Comp 230 Accessing the CS Lab Machines

Kalamazoo College Computer Science Program Winter 2009

THE CS LAB MACHINES IN O/U 308

The following machines are available for you to use for your programming assignments in Comp 230:

    LINUX: tron.cs.kzoo.edu, joust.cs.kzoo.edu, pong.cs.kzoo.edu

If you don't have any experience using a Unix command line interface, you'll probably want to spend some time learning the basics. The EE department at the University of Surrey has a very good on-line tutorial that you may want to use as starting point. More specific local information can be found here.

Remote Shell Connections to the Lab Machines

It is possible to remotely connect to the machines in O/U 308 using SSH:

Under OS X -- Open a terminal and type:
```
ssh frogger.cs.kzoo.edu 
```
Under Windows -- You can download PuTTY a free SSH client.

Moving Files to and from Lab Machines

Under OS X -- you can use sftp from the terminal, or download Fugu a gui SFTP client.
Under Windows -- You can download WinSCP a free graphical SFTP client.

Using VNC

VNC is a software package that makes it possible to use a graphical user interface over a network connection. It is possible log into our Linux machines using VNC from anywhere in the world. VNC client software is available for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. How you connect will depend on which operating system you use.

Windows

Before you can log in using VNC, you need to ssh to one of the Linux machines and set your VNC password. This password must be exactly the same as your Linux password. At the prompt, type vncpasswd and follow the instructions.
Once you've set your password, copy the folder KALAMAZOO_VNC from knet->Dragon->cls_compsci to your computer (or to your M: drive if you will be working on K lab computers). Open that folder and double click on the file named Double_Click_ME. Follow the instructions to log into the machine of your choice.
IMPORTANT: after you exit your VNC session, you need to type vnc-exit into the black terminal window, and press enter. If you don't do this, you will remain logged into the computer.

OS X

Chicken of the VNC.
Connect to a Linux machine via ssh and run the command:
vncserver -geometry 1280x1024
(The geometry flag is optional. You can use to set up a session that matches the screen size of the computer you are using.)

You should see a message that looks something like the following:

 
 New 'pong.cs.kzoo.edu:2 (nsprague)' desktop is pong.cs.kzoo.edu:2
 Starting applications specified in /home/nsprague/.vnc/xstartup
 Log file is /home/nsprague/.vnc/pong.cs.kzoo.edu:2.log

Now log in -again- using ssh, only this time time use the -L flag as follows...
```
 ssh pong.cs.kzoo.edu -L 5902:127.0.0.1:5902
```
Note that the "2" in 5902 corresponds to the "2" in the pong.cs.kzoo.edu:2 from the message above. You might be assigned a different number.
Start Chicken of the VNC and connect to 127.0.0.1, session number 2.
IMPORTANT: after you exit your VNC session, you need to type vnc-exit on the Linux machine. If you don't do this, you will remain logged into the computer.

This page is maintained by Nathan Sprague nsprague{at}kzoo{dot}edu.
Official Disclaimer