CSCF provides the hardware, software, room design, and operational support needed for instruction within the School of Computer Science.
Rooms in this environment are designed to be suitable for computing instruction and study. Some (for example the Real-Time lab) contain special equipment for the study of a particular subject.
CSCF will try to accommodate requests for computing requirements, based on availability of resources. Although resources operated by CSCF are available for use by the Faculty, priority will be given to courses offered by the School of Computer Science. Instructors should inform CSCF of specific computing needs well in advance.
The machines collectively called linux.student.cs all run a common version of the Ubuntu Linux operating system. Each machine is considered to be a general use server, for general purpose resource intensive computation. An older, deprecated Solaris 8 environment is available using the hosts cpu-solaris.student.cs.
When using a terminal room, via X11 terminals, to access the UNIX environment, the system uses the round robin DNS name to choose differing machines to login to, effectively spreading the load among all servers. If you wish to access the environment remotely, consult the Supported Hosts list, and choose a machine in the Standard Environment Hosts section.
Once logged in the teaching environment, the hostselect command can also be used to assist in selecting the appropriate machine for certain courses that require specific machines or software. Use hostselect +help to list the possibilities.
Windows Terminal Server is Microsoft Windows that can be accessed remotely by terminals that support the RDP protocol. Some of the computer labs are for terminals that support the necessary RDP protocol.
CSCF operates Macintosh labs located in MC2062, MC2063, MC3003, MC3004, MC3005 and MC3027. These labs provide course-specific access to a standard Macintosh environment, and can be used by students in all courses.
Each CS course taught on CSCF machines may have an associated course account for administrative purposes at the request of the course instructor. Administrative purposes would consist of web page storage and development, developing assignments and course notes and obtaining a .classlist for the course. Normally the course account will have the same abbreviated name as the course, e.g. "cs234". Course accounts are created at the request of the instructors by filling out the Request for Course Resources form or speaking with their Teaching Point of Contact for the course.
This account does not have a usable password, but can be accessed by professors and TAs via its .rhosts file, e.g.:
rlogin linux.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca -l course_account
To find an alternative student machine specific to the course environment, see the Student Computing Hosts Web page
For more information on how to initiate printing tasks see student printing environment.
Course accounts are allocated $10/term on "ps_mfcf" for administrative printing. This can include printing the master copy of the following:
Multiple copies should be made through some other resources such as printing through Graphic Services.
The course account should also be used to store the course web pages and their development. Each instructor has access to the information from term to term. An example URL when stored in the course account would read http://www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs130/. We are trying to keep consistency with all course web pages to alleviate confusion of students trying to find the web page for their particular course which may be stored in the instructor's home directory on a research machine. In this case, a redirect from the course account would be useful for the students.
If you are posting documentation (e.g. .pdf or .ps files) that you expect students to print, PLEASE make sure that they print successfully to the MFCF self-serve printers (ljp_3016) BEFORE you post them to your web pages. Contact the MFCF Operator at x33559 for information on the self-serve printers.
The instructor or TA may request to (accounts@cs) to have groups created for their course for students to store shared files. These will be created in the form "cs456_12". Please supply uwuserid and student id number.
Under the account's home directory, a file called ".classlist" will be created and updated by the accounts software. The file contains a list of students currently registered in the course, including their names, id numbers, and userids. Please copy this list before editing, so updates will work throughout the term on the original file.
A program has been written to help generate an "sc" spreadsheet file from CSCF's formatted ".classlist" file, so that if someone DOES want to use a UNIX spreadsheet calculator "sc" program, they DO NOT need to type in all the information by hand... they can just make use of the .classlist file that CSCF provides on course accounts.
use the command line:
nawk -f ~cs492/bin/classlist.awk .classlist > classlist.sc
(the awk file actually contains more notes and info)
Sending e-mail to all the students enrolled in a course
A unix command (clem - short for Class List E-Mail) is available that enables you to send an email message to everyone in a given class. Instructions are available by typing "clem help" on any undergraduate unix machine. Clem expects the .classlist file for your course to be in your working directory, and for security reasons the .classlist file has no public permissions, so to actually send a message you will need to first rlogin in to the home directory of your course account.
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1
Tel: 519-888-4567 x33293
Fax: 519-885-1208
Contact | Feedback: webmaster@cscf.cs.uwaterloo.ca | David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science | Faculty of Mathematics
Last modified: Monday, 13-Dec-2010 16:21:55 EST
