JMU CS Wiki

“stu” is a server running Linux that is available to all students in the JMU Computer Science Department.

You can login to “stu” using an SSH client (and the host name stu.cs.jmu.edu). All modern operating systems (including Windows 10) should come with command-line SSH client (usually named ssh). GUI SSH clients are also available, but add little. To log in, type the following in a terminal/cmd window, replacing <eid> with your JMU username.

  ssh <eid>@stu.cs.jmu.edu

Enter your password when prompted. Nothing will appear on the screen so type carefully!

You can avoid the need to authenticate yourself (with your eID and password) each time you login using a public/private key pair. This is particularly useful when using another protocol (e.g., Subversion or Git) on top of SSH.

To log into a specific lab computer you first login to stu as normal and then you use “ssh L[room_number][computer_number]” (fill in the information in the brackets without the brackets).

You can transfer files to “stu” using an SCP client (and the host name stu.cs.jmu.edu). Modern operating systems include a command-line scp client named scp. See [http://www.hypexr.org/linux_scp_help.php|this article]] for some usage examples. There are also GUI clients available that work like a file explorer. Options include WinSCP and Cyberduck.

If you want a more seamless experience or the ability to edit files on “stu” using a local editor like Eclipse or VS Code, you can mount your home folder locally. The department strongly discourages the use of editor-specific plugins such as “Visual Studio Code Remote” for performance and security reasons, and students found using these extensions may be asked to stop.

You (should) have a directory named www in your home directory. Any file that you put in that directory will be available to the public as a “web page” (i.e., it will be served in response to an HTTP GET request) from the server w3stu.cs.jmu.edu under your e-ID.

For example, if Prof. Fakename (i.e., fakenazx) put a file named test.html in her www directory it would be accessible to the public using the URL as w3stu.cs.jmu.edu/fakenazx/test.html.

Of course, the HTTP server must have permission to read the file. So, the file must be world-readable.