FAQ's about Shell Access

Q. What can I do from my shell account ?

A. You can do all your surfing of the net from a UNIX platform.

Surf the net via text browser - issue the command "lynx" at the UNIX command prompt.
Read USENET with shell news reader - issue the command "tin" at the UNIX command prompt.
Read email - issue the command "pine" at the UNIX command prompt.

Q. How do I access my shell account ?

A. You need to use a terminal emulator.

If you are using a Macintosh, we suggest NCSA Telnet. If you are using Windows, we suggest CRT.
Both of these can downloaded from our Access FTP Site.

Once you have downloaded this software you need to telnet to shell.accesscom.com.

Q. What UNIX shells are available ?

A. Here are the supported UNIX shells on our system: 
     sh:   /bin/sh
     bash: /bin/bash
     csh:  /bin/csh
     tcsh: /usr/bin/tcsh
     ksh:  /usr/bin/ksh
     zsh:  /usr/bin/zsh

Q. How do I change the UNIX shell ?

A. To change the default UNIX shell, issue the command "chsh" at the UNIX command prompt. 

     shell [10] chsh
     Changing the login shell for username
     Enter the new value, or press return for the default

             Login Shell [/bin/bash]:
Replace /bin/bash with the UNIX shell you would like to use.

Q. What editors are available ?

A. Here are the supported editors on our system: 
     pico:   /bin/pico
     vi:     /usr/bin/vi
     emacs:  /usr/bin/emacs

Q. What mail readers are available ?

A. Here are the supported mail readers on our system: 
     pine:   /usr/bin/pine
     mail:   /usr/bin/mail
     elm:    /usr/bin/elm

Q. What news readers are available ?

A. Here are the supported news readers on our system: 
     tin:    /usr/bin/tin
     pine:   /usr/bin/pine
     trn:    /usr/bin/trn

Q. What do these commands in UNIX mean ?

A. We have a UNIX Utilities Page which you can search for a topic and get the manpage.

Q. How can I tell how much space I've already used for my WWW/FTP site ?

A. In order to check your disk space usage, you will have to log onto the user machine via telnet.

From the shell prompt.....
To check the disk space utilization in your www directory, type du -k -L -c www.
The output should look something like this... 
     shell [11] du -k -L -c www
     2       www/docs
     2       www/private/passw
     14      www/private
     6       www/gifs
     25      www
     25      total
     shell [11]
To check the disk space utilization in your ftp directory, type du -k -L -c ftp.
The output should look something like this... 
     shell [11] du -k -L -c ftp
     295     ftp
     295     total
     shell [11]
The above examples show a total usage of 25KB in the www directory and 295KB in the ftp directory. The directory structure shown for each of these directories will obviously differ for your directories.

Q. How do I change my password ?

A. You can change your password for your email and shell log in only.

To change your password, issue the command "passwd" at the UNIX command prompt.
You will be prompted to enter your old password then enter your new password twice. 
     shell [12] passwd
     Old Password:
     Enter the new password (minimum of 5 characters)
     Please use a combination of upper and lower case letters and numbers.
     New Password:
     Re-enter new password:

Q. What do I set the file/directory permissions to ?

A. To change the permissions of files/directoies, issue the command "chmod" at the UNIX command prompt followed by the three digit number and filename.

Here is a list of what numbers are assigned when setting permissions and the UNIX command. 
     Permission type:	Owner	Group	Everyone
     Readable		4	4	4
     Writeable		2	2	2
     Executable		1	1	1
     Total		7	7	7

     shell [12] chmod 755 filename
CGI files should be set to 755; which is 7 - RWE for Owner, 5 - RE for Group, 5 - RE Everyone
HTML files should be set to 644; which is 6 - RW for Owner, 4 - R for Group, 4 - R Everyone
If you create a cgi-bin directory to hold all your cgis, that directory will also need to be set to 755.

Q. How to access FTP/WWW directories using FTP ?

A. FTP areas can be accessed by the following ways:

Anonymous FTP - Any users inside or outside of our domain name can access theses directories if the permissions are set correctly.

To ftp, issue the command "ftp" at the UNIX command prompt followed by ftp server of the domain name.
You will be prompted to enter your username - type "anonymous".
You will be prompted to enter your password - type your email address (ie. username@accesscom.com). 
     shell [13] ftp ftp.accesscom.com
     Name (ftp.accesscom.com:username): anonymous
     Password:
Validated FTP - Requires username and password.

To ftp, issue the command "ftp" at the UNIX command prompt followed by ftp server of the domain name.
You will be prompted to enter your username - type your username.
You will be prompted to enter your password - type your password. 
     shell [13] ftp shell.accesscom.com
     Name (shell.accesscom.com:username): username
     Password:

Q. Can I change my personal information of my account ?

A. Yes, by issuing a chfn command.

To chfn, issue the command "chfn" at the UNIX command prompt. 
shell [14] chfn
Changing the user information for username
Enter the new value, or press return for the default
        Full Name [Your Full Name]:
        Room Number []:
        Work Phone []:
        Home Phone []:
Now when you issue the command "finger username", it will reflect the changes you made.

Q. How do I setup the vacation program ?

A. You will need to telnet to our UNIX server and do the following:

  1. type 'vacation -i'
  2. create/edit your '.forward' file and place the following in this file:

    \username, "|/usr/bin/vacation -a email@address.com username"

    (where 'username' = your username on AIC)
    (where 'email@address.com' = the email address people will be sending email to)

  3. create/edit your '.vacation.msg' file
    this is the file that you would place your away message

For more information about the vacation program type 'man vacation'.

Any email sent to your account now will cause the vacation program to automatically send a response to the sender with your message in the body. It will only send your message once regardless how many times that sender sends you an email. It keeps a database of all the senders.

To stop the vacation program you will need to remove the following files from your account:

  1. the '.forward' file
  2. type 'vacation -i' to keep the database