Welcome to the home of CIS IT. The CIS IT team supports the department's IT resources and services. We provide end user support through the CIS Helpdesk, as well as a wealth of information online in our HOWTO section about our systems and labs, department network, available software, and online services.
The CIS department systems administration staff consists of the full-time sysadmin:
and a staff of two students:
Getting Started
The UAB CIS IT Student Guide should be the first stop for new CIS students.
Contact Us
The best way to reach the IT staff is by the CIS Helpdesk. Send an email to helpdesk (at) cis.uab.edu or visit https://helpdesk.cis.uab.edu/.
The IT staff office is located in CH140. However, due to the varying nature of the student class and work schedules, contacting us via the Helpdesk really is the best way to get our attention.
The new web site features a newly designed navigation system. You'll find fewer choices, making it easier to find what you want. In addition, the top-level navigation have moved from the left side of the page to a navbar prominently positioned across the top of the page. As you mouse over each option, you will have the choice to go to that section's home page, or directly to one of it's subpages.
Once you enter into one of the subsections of the site, you will be given secondary navigational links on the left side of the page which help you get around that subsection. For instance, if you click on About Us in the top navbar, you'll be taken to the About Us landing page, and the links on the left will direct you to subpages such as the Faculty pages and information about visiting the department.
If you are still having difficulty finding what you want, try the new search feature. You'll find a search form at the top right corner of every page on the site.
In the Academics section of the site, you'll find the familiar Course Catalog and Class Schedule. However, several new features are now available. Each of these is described briefly below.
Course Catalog - The course catalog now clearly shows both requirements from other departments and CIS prerequisites as part of each course listed. Additionally, there are links available to filter the list by undergraduate or graduate level courses.
Class Schedule - The Class Schedule page has links to current and future semesters for which we have classes scheduled. In addition, here is where you will find the link to our tentative plan for next year, so that you can plan your schedule well in advance. Each class has a clickable Call Number listed, which will take you to the detail page for that class, which has information about the instructor, class meeting times, associated lab sessions and most importantly, a link to the class home page. Each class also has a clickable instructor, if the information is available, which will take you to that instructor's detail page, showing a link to their home page, their other classes and contact information.
The Acceptable Usage Policy pertains to all CIS IT resources, and all users who are granted access to these resources are governed by this policy.
Any declared CIS major or minor, or any student taking a CS course at the 200 level or above, is entitled to a CIS account. Please go to the following URL to complete the CIS Account Application:
http://www.cis.uab.edu/it/accountApplication.php
Please note that all account applications are manually verified to ensure that the applicant is authorized to access CIS resources. This process takes up to 2 business days. Please allow for this amount of time when applying for your account.
The department maintains the UAB CIS Certificate Authority to sign certificates that are required for use with SSL-enabled applications. In our department, this includes the incoming and outgoing email servers, the web server, the helpdesk server and others.
Client-side applications like web browsers and email readers maintain a list of trusted Certificate Authorities. If a server presents a certificate that was signed by someone on their trusted list, they will allow the user into the application automatically. If the authority is not trusted, the user will be asked to confirm whether they want to proceed before being allowed into the application.
Since the UAB CIS Certificate Authority is not included in the trusted list by default, users need to add it to the list in order to avoid these warning messages. This is done by importing the Certificate Authority's own certificate into your trusted list (sometimes called a keyring or keychain). The specific steps required to do this vary depending on OS and application.
The CA certificate is available below. There are two versions available, .p12 and .pem. Below are instructions for several OSes and applications. Be sure to read the full list - some applications require specific steps above those for the operating system.
Microsoft Windows XP - Right-click on the cacert.p12 version and Save As... to your local machine. Then double-click cacert.p12 and the Microsoft Certificate Import wizard will open. Accept all of the defaults. The password is blank (by design; this is a public certificate). You will be asked to confirm and then receive a success message when the certificate is imported.
Internet Explorer and Outlook / Outlook Express - Follow the instructions above for Windows. IE and Outlook will both use this trusted cert now. (Note that the Import Wizard can also be reached from IE via the Certificates area of the Content tab of the Internet Options).
