This document contains information regarding the setup of aspects of the labs which are specific to their use in a particular setting, in this case the fall 1996 edition of COS 111. General notes on the lab modules are located in the document ../notes.html, while information on each module can be found in the notes.html file of the module's directory.
You must work through each week's lab module AND read its TA notes BEFORE the weekly TA meeting. These modules should not be difficult for anyone TA'ing the class, but you can't learn them without doing them and you can't teach them (or improve them) without learning them.
If you have technical problems with any cluster computers (including the fileserver), report them ASAP to the tech mailing list, cs111-cluster@cs.princeton.edu. Even if you manage to fix a problem yourself, everyone will benefit from hearing about it.
If there are technical problems with the labs themselves, or with software which is not CIT-supported (e.g., Netscape 3.0, Morph, the setup script, etc.), contact the instructor, one of the grad ta's, or a head undergrad ta.
A relatively serious bug with the CAP/AUFS software used to mount the fileserver on the Mac has been found, which can result in the loss of data and general confusion. A document which is open in SimpleText, when saved directly to the fileserver using the "Save As..." command, tends not to get saved at all. SimpleText appears to be the only application with this problem. The workaround is for students to either a.) move documents to their fileserver directory, open them from there, and use the "Save" rather than the "Save As..." command; and/or b.) save documents to the desktop, and copy them to the fileserver from within the Finder after they are finished (this also has some speed benefit).
In order to give students (mostly) seamless access to our central repository of software & stuff (in the cs111@phoenix account) and their own Diskfarm account, we will be using the CAP/AUFS software (man cap or man aufs on phoenix) for Macintosh users, and SAMBA networking software on the Windows machines. This requires some setup on the UNIX side.
Because the fileserver is critical to the class, the UNIX-side setup needs to be done at the very beginning of the first lab. Since there is no guarantee that students know the first thing about UNIX commands BEFORE they enter the class, you will need to step them through it before the first lab. See the document Lab 1 Local TA notes for complete instructions on how to do this. This should be the only time you will have to lead the whole class at once, rather than just helping them along.
After the setup is done, the file server can be mounted. Instructions are given in the Mounting the File Server document, but are given here from an instructor's standpoint; also, students may have need of this information before they find that document on the web.
On a Macintosh, the fileserver is mounted by choosing the Appleshare file s erver "phoenix" in the Appletalk zone "PU_CIT_Services", and giving the username and password of the user's CIT UNIX account. This causes an icon representing part of their diskfarm home directory and part of the cs111 diskfarm directory to show up as two different volumes on the desktop; the latter is read-only. Both these icons can be used as regular Appleshare volumes, though they sometimes show some quirky behavior when you try to copy nested folder structures. Make sure that the volume is unmounted (thrown in the trash) when people leave.
The Windows95 networking has been simplified greatly since the beginning of the semester. It is still recommended that you reboot every time you go to log in. When you reboot, you will no longer get a "Log on to Microsoft networking" box; you will only get the one that asks you logging onto the Novell network, i.e. "Type you password to like in to the server". Enter e203_user for the username and leave the password blank. When the desktop comes up, click on Network Neighborhood and select "Map Network Drive" from the pop-up menu. Map the K: drive to \\rogue\username, being sure to uncheck to box which says "Save password in list" or somesuch. Then, be sure to shut down or reboot before leaving the lab. And that's it.