UP ONE LEVEL: ENEL 339 Home Page

ENCM 339 Fall 2001
Remote Access to Computers and Files

This page is maintained by Steve Norman
Last modified: Fri Sep 28 16:24:53 MDT 2001

Contents

Introduction

This page has been set up to deal with some common questions I get about working on ENCM 339 assignments via remote access to the Electrical and Computer Engineering Linux systems.

There are two main ways in which students may work on lab assignments on computers outside the labs in the ICT Building:

  1. Students can log in over the Internet to one of the department's Linux systems.
  2. Students can copy files between the department's undergraduate computer system and their computers at home.
The remaining sections provide some information about working in these two modes.

I apologize for the brief and very introductory nature of the sections below. Right now, unfortunately, I don't have the many hours it would take to research the various available telnet and FTP programs and provide detailed information about how to use them to help you do ENCM 339 assignments at home. If I find some time later in the term, I may be able to add some more information to this page.

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Telnet and SSH connections

telnet is a communications protocol that allows a user of a computer on the Internet to log in to other computers on the Internet. You can use telnet to connect to a computer that is reserved for access by undergraduate students in the department. The name of this computer is: 
  remote-a.enel.ucalgary.ca

On most Microsoft Windows systems that are connected to the Internet, you can start a telnet session with our telnet server by typing 

  telnet remote-a.enel.ucalgary.ca
into the Windows "Command Prompt" application. After logging in with your username and password, you will find yourself in an environment similar to the terminal windows you use in the Linux labs in the ICT Building. To end the connection, the command would use is 
  logout

By the way, if you're using Microsoft Windows at home, you should consider using a better telnet client than the one that comes with Windows. One such telnet client is CRT, which you can find out about at www.vandyke.com. (There are lots of good telnet clients out there; CRT is one that I know works well.)

ssh is a communications protocol that allows connections similar to telnet connections, except that with ssh data is encrypted so that your commands and program output are kept secret. (The risk of using telnet for ENCM 339 assignments is pretty low--it's unlikely that any of the companies helping your computer talk to remote-a would have any use for the data going between the computers.) remote-a is supposed to support ssh connections, but I haven't tested that yet.

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Problems with Emacs

I know some students have had problems using Emacs when logged into remote-a via telnet. Within a few days, I hope to be able to suggest some solutions in this space.

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FTP connections

FTP is a protocol used for transferring files between two computers on the Internet. You can access files on the department Linux system by making an FTP connection to 
  remote-a.enel.ucalgary.ca
and logging in with your username and password.

I'll try and list some basic FTP commands here when I get the time to do it. For now, your best bet is to find a classmate who already knows how to use FTP and ask for a brief tutorial session.

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Using a Web browser to download files for labs

Soon you will be able to use a Web browser to download files for lab exercises to your home computer. When that service is ready, it will be announced on the course home page.

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