Macintosh OS X - Right-click on cacert.pem and save to the local machine. On the local machine, rename the file cacert.cer. Double-click the file to launch the keychain manager. Add the certificate to the X509Anchors keychain.
Firefox (all platforms) - Firefox maintains its own trusted CA list. Generally, all that is required is to click the cacert.pem file from the browser, which launches Firefox's import wizard. Be sure to indicate that you want to use the certificate to validate web sites. (This appears to have stopped working in Firefox 3. Save the .pem file to your system, and then go to Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Encryption -> View Certificates -> Import and browse to the .pem file.)
Thunderbird (all platforms) - Save cacert.pem to your local machine. Then, from Thunderbird's Tools menu, choose Options, then the Privacy button, then the Security tab. On the Security tab, click the View Certificates button, then the Authorities tab, then click Import. Import cacert.pem.
Once this process is complete, you should restart your browsers and email readers and revisit a CIS SSL-enabled resource. You should no longer receive any warnings.
If you have questions, please contact helpdesk@cis.uab.edu.
The CIS Helpdesk Best Practices document contains guidelines for getting the most out of the CIS Helpdesk.
The department has a subscription to the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Academic Alliance. The department receives numerous benefits as part of their membership:
The software provided with the MSDNAA subscription is intended for instructional or research purposes. Instructional purposes are defined as conducting educational classes, labs, or related programs for teaching and/or learning the products or concepts related to the products that are part of this program. Research purposes are defined as conducting not-for-profit research projects.
If you are a current CIS student taking at least one course for credit (excluding CS101), a CIS faculty member, or a staff member directly involved in administering systems and providing support for MSDNAA software, the MSDNAA usage guidelines state that you can install software on your personal computer. For a more complete summary of the Usage Guidelines, see MSDNAA Usage Guidelines from the MSDNAA web site.
The UAB CIS e-Academy site requires a login. All faculty members have had their accounts created for them. If you are a student, please send a request to the CIS Helpdesk (see How To Send a Request to the Helpdesk in our HOWTO) to create your account. When your account is created, you will receive an email from e-academy with the login and password information.
Once logged into the e-Academy, you will see the Software tab at the top of the screen. On the Software tab, you can choose from a dropdown of available software, or you may click on one of the featured products. This will take you to a screen where you may choose your delivery method. Depending on the software you choose, you will have one or more of the following delivery methods:
The e-Academy will present you with the license agreement. It will also provide your product license key if necessary. You will then provide some additional info such as name and email. For Secure Internet Download, you will then be given the opportunity at the end of the ordering process to download the software from our server. For CD Check-Out, you may pick up your CD during normal business hours (You may be placed on the waiting list until a CD becomes available.) e-Academy will send you an email receipt of your order, which will also contain any necessary product keys.
If you have any questions about using e-Academy, please visit the Support tab on the CIS e-Academy website.
PostgreSQL is a powerful, open source relational database system. It has more than 15 years of active development and a proven architecture that has earned it a strong reputation for reliability, data integrity, and correctness. It runs on all major operating systems, including Linux, UNIX (AIX, BSD, HP-UX, SGI IRIX, Mac OS X, Solaris, SunOS, Tru64), BeOS, and Windows. It is fully ACID compliant, has full support for foreign keys, joins, views, triggers, and stored procedures (in multiple languages). It includes most SQL92 and SQL99 data types, including INTEGER, NUMERIC, BOOLEAN, CHAR, VARCHAR, DATE, INTERVAL, and TIMESTAMP. It also supports storage of binary large objects, including pictures, sounds, or video. It has native programming interfaces for C/C++, Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, Tcl, ODBC, among others, and exceptional documentation.
The PostgreSQL home page and documentation are available at http://www.postgresql.org.
The PostgreSQL server, version 8.1.9, is installed on cisdb.cis.uab.edu. You will be issued an account on this system if you are in a course which requires a database account.
You have the following options for connecting to the server:
At this time, you cannot reach cisdb.cis.uab.edu from outside the department firewall. This may change in the future. However, you can ssh into the department through the usual methods, and thus work remotely.
Below are quickstart instructions for each of these methods.
