CS accounts

This page gives information about logging into and using the CS server (cs.indstate.edu).

Logging In

The CS server is a Linux server. The primary ways you will login to the server is either (a) with a terminal (aka shell) that allows you to type text commands, or (b) with sftp to transfer files between your computer and the server. In either case, you need a username (aka login) and password. There are two types of accounts on the system - ISU portal accounts, and local accounts.

ISU Portal Accounts

Any student/faculty/staff who is involved in CS courses or programs (enrolled in a course, teaching a course, etc.) can login to cs.indstate.edu using their full ISU email address and portal password. The first time you login to the system, an account is created on the system that you can use. It will set your home directory on the system to /home/SID@isuad.indstate.edu/ where SID is your portal id (aka sycamore id - for students it is the part before the @sycamores in your email address). After logging in, you can run the pwd command to see this.

Local Accounts

Some users will have accounts on the CS server that are not tied to their ISU portal accounts. For example, CS faculty have local accounts, and a number of users of the server prior to 2025 have local accounts. These are accounts with username and password that were created just on the server (the ability to login to the server with ISU portal credentials was added in 2025).

Student Use and Class Account

For courses that are currently being offered, if the course uses the server, a class account is created that the instructor of the course can use if they like. This is explained with two examples: CS 151 Intro to Computer Science, and CS 473/573 Computer Networks.

Course Account

An account on the system is created where files for the class can be kept that are to be shared with the students. For CS 151, the account created has username cs151. For CS 473/573, a single account, cs473, is created that is to be used for both courses.

The course account is created with a ~/private directory that is not accessible to other users. The class list (aka roster) of students and their accounts is put into this directory (classlist_brief.csv with the most important information for each student, and classlist_full.csv with more information). The instructor could keep other files in this private directory that is meant to be private (e.g., model solutions or grading information).

Student Use

For students who are currently enrolled in a CS course that uses the server, the first time you login to the system with your ISU portal account, a directory should be created within your account for the course. For example, students in CS 151 will have a directory cs151, and students in CS 473/573 will have a directory cs473.

Permissions are set on the system so that instructors of the course have read access to the files within student's course directories for their courses. The instructor for CS 151 will have read access to the cs151 directories of the students enrolled in CS 151; the instructor for CS 473/573 will have read access to the cs473 directories of the students enrolled in CS 473/573; etc. The instructor of the course might have the students submit their work on the server within these directories. Each instructor can choose how they would like to do this.