ARGO: Getting Started

• Getting an Account on Argo
• Connecting to Argo
• The VPN - why you should use it
• Connecting the ACCC/VPN
• Getting to argo without a VPN
• Logging in
• Your Shell
• Storage

Accounts will be given only to faculty members and to graduate students. To obtain an account, send e-mail to systems@uic.edu with Argo Account Request on the subject line and include the following information about the account holder:

• name,
• netid,
• office phone number, and
• a brief summary of how you will use argo.

Professors: Please do not let a student (graduate students doing work for you or any student for whom you are an advisor) use your account; doing so is a violation of ACCC policy. Graduate students may request their own account.

After your account is created, you will receive notification via email. Your netid is your login id and your common password is your argo password. If you want to change your common password, then go to the ACCC Common Password Facility to do so.

An ssh client program (software) with or without a VPN (another software package) is the only way to access argo (telnet is not supported). If you use the UIC/ACCC-supplied VPN, you may ssh directly to argo from on or off campus locations using any ssh client.

Below is a screenshot of the PuTTY SSH GUI client configured to access argo (from on or off campus):

PuTTY is not configured to work with argo as is after you download and install it; you must make a few changes:

• Enter argo.cc.uic.edu in the Host Name (or IP address field)
• Click on the radio button SSH, doing so will automatically put the value 22 into Port Field

• Type the word argo in the Saved Sessions box, and
• Click on the Save box

• Highlight the argo session name,
• Click on the Load box, and
• Click on the Open box, resulting in a connection to the argo system

Before using SSH, consider installing and using the ACCC/VPN. VPN software, the one supplied by ACCC or some other one, will allow you to access any ACCC resource, like argo, as if you were on campus. The ACCC/VPN software is extremely easy both to install and to use. Installation onto either your desktop or your laptop can be completed in under a minute and it's already configured for you. Or, you may install some other VPN software if you are so inclined. The downside of using some other VPN is that you have to configure it, not an easy task.

The ACCC/VPN (along with additional documentation) is available for download from the following URL:

http://gateway.uic.edu

Before you are allowed to get it, you will be prompted for both your netid and your common password. There are versions for Windows, for Linux, and for the MAC. Detailed instructions regarding how to install it and how to use it are also available there.

If you elect not to use a VPN, you may still login to argo. If you are on the UIC campus, you may ssh directly to the system using an SSH GUI client. However, if you are off campus, then logging in requires an extra step:

• Step one: you SSH to tigger using the GUI version of an SSH client software program. Below is a screenshot of the PuTTY SSH GUI configured to access tigger:
  
  
  
  

  Faculty and staff login to tigger and students (for now) login to tigger.

• Step two: from one of those two machines, you SSH to argo, using the following command line command (obviously, you replace the netid mhoma with your own netid):
  
  
  
  

There are a number of SSH client software programs. Two of the more popular are PuTTY and SecureCRT. If you use your favorite search engine and enter the words SSH, PuTTY and download, you will find the appropriate website from which to get it. SecureCRT may be downloaded from the University of Illinois Software Webstore:

http://webstore.illinois.edu/

When you initiate an SSH session to argo, you will be promted to enter your netid and/or your common password. Whether you are asked to enter your netid is dependent on the format of the SSH command used. In the screenshot below, the netid was included in the SSH command (from tigger) and, as a result, argo does not need to prompt you for it:

• ssh argo
• ssh netid@argo

When you are promted to enter your password, do so and strike the enter key. If what you entered matches your common password in the ACCC database, you will see the following information scroll on the screen:

• the last successful login to your account,
• the login message (also referred to as MOTD, Message Of The Day), and
• some information about how the system was created (disregard it; it has no relevance for you).

BUT, please take note of the information in the MOTD. System downtime, node availability, and much more is displayed there.

By default, your login shell is bash.

If you want a different login shell (csh, for example), send email to systems@uic.edu requesting the change; the standard UNIX change shell command, chsh, will not make the alteration. Login information including the name of your shell is not kept on argo; it's saved somewhere else, a location that you can't access.

There are two areas where you create and store files:

• your home directory, and
• your scratch directory

The PC concept of a folder is the same as a directory in UNIX/Linux. It is a location in which you may save files as well as create additional directories, called subdirectories; files may be created in the subdirectories as well. Each night the files in your home space are backed up to:

• a separate, secondary disk storage area, and
• tape backup, via ADSM.

Home Directory

While argo management rigorously enforces quotas on your home space, we ask clients not to use excessive space just because they can. The home storage area is oversubscribed: if every client used his entire quota, the maximum, the system would run out of space. However, most clients do not need anywhere near the maximum. To see what your are currently using, enter the following command:

du -sh

• the original 10GB file,
• a 10GB copy in a backup disk system, and
• up to seven copies (70GB) in the ADSM system).

To get a listing of your files, in the current directory, sorted in order of the one using the most space to the one using the least space, enter:

ls -al --sort=size | more

Use the rm filename command to delete files. Wildcarding is permitted on the rm command. For example, assume you have 100 files all beginning with the letters "test" (test1, test2, test3, and so on). To delete them all:

rm -f test*

To find and delete files older (last modified) than a certain date, use the find command:

find . -mtime +xxxx -type f | xargs rm

• Delete files that are seven days or older
  
  find . -mtime +7 -type f | xargs rm


• Delete files that are a year or older
  
  find . -mtime +365 -type f | xargs rm

find . -mtime +7 -type f -name "data1*" | xargs rm

See the find man page for other selection criteria. The above commands may also be used in your scratch location as well.

Home space should not be used to store files that are personal in nature (movie files, song files, and so on). Doing so will result in the suspension of your account.

Your scratch directory

/scratch/netid

There is an environmental variable, called $SCRATCH , containing your location. Whereas your $HOME environmental variable identifies your home directory, the $SCRATCH variable points to your scratch directory:

$ whoami
jsmith
$ pwd
/home/homes50/jsmith
$ echo $SCRATCH
/scratch/jsmith
$ cd $SCRATCH
$ pwd
/scratch/jsmith

It is equally important that you not retain unnecessary and/or old files in your scratch directory. All of the previous find and delete commands will work there.