Each member of the current Simon's Rock community has a Simon's Rock account. This account allows you to check your email, use several web-based applications, store files, publish your own web pages, backup important files, set up mailing lists, and log on to a minimal shell account on a Debian GNU/Linux system known as minerva. If you are off-campus and wish to connect to dial up to the Simon's Rock network, you will use this account as well.
All alumni accounts will be kept for one year after leaving Simon's Rock. After a year an email will be sent asking if you still wish to keep your account. Non-active accounts will be disabled at this time. There is no guarantee that alumni accounts will be kept indefinitely, but attempts will be made to keep active accounts for as long as they are needed.
Faculty and staff who retire from Simon's Rock are guaranteed accounts. Other former faculty and staff may request to keep their accounts; requests will be evaluated by Computer & Media Services. By default former faculty and staff accounts will be terminated periodically if inactive for more than a month.
It is important that you choose a good, secure password. A good password is one which no one else knows or can guess but that you can remember so you won't have to write it down. It is at least eight characters and consists of a mixture of lowercase and uppercase letters and numbers or other characters. A good password is not based on a name, birthday, or dictionary word.
To change your password, go to https://secure.simons-rock.edu/admin/changepass.html.
Nope. We never know what your password is. If you don't know your password, you can stop by our office and have someone reset it for you. Please bring your Simon's Rock ID card. If you are off-campus, you may call. Please try your password several times before asking us to reset it, and check to make sure you do not have the Caps Lock key on by accident.
minerva is the primary user account server. You must have an SSH (not Telnet) client to connect to your minerva shell account. On minerva you may check your email using pine, talk to other users, and do many other things. For help at any time, type help. time, type help for help. Full shell accounts (bash, tcsh) may be requested by emailing action.
When connecting to minerva and other such computers, you must use SSH (secure shell) rather than telnet. Both telnet and SSH are terminal emulation protocols. Unlike telnet which is considered insecure, SSH encrypts all data, including passwords, so that your traffic cannot be intercepted (sniffed) by other network users.
There are a number of SSH clients available, including NiftyTelnet SSH for the Macintosh, PuTTY and TeraTerm Pro SSH for Windows, and OpenSSH for UNIX-variant operating systems. In Mac OS X, the command ssh is available in the Terminal application by default, or you may which to install JellyfiSSH. (The Terminal application is located in the Utilities folder in Applications; open the Terminal application and type ssh minerva.simons-rock.edu).
Much of this software may be found on the CMS software website at http://cms.simons-rock.edu/software/. Alternatively, there is a web-based Java SSH client that you can use at http://www.simons-rock.edu/ssh/.
Once you have downloaded nifty.sit, you may need to double-click on it to expand the .sit file. This should create a Folder named niftytelnet-1.1-ssh-r3 Folder which contains the application Nifty Telnet 1.1 SSH r3. The first time you run this application you will need to click on the Edit... button and modify three things. In the Shortcut Name: field type minerva. For Host Name: type minerva.simons-rock.edu. From the Protocol: pull-down menu, select SSH-Blowfish. You may wish to specify your User Name: as well. Click OK. Now NiftyTelnet SSH is all set up.
To use NiftyTelnet SSH, simply click the Connect button. The first time you will be presented with a Host Identification Alert window. Click the Accept&Save Button. Type in your user name and password when prompted, and select Login (or just hit Return).
Download putty.exe and double-click on the icon of the program you have downloaded. The first time you run this application, you will need to type 22 under Port. Make sure you check the SSH button under Protocol:.
Each time you run PuTTY, you will need to type minerva.simons-rock.edu (or simply minerva if you are on campus) under Host Name (or IP address). Click on the Open button to connect. The first time you will be presented with a Putty Security Alert; click OK. Type in your user name and password when prompted.
Yes. It's 20 megabytes. If you need more disk space, send email to action.
Yes. If you are logged on to minerva for three hours or for forty-five minutes without activity, you will be automatically logged out and will need to wait a few minutes to reconnect.