Home > Support > Policies and Procedures for CAST Staff
You’re expected to abide by the University's Code of Computing Practices. It’s available here: http://compserv.uark.edu/policies/ Forms for getting a CAST account are available from Karen in Ozark 12. CAST accounts are valid as long as you’re employed by CAST. To log into CAST computers, type in your user name and password, and select “CAST” from the “Log on to:” pull down menu. We commonly create a local administrator account for the main person using a machine. To access it, type in “ladmin” for the user name, the password, and select the local machine name from the “Log on to:” pull down menu. To change your password, press “Ctrl, Alt, & Del” and click “Change Password…” You should have a “z” drive automatically mapped to your home directory. Check by clicking "Start", "My Computer". Your home directory should be located on your usual machine, unless you work in a lab - then it should be on "thor". If you have permission, you can map other drives to other places like this: Click "Start", "My Computer", "Tools", and "Map Network Drive". Select the drive letter you want to use, type in the folder name (example: \\geos1\jdoe), check the "Reconnect at logon" box, and click "Finish". Tape backups on the CAST servers and workstations are done through the university and are kept for 2-3 weeks. You can verify it’s working by clicking "Start", "All Programs", "VERITAS NetBackup", "Backup, Archive, and Restore", "Select for Restore". It should show little symbols under "NetBackup History" with the most recent one being in the last few days. Note that the default for workstations is to only back up folders marked “Users” or “Projects” on the root of the c, d, or e drives. Make sure stuff you want backed up is inside one of those folders. Symantec Anti-virus is installed on the servers and workstations. You can verify it’s working properly by checking for a little yellow shield shaped symbol on the taskbar in the lower right corner. Clicking on it should give you a box that lists "SYMANTEC" as the Parent server, and the date of the Virus Definition File should be within the last few days. Unless there’s a compelling need to do otherwise, the Windows Firewall should be set to "On (recommended)", and Automatic Updates should be set to "Automatic (recommended)". These are accessed by clicking "Start", "Control Printer installations vary. The difference is that lab printers go through a print server which helps us track printing, non-lab printers skip that step for reliability. Lab printers have to be installed by each person using the machine, non-lab printers are installed once by an administrator and work for everyone using that machine. Here’s the procedure for installing lab printers: Click “Start”, “Printers and Faxes”, “Add a printer”, “Next”. Select “A network printer, or a printer attached to another computer” and click “Next”. Select “Connect to this printer”, and type the name of the desired printer in the “Name:” box. Printer names to type in the box are as follows:
Here’s the procedure for installing non-lab printers: As an administrator, click “Start”, “Printers and Faxes”, “Add a printer”, “Next”. Select “Local printer attached to this computer” and uncheck “Automatically detect and install my Plug and Play printer”. Select “Create a new port” and “ Standard TCP/IP Port” and click “Next” and “Next” again. Type the IP address for the printer. Common IP addresses are:
Click “Next” and “Finish”. Select the driver for the printer and click “Next” (Note: If the driver for the printer isn’t on the list, you’ll need to download it from the printer manufacturer’s website, click “Have Disk…”, and browse to the driver). Type in the desired printer name and click “Next”. We commonly use this naming format:
For example, in room 111 there is a black and white printer, that is available over the network (not shared through another computer), and is a Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 2100. I’d name it 111BN-HP2100. Select “Do not share this printer” and click “Next”. Decide if you want to print a test page, click “Next”, and “Finish”. Paper for the printers is available from Karen in Ozark 12. If you’re working in a lab, here are the computer lab rules: The CAST/GEOS labs are not general access labs. They’re intended for GIS related use only, and access is controlled by combination locks on the doors. Door combinations for the CAST labs (208 and 209) are available from Karen Wagner in Ozark 12. Combinations for the GEOS labs (44 and 103) are available from Lisa Frye in Ozark 113. Don’t give the combinations out to anyone else, let people who don’t have the combination in, or prop the lab doors open. Don’t touch the air conditioner controls. The labs are kept a bit on the cool side for the computers. People should bring jackets. The cleaning staff isn’t allowed to touch anything on the tables in a lab, so you’re responsible for cleaning up after yourself. No food or drink is allowed in the labs. Don’t install software on these machines, or attempt to fix equipment. If you need software installed, or there are problems with the lab equipment, you should report it here: http://web2.cast.uark.edu/tech_support/cast/ Don’t be abusive to either the equipment or the staff. Basically, you’re expected to behave like a civilized adult. Failure to meet these expectations can result in loss of access privileges to the labs. If you’ve been assigned a machine, the rules are a bit looser, but you’re the person who is primarily responsible for taking care of your machine. If you need any help, feel free to ask. Here’s some suggestions for regular maintenance: As regular user - Get rid of stuff that is no longer needed. Computers run better with less junk to keep track of and networks run better with less junk to travel over them. Empty the Recycle Bin. Disk space isn't freed up until the Recycle Bin is emptied. Right-click “Recycle Bin”, click “Empty Recycle Bin”. Backup your data. How much can you afford to lose vs. how much can you afford to make extra copies of? Extra copies should at least be on different physical drives (not different partitions on a single drive) to prevent loss due to drive failure. Options are copy to another disk, another machine, or another medium (DVD, CD, floppy, zip, etc.). Yes, we