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CycleServers

Cycle servers are available to all students with a major account, or any students who need an account for an upper-level Computer Science course. There are 3 servers, each running 4 hyper-threaded Xenon processors clocked at 3.2gHz with a little over 3gB of RAM. The servers run Linux kernel 2.6.23.15 Red Hat. These servers are located at the following addresses:

• cycle1.csug.rochester.edu
• cycle2.csug.rochester.edu
• cycle3.csug.rochester.edu

Which server should I connect to?

In general, it doesn't matter which server you're on. If you have a project that requires a lot of resources, or delicate timing, you may want to use Cycle2 or Cycle3 as most people seem to connect to Cycle1. To see who is logged onto a machine, while you are logged into a server type who to see who is logged on, ps ua to see all processes running, or top to see total resource usage (Type q to quit top)

Connecting to Cycle

To connect to the Cycle servers, you'll need an SSH client. Unix-based systems such as Macs and Linux computers can do this from the command line, using the "ssh" command. Windows machines will need to download additional software

Connecting using Mac/Linux

Find your terminal window, open it, and type

Your username will not neccessarily be your UR NetID; it is the login given to you by Marty when you set up your account. No matter what you type here, when you press Enter you will be given a prompt: [username]@cycle[1,2,3].csug.rochester.edu password: Please note that when you type your password, nothing will occur on screen until you press Enter. No asterisks or dots will appear, no cursor will move. This is intentional. You can still use the backspace key to delete a character you have entered.

If either your username or password are wrong, you will be given the same error: Access denied. If your username is wrong, you will need to hit Ctrl-C to close your SSH client and try again.

Connecting using Windows

Windows machines in the labs on campus also tend to have SSH clients installed. Go to "Start->All Programs->Internet", and either OpenSSH or PuTTY will serve your needs.

PuTTY can be downloaded from the PuTTY page, as "PuTTY.exe".

Configuring PuTTY

PuTTY's configuration screen can be intimidating, but only a few items are important. Host name should be the cycle address, port number is 22. You can save this as a 'session' below to avoid retyping every time. If you're using PuTTY at home, there will be a few other items you may wish to change.

Logging into Cycle

When you configure PuTTY correctly, the first time you connect you will be given a warning box asking if you wish to trust this server. Click "yes". You will see a prompt saying login as: - type in your username hereYour username will not neccessarily be your UR NetID; it is the login given to you by Marty when you set up your account. No matter what you type here, when you press Enter you will be given [username]@cycle[1,2,3].csug.rochester.edu password: prompt. Please note that when you type your password, nothing will occur on screen until you press Enter. No asterisks or dots will appear, no cursor will move. This is intentional. You can still use the backspace key to delete a character you have entered.

If either your username or password are wrong, you will be given the same error: Access denied. If your username is wrong, you will need to hit to close PuTTY and try again.

Putty Window Options

PuTTY has a few helpful configuration options. Most of the ones we'll be fiddling with will be in the "Window" subtree in the left pane. The "Translation" tab is the most important one to change; everything else is an issue of taste.

• Window: You can change how many lines PuTTY stores in its buffer here. Increasing the value lets you scroll back further in your history. You can also change the default size of the window here.
• Appearance: You can change the text size here. It's a good idea to stay with a fixed-width font such as Courier New.
• Translation: Change "Recieved data assumed to be" dropdown to UTF-8. This prevents gcc from spitting out garbage characters.
• Selection: You can change how you copy and paste text into PuTTY here.
• Colors: You can get rid of the black background here, or change light blue into dark blue so it shows up better.

Be sure to save changes to your profile after editing options by going to Session, giving your profile a name and hitting save!

Quick loading PuTTY profile

If you have a profile saved in PuTTY, you can create a shortcut to auto-load that profile. Create a shortcut in windows to PuTTY.exe, right click on it and go into Properties. In the Shortcut tab, add the following onto 'Target' after putty.exe: