Access

A U-System account is available to any UA employee or student. Learn more about the different types of accounts and interfaces at Account Descriptions.

Your Account

To access the U-System, you use the Account Program to request a Menu/Shell account in addition to your email account. Account holders may select between an easy-to-use Menu interface (which allows access to Pine mail, SABIO, and News access), or a standard Unix Shell interface (which also lets you run the Pine email application).

Account Password

Users have a single password common to all UITS systems on which they have accounts (including the email server). To change your password, you use the UA NetID system.

Connecting

Users connect to u.arizona.edu using SSH software. For security reasons, telnet, rlogin and ftp are not allowed, although telnet is permitted from the UITS modem bank (618-3190).

The SSH software is site-licensed and can be downloaded for free.

To use SSH from a Unix or Linux session, enter the command
ssh u.arizona.edu
There are detailed instructions for using SSH on a Mac.
There are detailed instructions for using SSH on a PC.
To use the web-based SSH client with your web browser (your browser must be Java-enabled), connect to the URL
http://u.arizona.edu
For detailed steps with screen shots see Web-based SSH
Using Xwin or Xwin32 with SSH there is a 3- or 4-step process
1. Launch Xwin on your PC
  - Click on Xwin32 version 5.0 and select xconfig
  - A new window pops up with several options:
    - Security: this is a list of hosts allowed to DISPLAY graphics
    - Sessions: add as many Xhost sessions as you want
    - Window: set mode to multiple
    - DISPLAY: this is usually the IP number of your local machine
    - Input: set it to automatic
    - Font: your favorite choice
  - Once you have added your Xhost and created your session, click on Xwin32. No window is created but Xwin32 will be running
2. Connect to u.arizona.edu using an SSH client
3. Add an Xhost in your Xwin client, if not already there
4. SSH will configure the DISPLAY variable automatically but you may want to manually set it in the SSH window so that you do not "tunnel" your application because this can cause a performance degradation
You should be able to display graphics using Xwin/SSH
Using the modem bank
1. connect to the modem bank by dialing 618-3190
2. at the prompt enter
  telnet u.arizona.edu

Using Your Account for the First Time

You will be presented with four interface choices:

Use a Menu interface on u.arizona.edu for this and all future sessions.
Choose to use the Menu interface for this session only. You'll be given this selection process again the next time you log in.
Use a Shell (command-driven) interface for this and all future sessions.
Choose to use the Shell interface for this session only. You'll be given this selection process again the next time you log in.

If you are using your U-Account for a webpage, here is a flowchart of the steps.

The default shell (for Shell-interface users) is tcsh.

Here are instructions for changing between the Menu and Shell interfaces.

Transferring Files to U-System from Unix*

*Techniques for copying files from a PC or Mac are described in the above Mac and PC links.

Since ftp to the U-System is disabled, use the commands scp and sftp (which come with SSH).

To copy a file from a remote host to the U-System use the following format:
scp userid@remote.host:/path/to/file/filename path/in/newshell
For example:
scp johndoe@u.arizona.edu:/scratch/johndoe/myfile myfile
Note: "userid@" is only required when the userid differs between hosts.
To copy a directory from the U-System to a remote host:
scp -r mydir johndoe@u.arizona.edu:/home/u6/johndoe