On the vulcans, psql is available in the default command path:
# psql -h cisdb
This will connect as the current user to a database of the same name as the current user on the host cisdb. Thus, if you are logged in as joeuser, this will try to connect to a database named joeuser as the user joeuser on the host cisdb. If an account exists for joeuser and the database joeuser exists and the connecting host has rights to connect to the database as joeuser, you will receive a Password: prompt. Upon entering the correct password, you will then be presented with the psql command line.
Once on the psql command line, you can issue SQL queries to set up your tables, populate them with data, and make queries against your data. Here is a sample session.
# psql -h cisdb -U testuser
Password:
Welcome to psql 7.4.7, the PostgreSQL interactive terminal.
Type: \copyright for distribution terms
\h for help with SQL commands
\? for help on internal slash commands
\g or terminate with semicolon to execute query
\q to quit
testuser=> create table test (testfield text);
CREATE TABLE
testuser=> \d test
Table "public.test"
Column | Type | Modifiers
-----------+------+-----------
testfield | text |
testuser=> insert into test values ('This is a test');
INSERT 17384 1
testuser=> select * from test;
testfield
----------------
This is a test
(1 row)
testuser=> delete from test where testfield like 'This%';
DELETE 1
testuser=> select * from test;
testfield
-----------
(0 rows)
testuser=> drop table test;
DROP TABLE
testuser=> \q
#
Perl's DBD::Pg is available on the vulcans using default perl (/usr/bin/perl) or as a CGI on the department web server which should use /usr/bin/perl as the perl path.
You can use Perl's DBI database-independent abstraction layer to connect to PostgreSQL. Below is a simple example (not to be considered robust code). For more information about using DBI, type 'perldoc DBI' at the command line.
#!/usr/bin/perl
use DBI;
my $dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:Pg:dbname=testuser;host=cisdb",
"testuser",
"PASSWORD") || die;
my $sth = $dbh->prepare("CREATE TABLE test (testfield text)");
$sth->execute;
$sth = $dbh->prepare("INSERT INTO test VALUES ('This is a test')");
$sth->execute;
$sth = $dbh->prepare("INSERT INTO test VALUES ('Another test')");
$sth->execute;
$sth = $dbh->prepare("SELECT * FROM test");
$sth->execute;
while (my $row = $sth->fetchrow_hashref) {
print "This row's testfield column has a value of: $row->{testfield}\n";
}
The PHP on our department web server supports PostgreSQL. Here is a very simple example PHP file. For more information about PHP's PostgreSQL interface, see http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.pgsql.php.
<?php
$database = pg_connect("host=cisdb user=testuser password=XXXXXXXX dbname=testuser");
pg_query($database, "create table foo (bar int)");
?>
By default, the web server will not display PHP errors in the browser. You can override this behavior if you wish with an .htaccess configuration file. To do so create a directory for your PHP project, and in that directory create a file called .htaccess, with contents:
php_flag display_errors on
Now, PHP will display errors in the browser for PHP code that lives in that directory (and any subdirectories).
The CIS department has provided a Subversion repository to each user account, as well as dedicated repositories for the research labs and special projects.
This page provides brief instructions on the specifics of the CIS setup and how to access and configure your repository. This is not intended to be a Subversion tutorial and the IT staff is not equipped to train users on the actual usage of Subversion. However, there are several good resources for learning Subversion, such as the online book:
Version Control with Subversion
Users of CVS will find the transition to Subversion is an easy one. Please see the book above for specific information regarding this transition.
Access to the CIS Subversion repositories is through http access only. We do not provide local filesystem access to the subversion repositories.
Each CIS user is issued a personal SVN repository. This repository is located at https://svn.cis.uab.edu/users/username. Generally, you do not use a regular web browser to access your repository (doing so only gives you read-only access to the latest revision). Instead, you use a Subversion client. On the department's linux systems, this is in the form of the 'svn' command line program. On Windows we recommend using TortoiseSVN. Many development environments have built-in or add-on support for Subversion (e.g. Eclipse has the Subclipse add-on). Instructions on using these tools is beyond the scope of this document, but plenty of documentation is available at the command line for 'svn' ('svn help') and online for TortoiseSVN or Subclipse.
