CSCI 160 Lab exercise 1, tips and tools

CSCI 160 Lab exercise 1: tips and tools

In the second lab session for lab 1, we want to cover several topics (in addition to continued help with developing a solution to part 2 of the lab.

Jumping to other CSCI servers

Having everyone in CSCI 160 log into csci.viu.ca and work there causes a significant bottleneck: everyone is sharing the same machine, so gets reduced performance.

(The server's full name is otter.csci.viu.ca, generally referred to as otter.)

We have 18 other servers you can move to from otter, named pup1 through pup18, e.g. pup1.csci.viu.ca, pup2.csci.viu.ca, etc.

From otter you can jump to a pup using ssh, e.g.
ssh pup14

I strongly recommend that each time you ssh to csci.viu.ca you immediately ssh to a random choice of one of the pups. This spreads our students across 18 machines instead of 1, and will give everyone better response times/performance.

Getting lab feedback

I'll post a unique directory for each student that contains their feedback on lab exercises, and will regularly update those as the term progresses. (It currently contains feedback on your submission of the labex0 exercise and possible bonus mark.)

To set up initial access to this, run the following two commands (based on which lab section you were originally enrolled in or waitlisted in):

Monday lab

cd
git clone csci:csci160-01/$USER/feedback csci160/feedback

Friday lab

cd
git clone csci:csci160-02/$USER/feedback csci160/feedback

Any time during the term that you want to check for updated feedback use the following command sequence:

cd
cd csci160/feedback
git pull

The "git pull" checks for updates and copies them to your directory, where they will be stored in files named after the lab exercise, e.g. labex0, labex1, labex2, etc.

You can look at these files with any text editor to see the feedback I've given on the lab.

X2Go

So far we have simply used typed linux commands within a powershell window.

We can actually use another program, X2Go, on the Windows machines that allows us to open a graphical connection to the csci linux servers.

We'll give a condensed "how to" below, but a more detailed discussion can be found at csci.viu.ca/~kabirh/courses/csci331/projects/RemoteAccessX2Go.pdf

Steps (in the Windows lab)

Configuring an x2go session

left click the Windows icon and find the X2Go Client program in the programs list, start the program
click on session and new session
type a session name, e.g. pup7 if you plan on connecting to pup7
use the full name for the host, e.g. pup7.csci.viu.ca
enter you linux userid in the login box
leave 22 as the ssh port
check "use proxy server for ssh connection"
leave ssh as the proxy type
check "same login as on x2go server"
check "same password as on x2go server"
enter csci.viu.ca as the proxy server host
leave port 22 as the proxy server port
choose MATE as the session type from the drop down list (don't check x2gkdrive)
under the connection tab, select 4k-png for compression
click ok to save the session configuration
Running an x2go session
click on the session you just created
enter your linux password and click ok
answer yes if asked do you trust the host
after a lengthy pause, a graphical interface to the linux server will open, showing your home directory

you can use the menus at the top of the new window to open (MATE) terminal windows to enter linux commands, to open specific applications, to change your settings, etc.

This new window looks like the desktop you'll see if you go to our linux lab, room 102 in building 315

Feel free to browse and experiment, perhaps try out the gedit editor as an alternative to pico, e.g.

cd
cd csci160
cd labex0
gedit labex0.cpp

Ending the x2go session

From the System menu in the x2go window, select the logout option