen. You will be prompted for your name and social security number. Make sure that you write down or remember the login that it assigns you, and the password that it asks you to choose. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. How do I move files from my CS account to my home computer, or vice versa? Answer: There are several ways to accomplish this. Here are a few: a) SFTP -- (recommended). The CS system is no longer running a regular FTP server, but the shell.cs.fsu.edu login machine is accepting SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) connections. The Windows SSH client (available from www.ssh.com) has a built-in file transfer feature (SFTP). While connected to shell.cs.fsu.edu using the SSH program, simply select "New File Transfer" from the Window menu. The SFTP part of the program will open, and you will be able to transfer files between your local computer and the remote account. b) E-mail -- You can e-mail files to your CS account from some other account. Your CS e-mail address will be your username, followed by "@cs.fsu.edu". Example: smith@cs.fsu.edu c) CS Login -- You can also put your files on a floppy disk and bring them to campus. A few of the ACNS labs (including MCH 315) have an icon on the desktop titled "CS Login". If you run the CS Login program, you will get a dialog box where you can enter your CS account login and password. Once you do this, your account filespace will be mounted to the Windows NT machine as the Z: drive (which you can access from "My Computer" or "Windows Explorer"). Then just copy files back and forth between the disk (A: drive) and your CS filespace (Z: drive). d) Copy and Paste -- You can always copy and paste text back and forth, but you should be cautious about this. The primary problem is that different word processors and text editors have different line lengths, and copying from one to another could reuslt in some automatic line wrap-arounds. If a C++ comment line wraps around, you'll get a compiler error because the second line won't have the comment marker // on it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. How can I print hard copies of my code from my CS account? Answer: While the SSH client for windows does have a print option in the File menu, it will probably only print what is visible on screen at the time. To print a copy of an entire code file, your best bet is to transfer it to a local machine (via SFTP or one of the other methods mentioned above) and print it from a local text editor or word processor. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. If I submit my program, than realize I made a mistake, and I submit my program again, will you only see the second program? Answer: With the current web submission page, you can resubmit whenever you like, up to the cutoff day. If you resubmit a revised version of a previously submitted file (with the same filename), the new file will overwrite the old one. This way, the version that will get graded, once the submission form closes, will be the latest and greatest version that you sent. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Who should I see if I forget my CS password, or can't log into my existing CS account? Answer: If you have problems logging in to your account, or you have forgotten your password, then you will probably need to see the Computer Science Systems Group. You can reach them at the e-mail address: help@cs.fsu.edu If you have forgotten a password, they can reset your account for you. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Why can't I FTP into shell.cs.fsu.edu using a normal FTP program, like WS-FTP? Answer: As noted in the answer to an earlier question above, the CS department is no longer running regular FTP servers, only Secure FTP. The easiest way to transfer files is to use the file transfer feature built into the SSH client program. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. What is a "core dump", and why is there now a file called "core" in my directory? Answer: A "core dump" is an action that the system takes after certain run-time errors. Specifically, the system takes the contents of a program's memory and writes it to a file called "core". Don't try to read this file with a text editor -- it is not text, and it will look like gibberish. This file actually contains binary information about what was in the program's memory before it crashed. This file can be examined with a special debugger program. This, however, is a more advanced programming and debugging tool, and it requires knowledge of what a program's memory looks like. Such a tool is beyond the scope of this course. If you get a core dump, just delete the "core" file -- it won't be of much use to you. This is, however, the indication of a fatal run-time error. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. What files should I submit when submitting homework assignments? Should I submit the object code and executable files? Answer: No, you should NOT submit any object code files, executable files, or any other files created by the compiler during compilation. ONLY submit source code files. These will be the plain text files (i.e. the code you write) whose filenames should end is ".h" (for header files) and ".cpp" (for other code files). Note: The web submission page ONLY handles plain ascii text files. Any binaries you attempt to send will not go through correctly, so do not send executables, Word documents, zip archives, etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------