The Big Picture

Figure 1: Campus Networks (Unix)

Computing at Rice is composed of many networks which are independent of each other. As you can see from figure 1, there are two big campus-wide networks (owlnet and ruf ) and many smaller departmental networks such as math, caam and stat. They are independent in the sense that you frequently only have an account on one or maybe two or three networks, and that you cannot access software on other networks unless you have an account there. There are many public labs that belong to different networks. You need to know which network they belong to and have appropriate accounts to use them. Graduate students in the statistics department usually have accounts on owlnet, ruf and stat networks. What makes things more complicated is that there are usually separate windows/samba accounts for each network.

Most of the servers run a Unix based OS, so being able to use Unix commands is imperative. Computers on the network come in several types: terminals (no brain, only connects to servers), servers (Unix), and workstations (some PC, some Mac, some Linux, some Unix).

If you use a Linux/Unix workstation, all of your files will be stored on the network automatically and backed up by the system administrator regularly. Thus in Unix, you can log in at any computer in your network, and your files will be there, and most of the time your display settings will be the same. Similarly, all programs on the network are `shared', in a similar sort of way- you can log in to any Unix machine, and the same programs will be available.

However, Unix-based workstations are in general considerably more expensive than PCs, and often less-powerful. Because of this, the department has deployed more windows desktops than workstations. If you prefer a Unix system, you will have to inform Diane (diane@stat.rice.edu) in advance.

If you are using a windows PC, your files will generally be accessible only to your computer. To store your files to the servers, you will have to use samba (like the `u' drive in the PCs in Symonds Lab II, which is mapped to your owlnet home directory), ftp, secure-FTP or even emails. If you want to use software on the Unix servers, you need programs called X-win or/and SSH . Basically, SSH allows you to log in to Unix servers and run text based commands or software while X-win let you run X-based (graphics user interface) applications. Slava has a nice article about the usage of ssh/x-win at the how-to section of helpdesk website.