Welcome to Georgia Tech!

I. Student Computer Accounts

The Office of Information Technology, in conjunction with the Department of Academic Affairs, has made available to you, and to every student, a permanent student computer account. To activate your account, go to the Customer Support Center with picture identification.

In general, you can use your account for course related activities, communicating through electronic mail, finding information regarding Institute facilities, accessing the internet, and a host of other things. Before you begin using your account, please read the Institute’s policy for appropriate computer and network usage. This policy is located at the following URL on the web:

http://www.itis.gatech.edu/policy/usage/

Your Georgia Tech account provides you with access to all computers associated with the PRISM system, which is a distributed workstation environment. In plain English, this means you have access to Acme. Acme is made up of three computers: acmex, acmey, and acmez. Throughout this document, “Prism” and “Acme” are used interchangeably. While they are technically not the same things, in this context, they can be treated as synonyms.

How the Account Works

Your account number is seven characters long and is in the form of either: gte###x or gt####x. In addition to the logging into Acme, this account will allow you to login to the OIT computer clusters on campus.

Passwords

The first time you log onto the Acme system, you will need to choose a password. We recommend that you change this password every 30 days, but the system will not force you to change it any sooner than every 90 days. Passwords must meet the following criteria.

Contain 2 the following character classes within the 1st 8 characters

o Letters (A,B,C,D,E,F,a,b,c,d,e,f…)

o Numbers (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9)

o Symbols (!@#$%^&*())

Cannot be one of your four most recently used passwords
AVOID using name, phone number, license numbers, social security number, pet’s names, complete words, or anything easily recognizable.

To change your password, login to Acme, type “passwd” (no quotes), press [Enter], and follow the on-screen prompts. You may also change your password via the web. Using a 128bit SSL web browser, choose “Change Prism Password” from the following URL:

http://www.prism.gatech.edu/

If you forget your password, go to the Customer Support Center with a picture ID, and have it reset. For more information on the Customer Support Center, see the Getting Help section of this document. For more information on choosing a password, visit the following URL:

http://www.gatech.edu/itis/doc/passwd.html

II. Connecting to the Campus Network

If you live in a dormitory, you can connect your computer directly to the campus network. For more information or to register your computer for use with the Resnet Network, go to http://www.gatech.edu/dormip

Email

Eudora, Mutt, and Pine are the supported applications for reading your email. Pine and Mutt are text based mail readers that run on Acme. Eudora is a graphical interface mail program that runs on your personal computer. Eudora logs into acme and checks your mail.

You may also check your e-mail from off of the campus. There are two ways to do this. The first way is to use a text-based dialer such as HyperTerminal or Zterm. With either one of these programs, you can connect to the Acme system and use Pine or Mutt to check your mail. For more information on connecting using this method, please see Appendix A: Dial-in Configuration.

To use Eudora from off-campus, you will need to subscribe to CampusCWIX. CampusCWIX is the only Internet Service Provider (ISP) that has access to campus-restricted systems. For example, the prism system is restricted to on-campus access only. For this reason, any other ISP, other than CampusCWIX, will not have access to your mailbox. For more information on subscribing to CampusCWIX, please call 888-285-1803.

Newsgroups

Pine, ‘rn’ (Read News), ‘nn’ (‘New News’), and Netscape News are the newsreaders available to you. Pine, rn, and nn are text based mail readers that run on Acme. Netscape News is a graphical interface mail program that runs on your personal computer. For more information on the command ‘nn’, type “man nn” (no quotes) from the Acme prompt. To use Netscape News set the news server to news.gatech.edu.

How to Login to a General Computing Lab

· Go to an unused machine.

· The login is your Prism ID and password

How to Connect to Acme

Windows 95/98/NT (Lab, Resnet, or CampusCWIX)

· Click Start, then click Run

· Type "telnet acme.gatech.edu" (no quotes)
(an SSH client may be used in substitution of telnet)

Macintosh (Lab)

· Login

· The launcher will start. Click on the Internet Tab.

· Click the telnet client (Better Telnet) to start it.

· Once open, click File.

· Choose “open connection”

· Fill in the following information and press Connect.

· Host Name: "acme.gatech.edu" (no quotes)

Macintosh (Resnet or CampusCWIX)

· Open the telnet application (NSCA Telnet is included in the SCO package)

· Select “Open connection”, from the File menu

· Session Name: "acme.gatech.edu" (no quotes)

· Click OK.

Sun Lab Machine

· Login

· Open a Terminal Window

· Type “telnet acme” (no quotes), Press Enter
(SSH may be substituted for telnet)

How to check your mail from a cluster

Due to technical limitations, OIT cannot provide Eudora in the public computing clusters. See Appendix B of this document for instruction for setting up Eudora on a machine connected via Resnet or CampusCWIX.

Windows NT

· Login

· Telnet and log into Acme

· Type "pine" or “mutt” (no quotes)

· Press Enter

Macintosh Cluster

· Login

· Telnet and log into Acme

· Type "pine" or “mutt” (no quotes)

· Press Enter

Sun Lab Machine

· Login

· Open a Terminal Window

· Type "pine" or “mutt” (no quotes)

How to Access the World Wide Web

Netscape is the campus standard for web browsing and is installed in all the OIT clusters.

Windows 95/98/NT (Lab or Resnet)

· Login

· Double click the Netscape (or Internet Explorer) icon

Macintosh (Lab)

· Login

· The launcher will start. Click on the Internet Tab.

· Click Netscape to start the application

Macintosh (Resnet)

· Open Netscape included with SCO applications

Sun Lab Machine

· Login

· Open a Terminal Window

· Check to see if you are a registered user of GTWreck programs

· At the command prompt, type: "ls -la | grep wreckrc" (no quotes)

· Press RETURN

· If nothing is returned, you are not a registered user. Follow the instructions posted in the Unix cluster on becoming a GTWreck user.

· Once you are a GTWreck user, type "~gtwreck/bin/netscape" (no quotes) and press return. Netscape should open up on the screen shortly.

How to Access FTP

Windows 95/98/NT (Lab, Resnet, or CampusCWIX)

· Click Start

· Click Run

· Type "ftp sitename" (no quotes)

· Click OK

· Use the FTP commands listed on the next page to transfer files.

Macintosh (Resnet)

· Open the ftp application included in SCO package (Fetch)

· Fill in the appropriate Hostname and Login information.

· Click OK

Macintosh (Lab)

· Login

· The launcher will start. Click on the Internet Tab.

· Click Fetch to start the application.

· Fill in the appropriate Hostname and Login information.

· Click OK.

· After connection to the remote machine, a window will open showing the files and directories available. Double clicking on a filename will retrieve the file, while double clicking on a directory will open that subdirectory for viewing.

· When finished, select ‘Quit’ from the ‘FILE’ menu.

Sun Lab Machine

· Login

· Open a Terminal Window

· Type "ftp <remotehostname>" (no quotes) where <remotehostname> is the name of the machine you wish to connect to

· Login with username and password when prompted.

· Use the FTP commands listed below to transfer files.

A Brief Overview of FTP commands.

There are many commands that can be used in an FTP session. These are a few of the basic commands needed to retrieve or put files to a remote host.