UNIX
9.0 Maintaining Your Account
Although using the many UNIX utilities may be more appealing than learning
proper maintenance habits, the former cannot be accomplished without a certain
amount of the latter. Good housekeeping habits, when applied to your account,
will ensure reliable performance and integrity of stored data.
9.1 Saving Your Work
One lesson that many users learn the hard way is the importance of saving
their work frequently. Computer systems may "crash," or freeze
without notice. The best defense is to remember to save data frequently.
When deciding how often to save your work, consider how much data you would
not mind having to re-enter. Some utilities (such as many editors) automatically
save in a temporary file the data being used or entered. However, even these
cannot be relied upon; only you can ensure the safety of your data.
9.2 Storage Space ("Quotas")
Another concern on many computer systems is disk drive usage. (All permanent
data storage is on disk drives.) With many users on one system, unused disk
space often becomes scarce. To cope with this problem, most UNIX systems
limit the disk space that each person may use. These limits are called quotas.
The quota utility will report your disk use in relation to your
quota. Used without flags (type quota and press RETURN), quota
prints whether or not you are over your disk-usage limit. For more information,
add the -v flag (for verbose operation).
There is a 5mb quota for students on both the Mail server and Condor. If you go beyond your quota, your account will be locked and you will have to work with the ITS staff to get your account unlocked.
9.3 System Backups
The central UNIX systems are backed up on a continuous schedule without
any disruption of service. If you need to have a file or files recovered,
contact D.Splendorio x2763 or D.McElroy x2149.
