Edoras.sdsu.edu is a CentOS 7 server at San Diego State University.  The mission of EDORAS is to enhance instructional support at SDSU by providing Faculty and Students academic computing resources for classwork and research.  If you need off campus access to other SDSU systems, please install the campus VPN software.

Obsolete SSH programs cannot connect to Edoras, such as Putty before release 0.64 and the 2003 SSH Secure Shell program.  A list of current SSH programs is here.

Faculty, and Student Organizations that need web hosting may use RohanCP web hosting.

EDORAS uses denyhosts to help thwart off campus SSH password attacks.  If an SSH connection fails without prompting for a password, you may have been temporarily blocked for excessive login failures.  Contact us with your IP address and account name, and we will determine if this is the cause, and white list you if necessary.  Eduroam wireless and campus IPs are already white listed (130.191 and 146.244)

VPNFilter malware has infected a million routers, keep your home router's firmware up to date! If you're unable to update the firmware to prevent VPNFilter from becoming installed (your manufacturer's website will have details) consider buying a new one.

ACCOUNTS

EDORAS provides Linux shell accounts with access to various software applications, Apache web server, compilers, and databases.  Faculty may obtain EDORAS accounts for themselves and their students.  EDORAS has replaced ROHAN for instructional support accounts.

Class Accounts are requested by faculty and are normally available only for the semester issued. They have the form of aascnnnn, ie: cssc0123. The account sponsor may issue new passwords for a sponsored account and can access the files in a sponsored account, using the sg and usrpass commands. Class accounts expire on May 30 for the spring semester, December 30 for the fall semester, and August 30 for the summer semester.

Faculty may request class accounts by emailing rohancp@sdsu.edu with the following:

• Name of the class and section (i.e. CS101 section 2)
• Number of class accounts needed
• Size if more than 200MB needed per account
• Department name:
• Faculty campus phone:
• EDORAS faculty account username:

Faculty Accounts are requested by professors to manage their class accounts, or for their own use.  Faculty Accounts expire when the professor leaves SDSU unless requested otherwise by emeritus faculty. The default disk quota is 1GB.

Faculty-Sponsored Accounts are accounts requested by teaching faculty for students who are working on special projects. Professors may use their EDORAS faculty account to issue a new password for a sponsored account, and can access the files in a sponsored account. Faculty-sponsored accounts are expired by default each year at the end of the Fall semester.  Faculty may request an expiration date of over a year.  The default disk quota is 1GB.

Request Faculty or Faculty-Sponsored accounts by emailing rohancp@sdsu.edu with the following:

• Your name:
• Department Name:
• Campus phone number: 
• Account name preferred (up to 9 letters): 
• If requesting a Sponsored account, provide your Edoras account name:

SOFTWARE DOWNLOADS

Students may download ArcGIS, Comodo, EndNote, Matlab, SAS, SPSS and X-Win32, from EDORAS with valid SDSUid credentials.
Faculty may also download Comodo, Matlab and X-Win32.

ArcGIS  EndNote   Matlab   MobaXterm   SAS   SPSS   X-Win32

Software available to EDORAS accounts

• Apache web server with PHP 7.2 providing edoras.sdsu.edu/~username webpages.
• Compilers: APL, C, C++, Cobol, Fortran, Java, Lisp, Pascal, Perl, PHP, Prolog, Python, Scala, Scheme
• Databases: Mariadb, Oracle sqlplus client
• Debuggers: ddd, gdb, splint
• Editors: emacs, xemacs, nano, nedit, vi, vim
• Internet: chrome, curl, firefox, lynx, ssh, sftp, wget
• Shells: bash, ksh, tcsh, zsh
• Revision Control: cvs, git, rcs, sccs, svn

Faculty and staff may request software (Adobe, EndNote, SAS, SPSS, Zoom, etc.) from the ITUS Software Distribution Center, using SDSUid credentials.

Remote access to campus servers and computers is provided by the campus VPN.  Please visit edoras.sdsu.edu/vpn for more info.

 

Notes:

• Faculty can use the sg and usrpass commands to manage and set new passwords for accounts they provide to students.
• SCP users can suppress the EDORAS login banner by creating the file ~/.ssh/config containing: LogLevel ERROR on the Linux system initiating SCP file transfers.
• SCP/SFTP connections use your EDORAS user name:  WinSCP connection example.  .
• SSH connections to EDORAS using X-Win32 use the Linux XTERM command:  /usr/bin/xterm -ls -sb 500 
  If the text is too small, edit the connection settings and try an 18 point font:  /usr/bin/xterm -ls -fa 'Monospace' -fs 18 -sb 500
• Office 365 is licensed for use on up to 5 computers.  Log into portal.office.com with your SDSUid credentials, and click on  to download.
  Microsoft Access, Project and Visio are not included in the Office 365 download.  Office Quick Start provides printable guides with useful tips, shortcuts, and screenshots.

WEBPAGE CREATION

Your homepage URL for your EDORAS account will be: http://edoras.sdsu.edu/~username

Home Page Steps

1. Obtain an EDORAS account 
2. Create your HTML and/or Graphic Files
3. Allow the webserver to see your home directory by logging in with SSH and typing:  chmod og+x ~
   Do not make your directories public or group write (777 or 771) as that allows others to change your files!
4. Create the public_html folder in your account if it doesn't exist by typing:  mkdir public_html
   Allow the webserver to use your public_html folder by typing:  chmod og+x public_html
5. Transfer your Files via SFTP to your public_html folder in your home directory.  Your files will need to be public read, new directories will need to be public execute.
6. Refresh your browser to see changes (F5 or click the reload icon)

The following resources will help you make a webpage. You can use a variety of programs to create your webpage. You must save your webpage as a file called index.html so that it is your default page when you type in your url: http://edoras.sdsu.edu/~username

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1. Create Your Webpage

If you edit the actual HTML code in your webpage, we recommended NotePad for the PC and TextWangler for the Mac (Note: Text Edit for Mac can create problems with quotation marks which often breaks HTML tags).