The access control for each repository is completely controlled by the owner via the file ~username/svnaccess/username.svnaccess found in your home directory. This file contains instructions regarding the syntax and usage of the file, and how to set up various project areas with different access permissions.
By default, each user's repository is set to allow full read-write access by themselves and no anonymous access or access by any other CIS users. This can be changed following the instructions in the access file.
As a teaser, here is a short sample session with Subversion. The output you see may be slightly different, and there may be a couple of extra steps the first time you connect, such as accepting the SSL certificate and providing your username and password.
Say you have a directory, "foo", that you would like to put under version control...
username@vulcan7 [svndemo]$ ls
foo
username@vulcan7 [svndemo]$ ls foo/
file1.txt file2.txt
You can import it into your repository by using the svn import command from the directory -above- the one you want to create in the repository (I want to create a foo directory, so I do it from its' parent directory svndemo).
username@vulcan7 [svndemo]$ svn import . https://svn.cis.uab.edu/users/username -m 'Initial import of foo'
Adding foo
Adding foo/file2.txt
Adding foo/file1.txt
Committed revision 86.
Once that's done, no more need for the local foo directory - the data is in the repository!
username@vulcan7 [svndemo]$ mv foo ~username/foo-old
Now I create a working copy to edit the files in foo.
username@vulcan7 [svndemo]$ svn co https://svn.cis.uab.edu/users/username/foo foo-working-copy
A foo-working-copy/file2.txt
A foo-working-copy/file1.txt
Checked out revision 86.
I enter my working directory and see what it looks like.
username@vulcan7 [svndemo]$ cd foo-working-copy/
username@vulcan7 [foo-working-copy]$ ls
.svn file1.txt file2.txt
It looks just like it did before it was under revision control. Let's change one of the files...
username@vulcan7 [foo-working-copy]$ echo "Adding more to file1.txt" >> file1.txt
Of course, I could have also changed it by editing it in an editor, as usual. Let's see if Subversion knows I changed it...
username@vulcan7 [foo-working-copy]$ svn status
M file1.txt
Yep, the M flag means that the version of file1.txt in this working copy is Modified from the version that is in the repository. I should check-in my changes now.
username@vulcan7 [foo-working-copy]$ svn ci -m 'I edited file1.txt'
Sending file1.txt
Transmitting file data .
Committed revision 87.
Now I try status again...
username@vulcan7 [foo-working-copy]$ svn status
username@vulcan7 [foo-working-copy]$
And I don't get any output, meaning that everything in the working copy is identical to that in the repository now. At any point in the future, I can revert file1.txt back to it's older version, or examine the differences that were made between the two versions, among lots of other possibilities.
This is a highly simplified view of the basic workflow when using a version control system. If you are interested in learning more, please see the link to the online book above.
These repositories are administered by the faculty member in charge of the lab or project. Please contact those individuals if you need access to one of these repositories.
The CIS department is full of cutting edge IT, from the state-of-the-art workstations found throughout our labs to specialized research equipment such as the visualization wall and the 128-node Olympus cluster, the fastest computer in the state of Alabama. Here you will find information on all of our facilities, including how to get access to them and take advantage of the resources available to you here at UAB CIS.
The CIS Department has a wide array of facilities and equipment. Attached is a document that provides an overview of the department's IT and how it relates to the campus IT as a whole.
Janet Tatum maintains a set of documents that contain the lab room schedules for the current semester. They can be found at the following link:
The attached document contains the list of officially supported software on our Windows lab machines. Please reference it to see if the required software is available.
If you require software that is not currently on the list, please contact the CIS Helpdesk with justification of why you need the new product or version, cost information if available, funding source if available, and for which class or research the software is needed. While we cannot guarantee that any particular request will be met, we do try to accomodate all legitimate software needs. Requests should not come from students; please have your faculty advisor make the request.
Note that it may take up to four weeks from the time a software upgrade is approved until the time it is available on the machines. Please plan accordingly.
Something missing? Suggest a topic!
General
Web
Database
Subversion
HOWTO Make a request to the CIS IT Helpdesk
The CIS IT staff operates a helpdesk in order to efficiently serve the department's IT requests. To use the helpdesk, you simply send an email to helpdesk@cis.uab.edu with a description of your request. Please follow our CIS Helpdesk Best Practices when doing so.
