A Brief Orientation for New Affiliates

Here we provide basic computing survival information for persons joining the Duke Sociology Department. We link liberally to many other sections of this document and to other web sites. These materials are used in conjunction with orientations done at the start of the academic year.

Computing Staff

Bob Jackson, IT Manager - Room 140A - 660-5601
Rob Marks, IT Analyst - Room 141 - 660-5602
Jesse Riggan, IT Analyst - Room 140 - 660-5616
See IT Staff section for more information
See Scope of Services for point person on each service point

Computing Accounts

Duke NetID - issued by Office of Information Technology - required for many institutional services at Duke
Sociology Domain Account - issued by Sociology - used for network login to the Sociology domain
Sociology Linux Account - issued by Sociology - used for email, personal web pages and research computing
All three accounts have the same ID composed of your initials and a number
Password on your NetID should be unique
Password on your two Sociology accounts should be synchronized, but different from that of your NetID
See Accounts, Passwords and Logins for more information on accounts

Changing Passwords

Duke NetID passwords are changed at the OIT Password Reset page
Sociology passwords are changed by running a password change script described in the detailed accounts section

The Sociology Computing Lab

Located in Room 135 Soc/Psych
Access by cypher lock - get the code from a computing staff member
Lab is available 24x7
Has 8 PCs and a network printer
Login with your Sociology Domain account

Logging Into the Sociology Domain on Lab PCs

Most networked PCs in Sociology allow domain logins
The Lab PCs allow logins by anyone with a Sociology Domain account
To login to a Lab PC:
- Make sure Workstation only is checked
- Enter your userid and password
- Type the Enter key and wait

What the Lab PCs Provide

The machines are locked down so that each person sees the same menus and applications
Users cannot install applications - for reasons of licensing, security and consistent service
See the Computing Lab for a list of installed applications - includes some advanced applications not elsewhere available

What a Domain Login Provides

A network home directory (drive letter H:)
Access to your Linux home directory (drive letter L:)
Same home directories at any machine
Network printing
Nightly system backups of everything stored on the L: drive (which includes H:)

Please observe the following limits on what you store on the network.

Use for professional work - papers, documents, datasets, programs and other research/instructional material
The network is not intended for personal music, photo or video collections

General guidelines for use of network resources are found in the Sociology Acceptable Use Policy

Logging Into Sociology Linux Servers

Logins are allowed from anywhere on or off campus
Machines available (see [:Accounts, Passwords and Logins#linlog:Linux logins] for more detail):
- login.soc.duke.edu - general purpose system
- paradigm.soc.duke.edu - primary statistical and data management server
- verstehen.soc.duke.edu - secondary statistical and data management server
Logins require use of an SSH (Secure Shell) client, which provides end-to-end encryption of a session
- Windows PCs
  - There are many clients available for Windows - we generally install F-Secure SSH
  - Also need X-Win32 to provide an X Window environment that supports display of graphical applications
  - Preload X-Win32, then load F-Secure and login
- Macs
  - SSH and X Windows are native facilities on Macs - simply open a terminal window and run SSH from there
```
$ ssh -X paradigm.soc.duke.edu
```

What Do Sociology Linux Systems Provide

Network storage and nightly backups - your Linux home directory is identical to the L: drive in a domain login to a lab PC
Network printing - as detailed in Linux Printing
Email service - if you elect to use it - described in Email
A personal web page - if you wish to create one - for example, Jen'nan Read
Archival secondary data resources - particularly holdings from ICPSR located in the /opt/archive/icpsr directory
Text editors for writing programs or composing web pages - pico, emacs, vi
Speed and capacity for large data set computing
Applications for data management and statistical modelling, which can be run interactively or in batch mode

Linux Applications

The following apps are available on paradigm.soc.duke.edu - with modes of invocation noted for each

Application	Version	Graphical Mode	Text Mode	Batch Mode
SAS (see SAS for Linux)	9.2	sas &		sas <program_file>.sas &
Stata/SE (see Stata for Linux)	12.0	xstata-se &	stata-se	stata-se -b do <filename> &
R	2.13.0	R -g Tk &	R	R CMD BATCH <program_file>.R &
Matlab	7.10.0 (R2010a)	matlab &	matlab -nodesktop
Stat/Transfer	11.1	stattransfer &	st	st <infile_spec> <outfile_spec> &

SAS, Stata, R and Matlab are general purpose data management and analysis applications
Stat/Transfer is a utility for converting system files from one format to another

Email

The choices are many:
- Sociology Email [using Linux account] - configure client of your choice or use WebMail through https://my.duke.edu
- Duke Sun Mail [using NetID] - configure client of your choice or use WebMail through http://webmail.duke.edu
- External service - such as Gmail, Yahoo or others
Key things to address:
- If you do not use Sociology Email, make sure that your Sociology address is forwarded to the address you use (see Bob Jackson for assistance)
- If you do not use Duke Sun Mail, make sure that your NetID address is forwarded to the address you use (see http://www.duke.edu/online)
- If you use a Duke mail service, make sure your Duke alias points to the right address (see http://www.duke.edu/online)

Wireless Networking

Laptops and good wireless services have been the increasing focus of student computing and infrastructure support
The campus is effectively wireless throughout and services are generally of high quality
You must register your laptop for DHCP services using your NetID - your laptop web browser will be effectively hijacked for this purpose by the network - once registered you should not have to do this again unless you are gone from campus for several months

Remote Access

Linux intrinsically provides for secure remote access to your network home directory, so SSH secure file transfers are one method
Many faculty can remote access into the desktop PCs in their offices
Most grad students do not have dedicated desktop PCs available in the department
So students need a method of mapping their network directory to their laptops
This is done securely by using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) client to create a secure, encrypted route for data to pass between Duke and your PC
Then you can map your network home directory to your PC (Windows or Mac) and access it as if it were locally available
To install the Duke VPN go to https://portal.duke.edu
This site analyzes the platform of your system (Windows/Mac/Linux) and its architecture (32-bit/64-bit) to decide which version of the VPN to install.
When you allow it to, installation of the VPN client proceeds
When the VPN client is connected it encrypts your network connection into Duke and gives your system a Duke IP
You can then map your network home directory to your Windows or Mac PC using the instructions at ["Remote Access to Domain Account Home Directory"]
VPN use exacts a network performance hit, so use only when needed