HTML & Webpage Creation Resources

• W3 Schools - At W3Schools you will find all the Web-building tutorials you need, from basic HTML and XHTML to advanced XML, SQL, Database, Multimedia and WAP.
• Youtube - you can find all sorts of "how-to" videos. For example, you can search for "how to make a website."
• idocs - Guide to HTML which allows you to search for HTML tags
• HTMLGOODIES - Beginners Guide to HTML
• HTML Color Chooser - Convert RGB to HEX and vice versa
• Look for errors in /var/log/httpd/error.log and /var/log/php-fpm/www-error.log
• SDSU Accessibility Resources to help your webpages meet web accessibility requirements (Section 508).

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2. Transferring files to EDORAS

Transfer files to and from your computer using SFTP or SCP.   Windows users may use the free program WinSCP (WinSCP usage video).  Mac users may use Fetch, or Filezilla.  FTP file transfers are not supported.  FTP is inherently a security risk, as usernames and passwords are sent in plain text.

1. Open your file transfer program (for example, WinSCP or Fetch)
2. Log into the server: Hostname is edoras.sdsu.edu and you use your EDORAS username and password to authenticate.  WinSCP connection example.
3. Transfer your index.html file and any graphics or files (for example, your resume in PDF format) that will go on your page into your "public_html" directory.
4. SCP users can suppress the EDORAS login banner by creating the file ~/.ssh/config containing: LogLevel ERROR on the Linux system initiating SCP file transfers.

• WinSCP download link:  winscp.net/eng/download.php
• Fetch download link:  fetchsoftworks.com/fetch/free
• Filezilla download link:  www.fosshub.com/FileZilla.html

Connection attempts failing with an error message similar to "can not agree on a client to server cipher" are due to using an  old, obsolete program version.  Upgrading to the current version should resolve the cipher warning and connect.

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3. Webpage Guidelines

The following guidelines merit consideration when creating your webpage on EDORAS:

• The material and subject matter in your home page reflects upon San Diego State University and you.
• Your home page can and will be accessed by people from all over the world!
• Some material may be protected by copyright laws and thus requires permission to use. Be sure you have that permission.
• The content of your home page can not be used for business or commercial gain.
• Avoid offensive language and graphics.
• Information regarding SDSU campus web policy, style, content, and templates can be found in the Website Guidelines.

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4. Viewing PHP Errors on Web Pages

• Students can create the file .user.ini in the public_html directory, with the following lines to display PHP errors in the web browser while viewing their pages. 

display_startup_errors=on
display_errors=on
html_errors=on

• Remember to disable PHP error reporting after fixing your pages.  Hackers can leverage reported PHP errors to hack poorly written PHP code!

EMAIL

SDSUid provides free student email with an @sdsu.edu address and webmail, as well as access to eduroam wireless access and Microsoft Office 365 Education.  Office Quick Start Guides provides printable guides containing useful tips, shortcuts, and screenshots.  Login at portal.office.com to access your SDSU Student Email via Office 365.

If you can not find your SDSUid welcome email, you can activate your SDSUid account here using your WebPortal credentials.

EDORAS email should be forwarded to your @sdsu.edu email account.  This is done by creating a file named .forward in the account's home directory.  Example:

[cssc0000@edoras ~]$ echo "bogus@sdsu.edu" > .forward

Now mail sent to cssc0000@edoras.sdsu.edu will be forwarded to bogus@sdsu.edu.  Only type the command in blue.  The black text is the EDORAS bash shell prompt.

FILE RESTORES

Using the goback command:

EDORAS keeps a small number of rolling snapshots of the /home filesystem.  The goback command allows rapid recovery of changed or lost files.

A snapshot is a read-only copy of a file system at a given point in time.   The /home file system snapshots can be accessed under the /snap directory.   EDORAS performs /home snapshots every 12 hours, at noon and midnight.  These snapshots are retained up to 24 hours.  

The goback command invokes a shell and changes to the current directory within the snapshot.  The shell prompt is the snapshot name followed by the last two elements of the directory.

Recovering the file fibb.c to my account:

[nash@edoras ~]$ goback
[hourly_12] .../faculty/nash> ls -l fibb.c
-rw-r--r-- 1 nash other 545 Feb  3  2011 fibb.c
[hourly_12] .../faculty/nash> cp fibb.c ~
[hourly_12] .../faculty/nash> exit
[nash@edoras ~]$

 

File Recovery Requests:

EDORAS uses Veeam to backup home directories daily. Backups are run once a day, starting at 9PM. Backups normally finish by midnight. A deleted file can only be restored if it existed before 9PM on the day requested.  Veeam backups are retained for up to 6 months.  If find you need to recover files that no longer are found in the goback snapshots, email rohancp@sdsu.edu with the following:

• The full pathname of the file or directory to be restored, example:  /home/cs/carroll/cssc0100/myfile
• The date the file or directory is to be restored from.