UNIX/Linux Dialog Server

• gwdu05.gwdg.de (alias: login.gwdg.de), operating system: SuSE Linux
  
• gwdu60.gwdg.de, operating system: FreeBSD UNIX
  
• gwdu100.gwdg.de (alias: bioinfo.gwdg.de), operating system: Scientific Linux; bioinformatics server with several programs for bioinformatics and common statistics (Remark: HPC registration required)
• gwdu101.gwdg.de, gwdu102.gwdg.de and gwdu103.gwdg.de, operating system: Scientific Linux (a free RedHat clone); these are the frontend hosts of our high performance compute cluster (Remark: Use of HPC cluster and its frontends requires a special registration)
  

A simple ASCII terminal connection via SSH is supported by all dialog servers. As some application programs comes with a graphical user interface or operate with graphical input or output formats a graphical terminal is much more comfortable. In this case your connection must be done by an XWindow terminal server at your local PC as follows:

In case of a local UNIX or Linux based PC an XWindow terminal server is part of operating system and connections can be start as follows from command-line: ssh -Y -l user_name gwdu05.gwdg.de

In case of a local Macintosh computer you must install an XWindow terminal server before. Freeware XQuartz will be a good choice.

In case of a local MS Windows computer you must install an XWindow terminal server before. According to our campus license of XWin32 we can offer you this software for free in most cases.

Configuration of Xwindows in using a different font or color is possible.

In general the UNIX/Linux based remote host can operate with its file systems only and a transfer from your local PC to one of these file systems is mandatory. In most cases your UNIX/Linux home directory (like /usr/users/your_userid) will be the target. According to your local operating system there are different ways to do this.

Command-line procedures like scp, sftp or sshfs can be used for encryted data tranfer, e.g. for user kmuster:

scp -p my_local_file kmuster@gwdu05:/usr/users/kmuster/remote_dir
scp -rp my_local_dir kmuster@gwdu05:/usr/users/kmuster/remote_dir

For SFTP or SSHFS read manpage.

In case of Macintosh computers you will find detailed information at the corresponding webpages of GWDG´s MacHelp team.

In case of MS Windows PC you have two alternatives with a graphical interface:

If you use a freeware called WinSCP ( download) you can get two windows which are explorer like and you can move, delete, copy etc. via mouse click as usable. Authentication and data transfer is encrypted via SFTP protocol and connection is possible to all file systems of a target host. Your target host must be one of our dialog servers like gwdu05.gwdg.de or gwdu60.gwdg.de.

More comfortable in handling is a connection using SAMBA server. GWDG SAMBA server let you connect to your UNIX/Linux home directory only but like a Windows file server. In this case your home directory results in a network device handled by your local explorer with all well-known features: drag-and-drop, double click options, right mouse-click for feature menue etc. But consider authentication is encrypted but data transfer not. Such connection via SAMBA server (e.g. using Win7) is done as follows:

Open menue item “Map Network Drive”. Choose a free capital character for your new network device (commonly used is “U” like “UNIX” but you can use any other free one) and put in as server name e.g.: \\samba.gwdg.de\kmuster. If you are not using your GWDG user account at your local PC and your PC is not member of our Active Directory you must decide “Connect using different credentials”. In both cases this network connection is permanently done by default at system start.

End-of-line coding of ASCII files is different in Macintosh, MS Windows and UNIX/Linux systems. For editing or creating properly coded ASCII files on UNIX/Linux platforms you can use either editors of the corresponding remote platform (Linux or UNIX), e.g. emacs, xemacs, xedit, nano, joe, vi or some editors at your local PC.

EMACS good for small and very large files (up to Gigabytes!) is runnable in a simple ASCII terminal (emacs) and a graphical XWindow (emacs &) (full mouse support) too. It can also handled by key strokes. EMACS and the similar Xemacs need some bandwidth in use and a good DSL connection is strongly recommended.

XEDIT (xedit &) is a small, fast graphical editor and does not need much bandwidth.

Nano (nano) - a non-graphical editor and usefull for scripts - comes with a command menue which is comfortable for beginners.

“Joe's Own Editor” (joe) is a further non-graphical editor and usefull for scripts.

VI (vi) is a very small editor with some special features but with a tricky handling by key strokes only. From that it is not advisable for beginners.

For all these editors manuals and tutorials are available in the world wide web, e.g.: emacs, Xedit, Nano, joe, vi.

Some editors handle UNIX/Linux ASCII files easily, correctly and for free, e.g. notepad++ (GPL license), EditPad Lite (free for non-commercial use).

Macintosh user can use editor “Text” for UNIX/Linux ASCII files. “Text” is pre-installed at Macintosh computers.