Linux at CCIS

CCIS Systems supports Ubuntu Linux (as of this writing, version 9.10 a/k/a Karmic Koala) in the main lab in 102 West Village H and on faculty and grad desktops. These machine replace older Suns which ran Solaris 9.

Remote Access

Holders of valid non-alumni CCIS UNIX accounts may connect to the following public machines using ssh:

1. login.ccs.neu.edu (aka: login-linux.ccs.neu.edu (Note: The login-linux name was created during login‘s transition from Solaris to Linux. Now that the transition is complete, the use of login-linux to access this machine is deprecated.))
2. Any of the CCIS Lab Linux machines which are physically located in West Village H 102 (note: CCIS authentication required to view list)

Note that login.ccs.neu.edu‘s ssh host keys changed on December 1, 2009, when login was migrated from Sun Solaris to Ubuntu Linux. If you’ve been around the college since before December 2009, it’s possible that your ssh client may have the ssh host key from the old login (running Solaris) cached, which will cause warnings when you connect to the current login (running Linux). See the above linked blog post for instructions on dealing with this problem should you encounter it.

Alumni Remote Access

Alumni with valid CCIS alumnus/alumna accounts may connect via ssh to alumni.ccs.neu.edu (aka: alumni-linux.ccs.neu.edu). As with login, alumni‘s ssh host keys changed in December 2009 when we changed DNS to point the name alumni at an Ubuntu Linux machine, instead of the old Sun Solaris machine. (As with login, the Solaris machine was subsequently retired.)

Local Access

CCIS Majors and students enrolled in CCIS courses may use our public lab in West Village H 102. Faculty, graduate students, and staff may have dedicated linux machines on their desks.

Hardware and nomenclature

Our Linux machines are named after classic video arcade games.

The approximately 45 Linux machines in the main CCIS lab in 102 WVH are all Dell Optiplex 960s with Core 2 Duo processors and 4GB of RAM. Note that 102 WVH has Dells running both Linux and Windows; as of this writing, none of the Windows machines are 960s (although they look somewhat similar). You can tell for sure by looking at the login screen; the Ubuntu machines say “CCIS Linux” prominently.

Most of the other desktop Linux machines in the building are Dell GX270s with 1GB of RAM.

We also have a number of servers running Linux; some of those are GX270s; many of them are virtual machines running under Xen or VMware on Dell server-class hardware.