Sometimes, during labtest mode, you may require a student to move from one machine to another machine. This may be because the student is in the wrong area of the lab, or because there is some failure on the machine (eg. monitor). Labtest home directories are stored on the local machine, and not a network drive. Moving a student to another machine without some mechanism to copy student files from one machine to the other would mean starting with a brand new home directory, no files, and an unhappy student!

When a student moves from one machine to the another, and logs in, the system will check if the student has files from another machine stored in the labtest save (ltsave) cache. If they do, the student will see the following message: “Welcome! It seems you have worked on this labtest on another machine. You may ask one of the test supervisors for approval to transfer your work to this machine, or, hit Cancel to start again.”. At this point, if the student hits “Cancel”, then they are logged in with a new environment without restoring their files. If they want to restore their files from another machine, they need either your or your TAs approval!

To restore a students files from another machine, you will need to enter 3 pieces of information – Labtest Admin (userid), Password, and Restore Machine. Select the labtest admin from the dropdown list. The labtest admins are specified by you when you request labtest mode. The admins are also displayed in the pcmode schedule. It's important that you check the list of admins before every labtest because neither the lab monitor nor tech staff will be able to restore a students files. After selecting your name from the admin list, enter your system password. Next, under “Restore Machine”, a dropdown box lists all the machines where the student has been. Select a machine from which you wish to restore the students files, and click “OK”.

After the system has verified your identity, the next screen will give you a list of all the last (up to) 15 date and times of syncs made from this students account on the selected machine. For simplicity, the most recent sync will be first. Select the date and time fo which you wish to restore the students files, and click “OK”. The files will be restored. Hit “Cancel” to return back to the main menu to select a different machine.

Every (approximately) 15 minutes in labtest mode, a copy of the student files are stored in the ltsave cache. In addition, every time a student logs out, or a machine is rebooted, a sync is also performed. Please note that if a machine seems totally hung, you can try the key sequence CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE. This kills the X session which will immediately sync the students files to the ltsave cache as well. If you see the login screen again, you will know that the students files have been synced. On the other hand, if the machine is REALLY hung, and won't respond to any input, then the only way to sync the student files to the cache is to turn the machine off and back on. Once the machine boots up, the students files will be synced.

Students should always be made aware that they should be saving their files on a regular basis. If a machine crashes, and the student has not saved their files, obviously they won't be able to get them back.

Finally, keep in mind that if your labtest is using your own custom scripts that verify which machine a student is logging in to, and and will not allow a student to submit from more than one location, you may need to make manual adjustments to make this work.

If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail tech.