If you don’t see an answer to your question, please contact aixhelp@bc.edu. There are also some longer tutorials to be found at Command Sheets for Unix.

What are the campus research and classroom nodes called?

The faculty and research host is called ecsa200.bc.edu, and the class account host is called goanna.bc.edu. They run the AIX operating system, which is a version of Unix.

How do I get an account on ecsa200/goanna?

Please send an email to aixhelp@bc.edu.

Can I use email from ecsa200/goanna/echidna?

You can use email on ecsa200 and goanna, but if at all possible, you should use your BC IMAP account and remote client instead. The research and classroom nodes can send mail, but are not configured to receive mail, so if you do use mail on these systems, please see the next question as well. The mail programs are called Pine, mailx and mail. The Pine program is the best choice because it is easy to learn as well as powerful and allows several user options. The mailx and mail programs can sometimes usefully be used for non-interactive mail.

How do I change my “reply-to” address in Pine?

Start Pine, at the opening menu, type ‘s’ to go into setup mode; type ‘c’ to go into config mode; use the arrow key to scroll down one line to “user-domain”; type ‘c’ to enter change mode; then type bc.edu and return; then type ‘e’ to exit setup, and ‘y’ to confirm. You are then back at the main menu.

Can I access my IMAP account in Pine?

Yes, run the Pine command at least once, to ensure that the configuration file has been created. Then edit the file called .pinerc in your home directory (note the leading period in the file name). Find the line that starts with “incoming-folders=” (it’s at about line 220), and append the text {mail1.bc.edu}inbox (if mail1 is not your mail host, then substitute the appropriate one). And save the file. When you next run Pine and go into your folder list, one of your options will be “Incoming folders”; select it and hit return, then select “{mail1.bc.edu}inbox” and hit return. You will be prompted for username and password, enter your email username and password, and after a short delay, you will have access to your IMAP folder.

Why can't I access ecsa200/goanna from off-campus?

The Boston College network is protected by a “firewall” and inbound telnet and ftp are only allowed to selected computers, NOT including ecsa200 and goanna. If you have a need to access these machines from off-campus, you can request an account on the gateway host echidna.bc.edu. You will then connect first to echidna, and from there, to your destination host.

Why do I get a garbled screen when I use an editor?

The full screen editors need to know how to navigate to arbitrary points on your screen, and hence need to know what type of terminal or terminal emulator you are using. If they have incorrect information, it will look bad. In most cases the terminal type “vt100” will work well. At the Unix prompt, enter export TERM=vt100 and <return>, then try your editor again.

I entered a command and now I don't get a response or a prompt, why?

Some commands expect more input from the keyboard, but don’t necessarily provide prompts to the user. You can type <Ctrl>-D to send an end of file, which will normally end the program, or if that does not work, type <Ctrl>-C which will abort the program.

A message appeared on the screen that contained "Stopped (SIGSTP)" and now my program does not respond, what happened?

You probably inadvertently typed <Ctrl>-Z, which is the Unix signal to put a program in “background”. Type fg to bring the program into the foreground, and continue.

Can I recall prior commands with keystrokes?

There are a few ways to do this. The most straightforward one is to use the r command. r –1 will run the most recent command again; r –2 will run the second most recent, and so on. r cmd will run the most recent command of that name (substitute something appropriate for cmd). You can type history, to see a list of your recent commands.

The other ways are to use command editor mode. There are two of these, one uses the vi editor to navigate command history, the other uses the emacs editor. You can use whichever one you are most comfortable with. Type  set –o vi, or set –o emacs (or put this into your login profile, below). In vi mode, hit the <Escape> key to enter editing mode, then use the k and j keys to go up and down the history list, and use other keys to manipulate the command strings. In emacs mode just use <Ctrl>-P and <Ctrl>-N to go up and down the history list, and the other command sequences to manipulate the command strings. Unfortunately, neither mode supports the arrow keys like VMS.

How do I create command shortcuts?

The alias command creates command aliases. Type alias shortstring=”longcommandstring”, substituting your own commands for shortstring and longcommandstring. The quotes around longcommandstring are necessary it the string contains spaces. You can put the alias commands into your login profile (see the next question).

How do I modify my login profile?

Your login profile is contained in the file called .profile in your home directory (note the leading period in the file name). You can edit this file with your favorite editor, but do take some care; inappropriate entries in this file can cause you trouble.