Campus Computers

NC State provides many computer labs and workstations across its campuses. In these labs, you may come across computers running on various operating systems. These systems include Windows, Mac, and Linux. To learn more about operating systems, please check out chapter 2 on Operating Systems.

OIT also keeps a list of computer labs and workstations across NC State’s campus.

The College of Engineering has many computer labs. While they are open during most working hours, they are sometimes closed for security purposes. Please check the computer lab schedule before visiting one of these labs. You can also access a list of the Engineering Collaboratories from this site. These collaboratories are available by reservation and are great when you need to do group work in a quiet, more private area.

Login & Logout of On-Campus Computers:

Windows

To log into a Windows computer, make sure you use your UnityID and password and that you are signing into WOLFTECH. When you go to sign out, click on the Start button (Windows Flag), and click on your name in the upper right-hand corner, then “Sign Out”.

Mac

Logging into a Mac computer is the same process as a Windows computer (UnityID and password), but logging out is different. Click on the apple symbol in the upper left-hand corner, then select the “Log Out” option.

Linux

When you log into a Linux computer on campus (running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, RHEL7 or CentOS), you must type in your Unity ID and press ENTER. The login screen will then ask for your password, then you must type your Unity Password and press ENTER. If the submitted information is correct, the system will send you to your Linux desktop. Although the interface is different than Windows and Mac, the basic concepts are similar enough to understand.

When you want to log out of the computer, simply go up to the System tab at the top of your screen and select Log Out.

How to Access Files:

Windows

While using one of NC State’s Windows computers, you can click on the File Explorer near the Start button at the bottom left-hand corner of the desktop. It will take you to This PC. From there, you have two options for accessing your NFS space, either select the “K:\” folder or the Network Location with your UnityID on it.

If you need to use Terminal while using a Windows computer in one of the computer labs or the libraries, you will need to use PuTTY and the host name (or IP address). When you download PuTTY from the required programs site, the host name is typically already saved on your program. The host name for accessing your Linux Terminal is remote.eos.ncsu.edu. If you want to save this host name, type the name you want to save it as in the text box below “Saved Sessions” (the photo below shows it saved as “Linux”). Then click Save. Now you can double-click on the saved session called “Linux” (or whatever you called it), or click Open. The benefit to saving the host name as a session is that you will not have to retype the host name the next time you open PuTTY, and you can just double-click the session to load it. Instead of double-clicking, you can also click the session name once, then Load, then Open.

Once you have loaded the Linux Terminal through PuTTY, you will need to enter your UnityID and password. Remember that your password will not appear on the screen as you type.

Another program that comes on all Windows computers is Command Prompt. Although this is a command line interface (CLI) like Terminal, the commands used and the accessible files are different than that of the remote Linux Terminal in PuTTY. We request that you do not use Command Prompt to attempt to complete any of your assignments for E 115. This is simply another way of accessing your personal C Drive on your computer. We will not be using it in this class.

Mac

When accessing your files on one of the NC State’s Mac computers, you need to open up your file transfer application (FileZilla, you can search for this program by clicking the magnifying glass, or Spotlight Search, in the upper right-hand corner of the desktop), and use the ftp server (ftp.ncsu.edu) along with your login credentials.

To access your Home Directory via Terminal, open up the Terminal program (can be found with Spotlight Search) and type the following, where “unityid” is your personal UnityID, as seen in the photo below:

ssh unityid@remote.eos.ncsu.edu

Linux

The Linux Terminal can be accessed from Applications -> System Tools -> Terminal. It looks like a small command prompt window. You do not need to login or set up credentials to use it. The other remote-access servers were used so you could use the Linux Terminal. Since this is the Terminal you were requesting in all the other CLIs, you do not need to configure it prior to use.

To access your files on a Linux machine, go up to Places in the taskbar, and select Home Folder. You may also click this folder from the desktop screen (if the shortcut exists).