When you send an email to the CIS Helpdesk, you will receive an email receipt to let you know that the Helpdesk has received your request and has created a ticket for you. You will notice that this receipt will have a tag in the Subject: line that looks like "[UAB CIS #203]". This tag contains your tracking number. If you would like to add additional information to your helpdesk ticket, reply to this receipt - please DO NOT simply send a new message to helpdesk@cis.uab.edu unless it is unrelated to the other request.
As your ticket is worked on, you will receive additional updates in your email as the status of your ticket changes. You may also check the status of your tickets as well as create new tickets via the web interface. Instructions on how to do this are in the RT SelfService QuickStart Guide [PDF].
HOWTO Use my CIS Linux Account
Your CIS account may be used on various UNIX machines around the department, including the linux "coffee" machines and Mac machines in the graduate (CH135) and undergraduate (CH154) open labs. In addition, you may access your CIS Unix account remotely via SSH to the vulcan machines. Please see HOWTO Access the CIS network remotely.
HOWTO Use my CIS Windows Account
Your CIS account may be used to log onto various Windows machines around the department, including those in the graduate (CH135) and undergraduate (CH154) open labs and the teaching labs throughout the department.
HOWTO Change my Linux password
Password changes need to be made on one of the vulcan machines. To do this, log into one of the vulcan machines either by directly using one of them in the undergraduate lab CH154 (the vulcan machines are the Linux machines in the far left room) or accessing one remotely via SSH (see HOWTO Access the CIS network remotely). Once logged into the machine, run the 'passwd' command. A sample session looks like:
vulcan3.cis.uab.edu[testuser](202)% passwd
Changing password for user testuser.
Enter login(LDAP) password: <-- ENTER CURRENT PASSWORD HERE
New UNIX password: <-- ENTER NEW PASSWORD HERE
Retype new UNIX password: <-- ENTER NEW PASSWORD AGAIN HERE
LDAP password information changed for testuser
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.
vulcan3.cis.uab.edu[testuser](203)%
HOWTO Change my Windows password
Log onto the CISWINNET domain from an available Windows machine (the undergrad and grad labs both have Windows machines). Once logged in, hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and click on the Change Password... button. Complete the form.
HOWTO Access the CIS network remotely
You may access your CIS account remotely by using ssh to connect to moat.cis.uab.edu. From moat, please connect to another Linux machine (such as the vulcan1 - vulcan11 machines). moat is solely provided as an ssh gateway. UAB Network Services distributes SSH Secure Shell Client software for free and you may download it from their website.
HOWTO Access the CIS wireless network
The wireless network currently installed in the department is not open to general usage at this time.
However, UAB has wired both the atrium of Campbell Hall and our department for wireless access. This network is free for students. You may visit http://www.uab.edu/wireless/ for information on how to connect to it. Technical problems should be reported to the AskIT Helpdesk in the library or to askit@uab.edu. CIS IT cannot help debug connection problems with UAB wifi.
HOWTO Check my CIS email account
Everyone with an individual CIS account also has a CIS email address. Your address is @cis.uab.edu. Note that as of 1/6/05, all new CIS student email addresses are defaulted to forward to your BlazerID email account automatically. No mail is actually stored at CIS for these accounts.
If you have an older account which still receives mail at CIS directly, please contact the CIS Helpdesk if help is needed.
HOWTO Activate Spam Control on my CIS Account
[This topic only applies to users who receive mail directly at CIS. Most CIS users' email is forward to Blazer email, which has its own spam controls that are not managed by the CIS department.]
The CIS email server evaluates each incoming email and assigns a score based on how likely it is that the email is spam. While no spam filtering system is 100% accurate, filtering based on this score can be a very effective way to remove a large majority of the incoming spam.
In our particular scoring system, email with scores > 5 are very likely to be spam, so this is a good starting point for the filtering. There are many different ways to filter based on the score, but the most flexible and portable method is to filter it at the server. Below are instructions on how to do this.
There are four steps to setting this up:
DEFAULT=$HOME/Maildir/It is important that you use this exact text, especially remembering the . in front of the name of the Spam folder, and matching the capitalization.
