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--- services:firstyearacct [2019/09/26 15:37] – jas
+++ services:firstyearacct [2022/09/09 14:03] (current) – removed jas
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-====== First Year Accounts ======
-Students in first year do not get an EECS account.  Instead, they login to workstations in certain labs as user "user" with no password.  A home directory on each local machine is configured for the user (/home/user).  The home directory is cleaned between login sessions of all user modified files.  The changed files are archived, and accessible to faculty and lab technicians for a limited time.
-The user account does not have access to printing or e-mail.  It does have access to all the software available to regular EECS accounts because these machines mount the standard /eecs hierarchy from our file server.  However, most software required by first year courses has been locally cached on these machines in order to ensure the highest performance.
-====== Submit ======
-Students with EECS accounts can use either command line submit, or web submit.  Students logged in as user "user" can only use web submit, and must authenticate using their Passport York account.
-====== Home Directory ======
-The home directory for user "user" is local to each machine (/home/user).  It is a mirror of /eecs/local/pkg/user, available from all EECS tech supported systems.  Changes made to the master copy of the home directory will be automatically synced to the local workstations.
-====== Labtest ======
-First year courses use labtest.  Labtest works with the "user" account but there are a few exceptions to be aware of:
-  * Changed files are **not** synced to /eecs/ltsave like in regular labtest mode.
-  * The "unsubmit" feature of labtest is unavailable.
-  * If users switch machines during labtest, you or your TAs will be unable to transfer their files between machines.
-  * Any power failure during labtest will result in all the home directories being reset after the power failure.  Faculty and lab technicians can get a copy of these files, but it will be very difficult to retrieve them back to individual machines in a timely fashion.
-====== Backups ======
-Each time the user logs out, files that the user has changed that are greater than 1 byte and less than or equal to 25 MB are archived into /local/user-backup into a directory MMDDYYYY-HHMMSS.  That is, two digit month, two digit day, four digit year, then two digit hour, two digit minute, and two digit seconds.   Faculty and lab technicians can access these archives.
-If you are in group "faculty", and logged into a workstation that supports "user" login, you can access these backups by visiting the /local/user-backup directory.  Lab technicians can also visit this directory, but must use the "bu labtech" command first.  Monitors, grad students, and TAs cannot directly access this directory.
-To list the archives, simply do an "ls".  The last directory in the list will be the latest backup.  Up to 40 backups will be kept from the last 40 logins.  After that, the oldest backups will be automatically removed.
-====== Crash Recovery ======
-From time to time, the GUI seems to crash.  The mouse cursor will move, but nothing can be clicked.  A process has been setup whereby you can tell the system to preserve the user home directory, and restart the display manager, automatically logging the user back in. Faculty, lab technicians, monitors, and grad students can carry out this procedure.  It is expected that it will completely restore the student environment in most cases.  Follow these steps:
-  - Hit Ctrl-ALT-F2 to switch to a text console.  If this step does not work, you will have to reboot the machine and follow the procedure below under "When Crash Recovery Fails".  Rebooting the machine will clear the home directory.
-  - Login with your EECS account.
-  - Type the command: restoreuser
-  - The system will restart the display manager.  It will not delete the users files.  It will automatically log back in as user "user".  It will also automatically log you out.  The user should be able to continue with their work.
-====== When Crash Recovery Fails ======
-When the basic procedure above fails, and a system reboot is necessary, Faculty, lab technicians, monitors, and grad students can carry out a slightly different procedure to allow the student access to their files:
-  - Reboot the system.
-  - Log back in as user "user".  **The user won't see any of their previous files.**
-  - Open a terminal window by right-clicking on the desktop, and choosing "Open Terminal".
-  - Login to your personal EECS account:<code>
-% su gayan
-Password: *******
-</code>
-  - Ask the system to list backups available:<code>
-% restoreuser list
-</code>
-  - Backups are sorted in the following format: MMDDYYYY-HHMMSS.  The last directory will be the latest backup.
-  - Restore a backup into the user home directory using the "restoreuser" command:<code>
-% restoreuser 09252019-144406
-</code>
-  - The directory will get restored to /home/user/restore/09252019-144406
-  - Exit your account:<code>
-% exit
-</code>
-The user can continue working.  Note that the users files will all be in the "restore" directory.  For example, if the user was working on a file "www/test.html", the file will now be located in /home/user/restore/09252019-144406/www/test.html.
-You can restore multiple directories if necessary with the "restoreuser" command.  However, you can only restore one directory per command.
-====== Accessing User Backups Remotely ======
-Faculty can SSH to lab workstations, and access the local archives in /local/user-backup on the lab workstations.  This will not work when the workstation is in labtest mode.