Computer Science Lab FAQ

If you have questions that you think should be included here, please mail them to palmerdl@whitman.edu

Additional detailed information concerning operations in the labs can be found via the Computer Science Lab Manual.

Linux questions and answers:

How do I change my password in the lab?

Use "kpasswd" in a command window.

How do I log in to the lab remotely?

We have turned off telnet and ftp access to the lab to increase security. You need to use ssh and scp or sftp instead, which protects your password. Mac OS X and Linux include these programs; free and commercial versions of ssh, scp and sftp are available for Windows. If you have a standalone ssh program, you can connect to any of the lab machines from campus, not just the one named "math". If you are off-campus you can only ssh to math.whitman.edu. A good ssh program for windows is PuTTY, and a good sftp/scp program is WinSCP.

How do I copy a file from my lab account to my personal computer and vice versa?

You'll either need to use an sftp application, such as WinSCP (Windows), FileZilla (Windows, Mac, Linux) or Cyberduck (Win, Mac, Linux) or use the scp command in a terminal. Then you may copy files to and from your account by connecting to math.whitman.edu. See the Computer Science Lab Manual for more detailed instructions.