Mounting Stanford AFS Ubuntu

Stanford uses AFS to host filesystem space for students. Stanford also uses Kerberos for authentication. The combination of the two can be maddening to work with remotely.

These directions are to for people with running Ubuntu who would like to mount the Stanford afs to access files as if they were local. Restating 1nfty's directions:

1. Install kerberos and afs related components
   sudo apt-get install krb5-user krb5-clients openafs-krb5 openafs-client
2. Make sure /afs exists. If not, create it.
3. Reboot to find /afs directory filled with pointers to afs volumes all over the world.
4. Authenticate through kerberos and obtain AFS token by sequentially running
   kinit
   aklog
5. Make soft link of your user directory to somewhere more convenient
   ln -s /afs/ir.stanford.edu/[path_to_afs_home_directory] ~/afs

These directions did not work straight out of the box for me. I'm pretty sure Narasimham's directions were all I needed, but I'm not sure. Stanford's directions were pretty bloated and I couldn't make much sense of them. If(When) I have to go through the procedure again, then I'll more thoroughly document the procedure and clean this post up.

Once everything is all set up, don't forget to authenticate before actually trying to access your files:

kinit
aklog

Adding a printer ubuntu

Problem is that nobody remembers the root password, which the system prompts you for upon selecting add printer in either the printers gui or localhost:631

The way around this was to run sudo system-config-printer from the command line...

Remote desktop with x11 vnc

x11 vnc allows for remote desktop access

It's a simple system to use:

• ssh into the computer you would like to remotely access.
• run x11vnc on the remote computer
• it should print out something like: "The VNC desktop is:      <remote_host>:<display number>
• on your local computer, run vncviewer <remote_host>:<display number>

This guy developed x11vnc.

Setting up user accounts on ubuntu

Creating an account:
useradd -m <username>

Don't forget the -m!!!!! or they won't have a home folder and hence desktop and it will be very confusing!

Change shell to bash
chsh -s /bin/bash <username>

Man, there are so many little details under the hood of Ubuntu that you can miss! Yes, it gives you a lot of control, but the learning curve is super steep!