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How to be Smarter than an ANNEX Box

It is a jungle out there! You walk into terminal rooms and see some terminals that look busy, some that just have a little box in the upper left corner, and some that have pictures of someone in a cage saying, "Let me outta here!"

Before the introduction of annex boxes, all terminals were ported to a particular system machine. This meant that to log onto the system, someone using a terminal was required to login through the port machine, and if that machine was down that terminal could not communicate to the network. Today, terminals in the Civil, Mechanical and Grissom buildings are connected to the network via annex boxes which connects the terminal to the network rather than to a single machine, and a user can login to a system machine of their choice. Jeff Schwab, ECN network services manager, has done an extensive rewrite of the annex software to make it compatible with the ECN system and reduce "CRASHING" of the annex box connections.

Currently, the most common problem users are having with terminals on annex boxes is reactivating the prompt when the previous user has not returned the screen to "ready-for-a-new- user-mode" after completing their work. To accomplish this you have to KNOW HOW TO GET A LOGIN PROMPT! The new annex software prompt shows the annex BOX and PORT. If the screen on the terminal you are using is not presenting this prompt, try the following:

1. type "return" (in case someone did a "shift-clear")
2. make sure the CAP LOCK key is off, the terminal is turned on, and the dim/bright switch is turned clockwise.
3. type "control-q" (in case someone did a "control-s")
4. type "control-]" to get the annex prompt
   • type "jobs"
   • either type "fg" /or "kill 1" (kills job 1) or "rlogin machine"

Your goal is to get the "anxS# Port?: " prompt to appear on the screen! (S=site, #=annex box number, ?=port number)

If you try to login and get a message that says "too many open files"; that is an annex box-ism meaning that the 2 logins have been used up on that terminal. You need to type: "control-]" (possibly multiple times) to get the annex prompt.

                 Annex anxS# Port ?:
         then type jobs ->
                 Annex anxS# Port ?: jobs
         it will show
                 1 rlogin...
                 2 rlogin...
         and then you type :
                 Annex anxS# Port ?: kill 1
                 Annex anxS# Port ?: kill 2

         Then there will be no login  jobs  tying  up  the  annex
         box...

If you type your login name and get "Invalid Argument" just try logging in again. DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ!!

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