MAILDIR=$HOME/Maildir
:0
* ^X-Spam-Level.*\*\*\*\*\*
"$MAILDIR/.Spam/"
"|exec /usr/bin/procmail"
IMPORTANT: Now send yourself some mail to make sure you are still receiving mail. If your .procmailrc and .forward are incorrect, you could halt all mail delivery to your account!
XJS*C4JDBQADN1.NSBN3*2IDNEN*GTUBE-STANDARD-ANTI-UBE-TEST-EMAIL*C.34X
It must be all on one line with no line breaks or whitespace. That message will qualify as spam and should be filtered to your Spam folder if your filtering is working.
The filtering relies on the X-Spam-Level mail header that is inserted onto email messages by the server (in most mail readers, you have to enable "View all headers" to see it). That line has one * for each whole number of the spam score. If you want to be more aggressive with your filtering, you can adjust the number of stars on the filter line in .procmailrc.
HOWTO Forward my CIS email to my BlazerID account
Note: All accounts created since 1/6/05 are already defaulted to forward your CIS email to your BlazerID email. If you have changed this fowarding or have an account that pre-dates this policy, you may use the following instructions to forward your CIS email to your BlazerID account.
To do this, follow these steps:
This creates a "dot-forward" file in your account - all email sent to your CIS email will now be forwarded to your BlazerID account. To remove the forwarding, run the command rm .forward in your home directory.
HOWTO Fix a problem with your BlazerID or BlazerID email
The CIS department does not maintain the BlazerID system. BlazerIDs are maintained by UAB Network Services, and you may manage your BlazerID account by visiting their BlazerID Central web site.
HOWTO CIS email announcements work
CIS does not maintain mailing lists for our undergraduate students. Instead, we use automated tools provided by UAB Data Post Office. These tools depend on your BlazerID email, -not- your CIS email. In order for you to receive these announcements, you must ensure that your BlazerID is properly configured to either receive your email or forward your email to your CIS account. Instructions to setup both of these options can be found at http://www.uab.edu/blazerid/. Please do not contact CIS with questions regarding your BlazerID setup, as we cannot help you with these issues.
What you should know about the UAB Data Post Office tools is that they are NOT mailing lists. Your email cannot be added to or taken off any list because there are no such lists. The system dynamically generates a list of recipients based on certain criteria. For announcements targeted to all undergrads, you have to be in the UAB student information databases and marked as pursuing a CIS degree of the appropriate level (ugrad) and be currently registered for a course in our department.
For mail targeting a specific class, you have to be in the UAB registration database as registered for that class. If, after reading this, you still feel you are getting announcements you should not be or missing announcements that you should be receiving, please consider whether you have declared for your degree or have registered for the particular class.
You cannot opt out of receiving mail sent to you via these tools. Part of your membership in the CIS department is that you agree to receive department announcements.
For graduate students, we do maintain a static list of email addresses. Janet Tatum keeps the list up to date, please let her know if you need to be added to the list and have not been added yet.
HOWTO Publish to my CIS web site area
All active CIS student accounts have been issued web space automatically.
You can access your web files area via the "webfiles" symbolic link in your home directory, which will take you to your web files area. You may use your preference of file editing tools on the files here.
HOWTO Password-protect a directory on my web site
To create a password-protected directory under your webfiles area, you need two files in the directory: one called .htaccess and another called .htpasswd. To create both files, perform the following steps:
AuthUserFile /nethome/webfiles/path/to/this/directory/.htpasswd
AuthName "Authorization Required"
AuthType Basic
require valid-userSo, if the directory you are trying to protect is
/nethome/webfiles/students/joeuser/secret/then the first line should read:
AuthUserFile /nethome/webfiles/students/joeuser/secret/.htpasswd
Note: the web server is configured to prevent anyone from retrieving your .htpasswd file. Be sure you only use that specific file name for your password file.
Now you have password-protected secretdir with the secretuser/secretpass combination. To add additional username/passwords, you can do this:
And to delete a secretuser:
HOWTO Use your PostgreSQL account
Please see the CIS PostgreSQL Quickstart Guide for this information.
HOWTO Use your Subversion repository
Please see the CIS Subversion Quickstart Guide for this information.