Getting started with the Media Center's server and user account
(Last updated: 01/30/2002)
Table of Contents
This document is intended for new users of the Media
Center servers and services. Services provided by the Media
Center (e.g., online course materials and
file backup, etc.) are supplementary to those
by the Offfice of
the Information Technology (OIT).
The Media Center operates two servers and more than thirty desktop computers in
its digital language lab. Those servers and desktop computers are
networked together as the FORLANG domain, in which the two servers are named panda and mcla,
respectively. In the rest of the document, we will refer to the two
servers as FORLANG server(s).
The FORLANG servers
are file-sharing and web-publishing servers
running Windows 2000. To have
access to the protected areas on the servers, you need to obtain
either an individual or shared class account (henceforth
FORLANG (user) account).
A user account on the Media Center's FORLANG server is different from your
student
account or faculty/staff
account provided by OIT.
A FORLANG user account entitles you to a number
of benefits:
- You may use a larger server disk
space (as compared to your account on frank.mtsu.edu) to securely store your digital information over the network. A
folder or directory on the FORLANG server will be assigned to you that can be accessed from
your office computer as a remote disk
drive or on the Internet using FTP. Your data will be also backed up
weekly to tape;
- remotely access and share your files from off-campus locations;
- publish your web pages; and
- access online digitized course materials stored on the FORLANG
servers.
Faculty and staff and graduates students of the Department of
Foreign Languages and Literatures at MTSU are eligible to have
individual accounts on the FORLANG server. Please contact Dr. Jun Da
at (615) 898-2279 or jda@mtsu.edu to have your account set up.
Undergraduate students at MTSU taking foreign language or related
classes can obtain a shared class account to access certain
restricted areas (e.g., online course materials) on the server.
Shared class account can be obtained from the language lab in
BDA303A. You need to present your Student ID to obtain the account
information.
This section is intended for users with individual accounts on
the FORLANG server (i.e., faculty, staff and graduate students in
the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at MTSU).
Depending on your status, your file-sharing folder may be located
in the /faculty, /adjunct or /graduate folder on the
panda server. You can
access your data files on the server in two ways:
- From your office computer:
Use Network Neighborhood or Windows Explorer on a Windows
system; or
- From other on-campus or off-campus locations:
Use FTP (File Transfer Protocol) from other on-campus or off-campus locations.
From your office computer
In order to access your folder from the Network Neighborhood or
Windows Explorer on your Windows system, you first need to configure
your PC to join the FORLANG domain. Please contact Dr.
Jun Da for help with the configuration.
- Once your PC is in the FORLANG domain, you will find panda and
mcla listed as one of the server machines in the FORLANG domain of the
Network Neighborhood on your PC.
- You can also type \\panda in
the address box of your Windows Explorer or in the address box
of your web browser and then navigate to your specific share
folder.
- You can also mount the panda server as a logical drive on
your PC from the Windows Explorer. From your Windows
Explorer window, click on Tools > Map Network Drive.
Assign a drive letter and type in \\panda\faculty
or \\panda\adjunct
or \\panda\graduate
and click OK. The server share folder will now appear
as another drive on your computer. You can access your
files, modify them, and save them just as you would to any other
local drive on your computer. When you initially map the drive,
you can even set it to automatically map the drive every time
you log in to your computer. You can map additional share
folders if you need to.
From other on-campus or off-campus locations
You can access your folder from remote locations using any FTP client software. There
are numerous FTP software packages available such as WS-FTP
(for Windows users). You can also use the built-in FTP function of Internet
Explorer or My Network Places on Windows2000.
The following information is what you need to establish an ftp
connection:
Note that whenever you ftp to your folder, your username has to
contain the prefix forlang\
(including the backward slash). For example,
if your username is foo, then you use
forlang\foo as your login
username. Depending on your status, you need to use /faculty,
/adjunct or
/grad as the default directory name. Please use a forward slash
(/) in
front of the directory name and not leave the directory name blank.
Note that when you download a file from the server to your computer and make changes, you
will need to upload it back to the server if you want the updated
file saved to the server. Otherwise, the changes will only be on
the copy you downloaded to your own computer.
By default, everyone's file-sharing folder is fully controlled
and accessible by
its owner and nobody else, except the domain administrators and the
SYSTEM account.
Files stored on the servers are backed up onto a tape on a weekly basis.
To back up files on your office computer, simply copy and paste them
onto your server folder.
First-time users
When you obtain your new account, you will be given a user name and a default password.
It is recommended that you change your password as soon as possible.
On a PC (running either Windows95/98/NT/2000):
- First, make sure your computer has joined the FORLANG domain. If you are not sure,
contact Dr. Jun Da for help. If your
computer is not in the FORLANG domain, you will not be able to change your password.
- In the login window, type in your username and default
password first and click on OK. If this is the first time you
login or your password has been reset to the default by the
system administrator, a new window will pop up which asks
you to choose a new password. Follow the instruction on the
screen to change your password.
Existing users
- If you are using Windows2000, you can use the Task Manager.
Simply press CTL+ALT+Del keys at the same time and choose
'Change Password' when the Task Manager windows pops up. Follow
the onscreen instruction to complete the process.
Net address:
Windows Network Neighborhood/My Network Places:
General information about the Media Center can be found at http://mcla.mtsu.edu.
You can contact us by using this contact
form or send email directly to help@forlang.mtsu.edu |
