Resources
Welcome to CCIS
Here are the tools you'll need to get started using our computing environment.
1. Get an active CCIS account.
First, drop by 310 West Village H (WVH) and pick up an account form or print out and submit this text version. You'll need to follow the directions on this form to perform the on-line portion of the application process. Once you've completed that step, you can turn in your signed (in pen) form in 310 WVH. Please be sure to read the Appropriate Use statement on the back of the form before you sign it, this is important information.
If you've already gone through the account application process, but can't remember your password, please log in to any of our UNIX workstations using username "account" password "account" and choose option #3.
2. Use a secure connection to CCIS.
If you plan to access your account from home or anywhere outside the College, we ask that you do so over a secure connection. The easiest way to establish a secure connection is to use Secure Shell (SSH). SSH will allow you to create secure interactive sessions (like Telnet), secure tunnels for email handling, and perform secure file transfers (like ftp). Many of our students connect to login.ccs.neu.edu using SSH, but all of our UNIX machines provide both SSH (protocol 1.x and 2.x) services.
If you are using a Microsoft Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP computer...
• Download the SSH Communications' Windows SSH client (5.3MB, non-commercial client).
Some other win32 clients (which we do not provide) include:
• SecureCRT and SecureFX clients by Van Dyke Technologies. (highly recommended, but commercial). They offer educational pricing on these products.
• putty (free and it fits on a floppy).
• ttssh, an extension for TeraTerm (free).
• cygwin openssh port (command-line based for use in scripts, etc. free).
If you are using an OpenBSD/FreeBSD/NetBSD computer...
• download OpenSSH here.
If you are using a Linux computer...
• download Portable OpenSSH.
If you are using a Macintosh computer...
• MacOS X users can use the ssh program from a terminal window:
ssh -l < login > < host >
If you don't want to or can't install an SSH client locally...
We have set up a Java-based client that will work with most current web browsers today. Please point your web browser at http://login.ccs.neu.edu to access this applet.
3. Read (and send) email
Recently created CCIS accounts (after late August 2007) use our new mail infrastructure, Zimbra. You can access your CCIS email over the web at https://zimbra.ccs.neu.edu/. (You can also access zimbra.ccs.neu.edu as an IMAP and SMTP server to read and send your mail with a traditional mail client, but the web interface provides fast search, tagging, and calendaring.)
If your account was created before about August 27, 2007, then you're using our traditional mail infrastructure. We have a collection of documents available describing how to configure various mail clients to talk to our older mail servers. Or you can connect to login.ccs.neu.edu as described above and use the command-line pine mail command to read your mail; it's not very pretty, but it's easy to use.
4. Dial in directly to CCIS, Use our Wireless Network or Connect to our Community ports
The College of Computer and Information Science offers several ways to connect to our network. CCIS majors/graduate students, faculty and staff without other network connections/ISPs can use our dial in service. CCIS majors/graduate students, faculty and staff with ethernet or wireless-enabled laptops can connect to our wireless network or our community ports when in CCIS areas. Information on using these services can be found in our Nomad network HOWTO documentation
5. Check out our collection of HOWTO Documents
Be sure to look at our HOWTO document collection for small instruction manuals on a variety of CCIS-related subjects