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Lately we've gotten quite a few questions on the helpline about logging in to the library's various servers. Often the person doesn't notice they didn't log in, but they call when something that should work doesn't; for example, they click on the "Excel" icon and get a message saying "the working directory is invalid". The question is, how is one supposed to know from that message that the problem is related to logging in?
There's no quick answer to this, so let me start at the beginning.
There are some 500 computers and terminals in the UA Library system, and there are almost that many ways to categorize them: by brand name, specs, whose desk it's on, what it's used for, etc. One useful but tricky way to group them is into two groups, "clients" and "servers". The servers provide services to the clients, just like a good waitperson at a restaurant. Two more ways this analogy sort of holds is, the server would like "payment" (this is what "logging in" does); and, the roles are arbitrary, in that a given machine could be a client in one context and a server in another, because it relates to how they act, not how they intrinsically are. And following this train of thought, if it were a potluck, the roles would be equal, and we would call that a "peer-to-peer" connection, for which the current buzzword is a "Workgroup". There are generally no such setups in the Library at the present but it could happen.
But 99% of the time your desktop PC or terminal is consistently a client to at least one server, and this is where logging in gets more complicated, because the method depends on a lot of variables: your local computer software and hardware, which server you want, and what you want on it. Also, LIST has often partially automated the process, which is nice when you're in a hurry in the morning, but has its downside when you're trying to understand things as they go wrong. (And sooner or later they will).
So why do we mess with all these servers? Why not have just one and make life simple? Well, one reason is that each one can do things the others can't; another is that as we add new capabilities, there are usually limitations on implementing those features on older hardware and software, so we leave the existing system in place. Do this several times and we have a lot of different servers working in fairly complex relationships to each other.
A brief history of Time (server time)
In very rough chronological order as best as I can remember:
Now if you look at this list, all but 3 of these are still in use here; and although similar types of server share the same method of logging in, I believe I've made my case that there's no one simple method that I could just post, have you print it out and tape it under the screen, and be done with it. But I can make some generalizations:
Unix-based servers (Sabio, Bird, Miles, Dizzy, Duke, Omniaccess): because unix is a foreign language to our mostly MS-Dos-based PC's, generally you'll be running some program such as qvtnet or Cutcp which provides a "telnet" function. When you connect to a machine using "telnet" the server will respond with a line prompting you for your username, so all you have to type is that username and then a password.
By way of contrast, the Novell-based servers (Library, Satch, and CCP) place you in a directory called "login", but require that you run a program called "login", when then will prompt you for a username and password. Or you can type "login johndoe" and then only be asked for the password. Either way, you have to put that "login" command in to get connected.
Now you may be thinking that your PC doesn't fit this description, and that's because we've preconfigured most staff PC's to automatically run this program when they are turned on, and they have your name already entered, so you only have to do the password; then we make it prompt you afterwards with "press any key to continue" so you can read the screen and see if it says "Good morning ... you have logged into file server Library ..." etc. before continuing into Windows. But if you make a mistake and hurry on, windows will still run and you won't notice at first that you didn't log in. (One confusing thing is that a machine not logged in is still "attached" to the server, but that only means it's able to log in, not that it is logged in.) Note: this paragraph does not apply to the newer Windows NT machines.
A typical staff windows PC now will have Windows, Netscape, Qvtnet, and Wordperfect all loaded on the local hard drive, so they will run whether or not the machine is logged in. However, all of the MS Office programs, i.e. Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Access, as well as Pegasus mail, run from the Novell server. If you click on them and get "the working directory is invalid" chances are you are not logged in. If you want to check, open up "file manager" in the main program group of Windows, and click once on the icon for the "F" drive. If you see only a directory that is named "login" then you are not logged in, only attached. Think of that directory as the parking lot for the restaurant in the above analogy. When you do log in, you'll see different directories under the "F" drive.
You may wonder why we don't just put MS Office on the local hard drives and solve the problem that way; there are 2 reasons: primarily, it takes up about 100meg of disk space, and so on at least 75 older staff PC's won't fit on their local drive; and secondarily, we originally bought a certain number of licences for simultaneous use, i.e. 50 licenses would mean we could install it on as many computers as we wanted, as long as only 50 had it running at any one time. We can in theory monitor compliance with that license, but only if they run from a common spot on the server. Also keep in mind you'd want to be logged into the server anyway to share files and printers.
What to do if you're not logged in? You don't have to reboot; you can exit windows, type "f:" to get to the login drive (a few PC's use "u:" instead), and if your prompt then says
F:\login>
you can type
F:\login> login johndoe
enter the password, and if you then get that "Good morning ... you have logged into ... " message, you can then get back to windows by typing "win".
Note: Do not use the "MS-dos prompt" icon in Windows for this; all logging in and out must be done outside of Windows. (does not apply to WindowsNT machines). Why? Because Windows 3.1 is a Dos program, and Dos essentially keeps track of what files are on what drives; changing the drives in Windows confuses it. All computers do poorly when confused, but Dos computers do really poorly ;-) I think I'll quit now and pick up next week with logging in to Windows NT machines.
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