CERN Accelerating science

A Grace Period of an Extra Month for DXCERN

  Judy Richards and Dietrich Wiegandt CN/DCI

You may be wondering why you have not seen any more news on the shutdown of DXCERN at the end of 1996. Unfortunately, the necessary preparations could not proceed as planned due to higher priority work to resolve performance problems on the MAILSERVer. We have therefore postponed the shutdown of this service by one month, till

This will then mark the end of centrally-supported Ultrix services apart from a limited facility to provide cross-compiler services for accelerator controls until the end of 1997. For more information about what you need to do, read this article, or simply type on DXCERN:

more /usr/local/doc/dxcern_end

Do not hesitate to contact one of us if you have questions or problems with your migration from DXCERN to a new `home'.

Judy Richards, Dietrich Wiegandt

Moving from DXCERN to another UNIX service

Users who have not already obtained an account on one of the alternative public UNIX services should do so as soon as possible.

• Users with no specific needs should get an account on the IBM/AIX-based CERNSP service.
• Users who have collaborators working on HP systems (LEP experiments, some parts of the accelerator divisions) can get an account on HPPLUS.
• Users who have a need for specific Digital-based facilities can get an account on DXPLUS, but note that this service is running Digital UNIX/OSF, not Ultrix, and it is not binary-compatible with DXCERN.

DXCERN files

It is your responsibility to move any files you want to keep to another system. Don't leave it until the last minute, start now, since it will be painful and time-consuming to get back any files once the DXCERN service has stopped. Full dumps of the filebase will be made but recovering files will involve manual tape handling with delays of the order of days. Sorry - as you know we are very short of manpower.

Electronic mail

You should also take care of your electronic mail setup. If your "preferred mail address" (PEM or EMDIR address) still points to DXCERN, update it to point to the service where you want to receive your mail from now on, e.g. mail.cern.ch. EMDIR addresses that still point to DXCERN and for which you have a forwarding address in $HOME/.forward on DXCERN will be changed to that forward address early in the New Year (unless we can easily recognize that the address is obviously incorrect, e.g. forwarding to CERNVM).

E-mail sent to DXCERN

Like mail addressed to CERNVM, mail sent to DXCERN will continue to be delivered, for some time, with forwarding to your new mail address if it is registered in EMDIR.

NFS Users

Historically, quite a few systems have been NFS-mounting files from DXCERN either to get access to software packages or to users' home directories. System managers should check whether this applies to their system otherwise you could have a very bad surprise when DXCERN is switched off at the beginning of February. Remember that applications software is available on ASIS, either via AFS or NFS. See http://wwwinfo.cern.ch/dci/asis/primer.html for more information.

Judy Richards, Dietrich Wiegandt

How to transfer all your files from DXCERN to your new home

Here is a recipe for transferring all your files from DXCERN to the computer you are moving to. Please don't forget that there will be no binary compatibility between DXCERN and your new home, so you will have to recompile your private programs that you compiled on DXCERN on the computer you are moving to.

The following lines list the commands to execute with comments after the `#' sign (both of which you should not type in).

On DXCERN:

Dietrich Wiegandt

How to Migrate your Mail from DXCERN to the MAILSERVer

You will normally access your mail from one of the public UNIX services, CERNSP, HPPLUS or DXPLUS, from a Work Group server, or from your private workstation.

1. Make sure you have a MAILSERVer account. Note that many people have had one created for them as part of a mass registration procedure.

   Use xwho or the Web to check whether you already have an account on a public UNIX service and the MAILSERVer. If you do, you will see something like

   Service Logon_id uuu$gg uid gid Last logon <------->-<------->-<----->-<--->-<--->-<-------> AFS JUDY ***$CP 663 1020 01-mar-96 ==> CERNSP JUDY JAR$CP 663 1020 01-mar-96 CERNVM JUDY JAR$CP 01-mar-96 ==> HPPLUS JUDY JAR$CP 663 1020 16-feb-96 ====> MAILSERV JUDY ***$CP 663 1020 Not known

   • If you don't have an account at all, contact your group administrator to get one. If you have no special requirements, get an account on CERNSP. You will automatically get a MAILSERVer account at the same time.

   • If you already have an account on a UNIX service, but no MAILSERV account, contact your group administrator to get one.

   • If you have a private workstation from which you want to read your mail, get your group administrator to add this to the list of hosts from which you are authorized to access the MAILSERVer.
   Your mailbox will be on the MAILSERVer and your preferred e-mail address will be

             userid@mail.cern.ch 
   

2. If your account is not brand new, before starting to handle your mail on UNIX, enter the command

             mailmigrate
   

3. You are recommended to use either pine or netscape to handle your mail. elm is not available on the new UNIX services.

   pine has a keyboard interface (although the mouse can be used for basic `cut and paste') and can be used from any type of terminal, even over slow lines. It is self documenting - look at the bottom lines of the screen for guidance. You can also obtain "Introduction to pine" at http://wwwinfo.cern.ch/umtf/1995/38/ for a short introduction.

   netscape offers a full GUI X-based interface, and consequently needs an appropriate terminal and a good network connection.

   You can try both of them out (but one at a time please) by sending mail to yourself at

             userid@mail.cern.ch
   

   Moving between use of pine and netscape is possible, but requires extra knowledge and care, so you are advised not to do this initially (see the Netscape FAQ at the URL http://wwwinfo.cern.ch/uco/netscape).

4. Netscape users will need to know their MAILSERVer password. Users of pine will need to know it if they try to access their mailbox from a machine outside the Computer Centre that has not been registered as described in point 1.

   Unfortunately, your MAILSERVer password is physically separate from your AFS password. If you need to to know it, ask the UCO (tel. 74952) to reset it, then telnet mail.cern.ch and change it using the command passwd.

5. Set up a forward from your `old' mail address to your new MAILSERV account. Use the command

             mailfwd userid@mail.cern.ch 

   Check it is OK by issuing

             mailfwd -query 

6. Use emdir to set your mail address to

             userid@mail.cern.ch 

   do not set it to Firstname.Surname@cern.ch - this would be a circular definition !!!!

   N.B. The address is updated only overnight, hence you need to wait until the next day before using it.

7. Mail can then be sent to you using an address of the form (called "generic" address):

             Firstname.Surname@cern.ch 

   It will be routed to userid@mail.cern.ch

   Check the generic address by sending a mail to yourself before advertising it!

   N.B. The generic address Firstname.Surname@cern.ch is the address users should advertise to their friends.

DXCERN mail after the end of DXCERN

When DXCERN is switched off, for a transition period we will forward mail addressed to

          userid@dxcern.cern.ch

To profit from this, it is essential that your emdir address is updated to your new e-mail address.

Checking your emdir address

The easiest way is to use the Web. From the CERN Home Page, take the link to `Directories (phone & email, services & people)', look for yourself and check that `Preferred e-mail(PEM)' points to the userid and computer where you want your mail delivered.

Updating your emdir address

Look at the article ``How to Inspect and Update your Information in the Computer Centre Database (CCDB)'' in this CNL.

What to put as your Preferred Electronic Mail Address

You must give your address, as a combination of the userid and computer system where you want your mail to be delivered, not your generic address.

Examples of correct addresses are

    judy@mail.cern.ch                 for a UNIX user of the MAILSERVer
    david@ppe.msm.cern.ch             for a PC user of Microsoft mail
    Christiane.Ball@macmail2.cern.ch  for a Macintosh Quickmail user
    tami@vxcern.cern.ch               for a VMS user

          Firstname.Familyname@cern.ch