commonly back up data to tape, but you don’t really want to rely on a single backup always working flawlessly. Safest bet is to copy important stuff immediately to another location yourself, and don't forget to verify the data is good after it gets there. As an administrator - Apply Windows Updates. These are updates for the operating system. Click “Start”, “All Programs”, “Windows Update”. It should automatically get the Critical Updates, but I generally apply all available updates. To automate the Critical Updates, click “Start”, “Control Panel”, “ Security Center”, “Automatic Updates”, and select "Automatic (recommended)". Schedule when you want it to happen. Default is “Every day and 3:00 AM” and works for most people. I then check for any other (non-critical) updates every few weeks. Apply Software updates. Nearly every piece of software on a machine will require updates, and every vendor has their own way to do these. For Microsoft Office, go to the Windows Update site and select “Office Update” from near the top of the page. For other software, go to the vendors web site and poke around 'til you see something that looks likely. On workstations, updating software every few months, or whenever you encounter a problem that an update fixes, should be adequate. For servers (including workstations running server type services), check once a week. The difference is that servers are way more susceptible to security problems because of the nature of the software that runs on them. Disk Cleanup is an automated way to delete junk from a drive, including a lot of system stuff that is otherwise hard to sort through. Click “Start”, “Programs”, “Accessories”, “System Tools”, “Disk Cleanup”. Check the boxes for everything you want to clean up, but don't check the box that says "Compress old files". Compressed files slow performance and have been problematic in the past. Defrag hard-drives. Basically pulls stuff spread all over the disk into contiguous chunks so the disk doesn't have to work so hard finding things. Click “Start”, “Programs”, “Accessories”, “System Tools”, “Disk Defragmenter”. If you're having to do this a lot, you might buy a program called Diskeeper that'll let you automate defragmenting. Run error checking on hard-drives. Click “Start”, “My Computer”, right-click on the drive you want to check and select “Properties” and “Tools”. Under “Error-checking”, click “Check Now…”, check both of the option boxes, and click “Start”. It may give you a message about needing exclusive access to the disk. You’ll need to click “Yes” and re-boot, and it’ll do the check before Windows comes up to the login screen. Setting permissions and rights: Permissions are set in a networked environment for a.) safety and b.) security. The security part is obvious - you don’t want unauthorized people trashing your stuff. The safety part is less obvious - it’s to keep you from trashing your stuff. Typical accounts: Regular Users Goal is to have permissions set so there is enough access to do the things you normally need to do, but not enough to inadvertently screw things up beyond repair. Use this account for regular, daily stuff to insure some level of protection. Typical settings for a workstation are “read” for everything on all the drives, “modify” for one folder on each drive to store your data in, and minor tweaks as necessary to make software run properly. If you're logged in as a regular user but need to run a program as an administrator, press <shift> and right click on the program you want to run, select "run as", select “The following user:” and put in the user name and password. The format for the user name is <domain>\<username>. So, to use the ladmin account on machine OZ111-6 you’d type in the local machine name, the slash, and “ladmin” like this: OZ111-6\ladmin. Local Administrator Required to do some occasional tasks, but has the ability to seriously mess up a computer. Use only to accomplish the specific tasks that need it, be very careful, and log out when you finish the necessary task. Each machine has an account called <machinename>\administrator that I use for sysadmin type stuff, and sometimes I create another for the main user of the machine to perform maintenance with called <machinename>\ladmin. Domain Administrator Required to run network infrastructure, but has the ability to wipe out everything on the local network. Don't ever use it for anything. Go find a sysadmin and let them take the fall for destroying dozens of computers and hundreds of users data. Special accounts. Sometimes we set up an account to do a specific task. Permissions vary based on what the account is for, but are set with the same goals as regular users. Guidelines: Disk Space 10% free space on each disk minimum, 20% free space recommended. When you get to 20% and don't have anything else you can delete, have another (or a bigger) Hard-drive installed. Click on Start, My Computer, and single click on the drive. In lower left of window is Free Space and Total Size. Profile Usually z:\profile.usr. Keep it as small as possible to minimize login times. Big offenders are stuff saved to desktop, Internet Explorer cache, and My Documents folder. Fixes are a.) don't save stuff to desktop, b.) in Internet Explorer click Tools, Internet Options..., and change the "Days to keep pages in history" number to something low like “0”, c.) in Word click Tools, Options..., File Locations, and change Documents to z:\My Documents. Put all your documents there. This'll become your default save location for Office documents, it's outside the profile folder, but inside a folder that is normally backed up. Defragmenting Depends on how much writing and deleting happens to the disk (even if you aren't writing to the disk, the system is - that's why you need the 10 to 20% free space). Start with once a week and increase or decrease frequency as needed. Note that when you click Analyze, it'll sometimes tell you the drive doesn't need defragmenting. It's been known to lie. When looking at the display, red is bad and blue is good. Run it 'til you've got lots of blue. At the end of a pass, it'll give you a report. If there's more than a handful of files in the report that weren't defragmented, it probably needs run again.
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