Technical Overview

	About ECS Linux
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Our Linux installation (sometimes called ECS Linux) is currently Ubuntu Feisty (7.04). Students log in using the same Active Directory credentials they use to log into Windows PCs. The system will then mount the student home directory and display an informational popup about quota and usage of disk resources. The home directory is the same directory that is mounted on Windows PCs and the informational popup is also the same on both platforms.

The home directories are mounted securely from our EMC Celerra fileserver using Kerberized-NFS. Anything stored in the public_html subdirectory of a user's home directory and made world readable is visible on the users webpage. Access to files stored in the home directories is also available through sftp, ftp, and CIFS. Home directories are backed up to on-disk snapshots multiple times during the day, and to tape nightly. Tape retention of data is currently limited to 12 months for full (monthly) dumps and 6 months for incremental (nightly) dumps.

The Linux machines are members of an MIT Kerberos realm, ENGR.UCONN.EDU, and have service principles generated automatically in the ENGR.UCONN.EDU realm during the installation process. The machines are configured to allow users to authenticate off of the realm controlled by the Microsoft Active Directory, AD.ENGR.UCONN.EDU. We have created a cross-realm trust between AD.ENGR.UCONN.EDU and ENGR.UCONN.EDU. Authentication is fully kerberized, allowing knowledgeable users to employ single sign-on techniques for starting jobs on many PCs simultaneously, or simply to avoid retyping their passwords.

Ubuntu (based on Debian) inherits a rich set of nearly 20,000 free software packages to choose from. Software is installed by request from anyone within SoE. If you would like to make a request, please use this form. Currently we are providing 1178 free software packages chosen to be useful to Computer Science undergraduates, including, gcc, g++, Sun JDK 1.5, Eclipse, and gnu screen. Some of the commercial software packages installed on our machines are Matlab, Cadence, and (in the ME department) Fluent and Gambit. There are many more commercial and free applications installed on individual ECS Linux machines.

Remote access is available to the machines via OpenSSH and X applications can be tunnelled through OpenSSH. VNC is also available for running an entire GUI desktop remotely. Valid authentication with SoE username and password or Kerberos credentials are required for any type of access. The machines are patched regularly and locked down with iptables-based firewall rules.