Support of the Teaching Computing Environment

Here we'll document maintenance information for the cs-teaching "region"; the environment that uses the common student file, mail, and WWW service. Information about the overall architecture is maintained separately for our clients to read, at http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/cscf/decisions/teaching/. Information about how to use it resides at http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/cscf/student/.

The Labs

Almost all of the "labs" are in the Math & Computer building. The list is maintained at http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/cscf/teaching/labs.

Lab Maintenance

The ISG tutors check the health of the labs on a regular basis. They're expected to mail a report to teaching-lab-report@cs at least once a week. Using @student.cs and @cscf.cs also work.

The report is expected to cover at least the general functional state, e.g. working monitors, mice, systems, chairs.

Tutors will need to door codes for the restricted access labs; presumably once a term when they change. As of 2008/07 we're to mail them to Leila Chinaei (lchinaei@cs). Later, it's likely that they'll be sent to Karen Anderson (kaanders@cs).

No agreement about the one DC lab (DC2569) has been made.

Lab Closures

Most of the public labs are closed between terms after exams. The goal is to reduce the chance of damage or theft. We close as many as is practical. We usually leave one Mac and one thin-client lab open, except over Christmas when we expect nobody to be around. We inform any who might be interested, e.g. ISG and Undergraduate Operations.

Sometime before a term starts, ISG has been known to test the software expected for the coming term, so it's important they know which rooms are locked and alarmed, if only to avoid someone with a key entering a locked room and not being able to disable the alarm.

Nexus

Consult the Nexus Support page for CSCF, Nexus-related information.

Missing U: drive If the U: drive mapping is missing

There are a couple of things you can try to resolve this problem. (Either one of these usually fixes this type of problem.)

1. Run the command script Q:\cs\etc\winlogon.cmd (You can use Windows Explorer to navigate to the file and double-click on it.) Then your U: drive (student.cs disk space) should appear.

If the above option does not fix the problem then try option two below.

2. Open a command prompt (DOS window). Start Menu -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt Then type the following two commands: net use u: /del & net use u: \\smb-nexus.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca\org\cs\u.truncated\guest

The first command removes the drive mapping for u: if it exists. If the drive was not mapped you receive the following message. The network connection could not be found.

More help is available by typing NET HELPMSG 2250. That message is normal if the drive was not mapped.

The second command reconnects the u: drive mapping. If you receive an error with this command, then contact the consultants to try to fix any problems.

Course Accounts

• SSH Key Access
• Creating a course account in WatIam