1 Introduction to CentOS Marking

The Checking Program that verifies your CentOS work resides on the Course Linux Server, but your work is on your CentOS Virtual Machine. To mark your work, we need to transfer information from your CentOS VM to the CLS for marking.

To do this, there is a Fetch program that you must download and use on your CentOS Virtual Machine to copy information from your CentOS Virtual Machine to your account on the CLS so that the Checking Program can check it on the CLS.

Once the Fetch program has transferred this information from your CentOS Virtual Machine to the CLS, you can run the Checking Program on the CLS to check what is saved there. When you make changes on your CentOS Virtual Machine, you need to run the Fetch program again on CentOS to update the saved files on the CLS.

Simply running the Checking Program on the CLS will not update the saved files on the CLS. You must run the Fetch program on your CentOS VM when you make changes there.

As a convenience, the Fetch program not only transfers information from your CentOS VM to the CLS for marking, it also runs the Checking Program on the CLS for you.

2 Part I - Download the Fetch Program into CentOS

• Do all the following steps on your CentOS Virtual Machine.
• Read through the whole sequence before you start typing anything.
• An example of what to type is given below the descriptions that follow.
• You only need to download this Fetch program once per assignment.
• You can run the downloaded Fetch program as many times as you like.

If you have created your personal sysadmin account, choose the first method. If you only have a root account, choose the second method.

$ whoami ; hostname ; pwd
abcd0001                                 # your userid, not abcd0001
abcd0001                                 # your userid, not abcd0001
/home/abcd0001/CST0001-14F/Assignments/assignment99

$ url=http://teaching.idallen.com/cst0001/14f/notes/data/assignment99do.sh
[... make sure you scroll right to read the full web URL above ...]

$ curl -A mozilla "$url" >do.sh
[... various download statistics print here ...]

$ file do.sh
do.sh: POSIX shell script text executable 

# whoami ; hostname ; pwd
root
abcd0001                                 # your userid, not abcd0001
/root/CST0001-14F/Assignments/assignment99

# url=http://teaching.idallen.com/cst0001/14f/notes/data/assignment99do.sh
[... make sure you scroll right to read the full web URL above ...]

# curl -A mozilla "$url" >do.sh
[... various download statistics print here ...]

$ file do.sh
do.sh: POSIX shell script text executable 

3 Part II - Verify the Fetch Program

1. Make sure you are in the base directory for the assignment where you downloaded the do.sh program for this assignment.

2. Read and verify that the text file do.sh is a short shell script that contains a URL for the Fetch program with the current assignment number in it.

3. If you read things such as Error 404 - page not found in the do.sh file then fix your typing mistakes and try again.

Here is an example for course CST0001 and assignment number 99 (you must use your actual course and assignment numbers):

$ file do.sh
do.sh: POSIX shell script text executable 

$ fgrep 'fetch.sh' do.sh
    http://"$GO"/cst0001/14f/notes/data/assignment99fetch.sh

If file doesn’t say it’s a shell script, or the fgrep does not find the notes/data URL for the current course and assignment number in the do.sh file:

1. Read the do.sh file to see if there are any errors that need fixing. The usual cause is typing mistakes in the URL. Do not use cst0001 or assignment99; use the real values.
2. Fix the errors and re-run the Part I and II until you get a do.sh file containing the correct fetch shell script for your course and assignment number.

You only need to download this do.sh Fetch program once per assignment.

4 Part III - Run the do.sh Fetch Program

• You must have a verified copy of the do.sh Fetch program for the current assignment in your CentOS base directory to continue with this section.
• Your current directory must be the CentOS assignment base directory.
• You must run the do.sh script as root with the USER environment variable set to your own CLS account userid, as shown below.
• Failure to read all the words will lock your account out of the CLS.

If you have created your personal sysadmin account and enabled the sudo command, choose the first method. If you only have a root account, or if you don’t have sudo working, choose the second method.

$ whoami
abcd0001

$ file do.sh
do.sh: POSIX shell script text executable 

$ sudo USER=abcd0001 sh do.sh     # use your *own* userid *not* abcd0001

# whoami
root

# file do.sh
do.sh: POSIX shell script text executable 

# USER=abcd0001 sh do.sh          # use your *own* userid *not* abcd0001

5 Part IV - Answering The Fetch Program

If you see errors when you run the do.sh script, you probably skipped over Part II above. Go back and verify the script. You must have a verified script before you can run it.

When you successfully run the do.sh script that calls the Fetch program, it will look similar to the text below and you will need to answer two questions:

1. If you are on-campus, you may answer y to use the CLS local IP address instead of the public address.

2. You will need to enter your CLS password to allow the Fetch program to transfer information from CentOS to your account on the CLS for marking.

Here is an example for course CST0001 and assignment number 99 (you must use your actual course, assignment, and userid values):

# USER=abcd0001 sh do.sh
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
abcd0001: FETCH version 3.  Connecting to CLS as USER='abcd0001' using ssh
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
abcd0001: Use local Algonquin IP cst0001-alg.idallen.ca [y/N/?]? n
abcd0001: Please wait; using ssh to connect to user 'abcd0001' on cst0001.idallen.ca ...
*** COURSE LINUX SERVER ***
abcd0001@cst0001.idallen.ca's password:         # enter your CLS password
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
idallen-ubuntu assignment99fetch_server.sh version 8 run by abcd0001.
Please wait; collecting info from abcd0001 Virtual Machine
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
VM files collected into CST0001-14F/Assignments/assignment99/abcd0001.tar.bz on CLS.
Now running checking program for abcd0001 on CLS:
[... checking program output appears here ...]

6 Part V - Final Check and Submit

Summary: Do some tasks, then run the Fetch and checking program to verify your work as you go. You can run the Fetch and checking program as often as you want. When you have the best mark, upload the marks file to Blackboard.

Since I also do manual marking of student assignments, your final mark may not be the same as the mark submitted using the current version of the Checking Program. I do not guarantee that any version of the Checking Program will find all the errors in your work. Complete your assignments according to the specifications, not according to the incomplete set of the mistakes detected by the Checking Program.

When you are done with your assignment and want to submit your marks, you need to run the checking program one last time on the CLS (not from CentOS) and submit the output file from the CLS, as follows:

Do all this on the Course Linux Server when you are ready to submit:

1. Log in to the CLS. Go to your assignment base directory on the CLS.

2. There is a Checking Program named assignmentNNcheck in the assignment Source Directory on the CLS, where NN is replaced by your current assignment number, e.g. assignment99check for Assignment 99. Create a Symbolic Link to this program named check under your assignment base directory on the CLS so that you can easily run the program to check your work and assign your work a mark on the CLS. Note: You can create a symbolic link to this executable program but you do not have permission to read or copy the program file.

3. Execute the above “check” program on the CLS using its symbolic link. (Review the Search Path notes if you forget how to run a program by pathname from the command line.) This program will check your fetched CentOS work from the latest tar archive, assign you a mark, and display the output on your screen. (You may want to paginate the long output so you can read all of it.)

   You may run the check program as many times as you wish, to correct mistakes and get the best mark. Some task sections require you to finish the whole section before running the checking program at the end; you may not always be able to run the checking program successfully after every single task step.

Remember: The checking program run on the CLS does not fetch new files to the CLS from your CentOS VM. You must run the Fetch program on your CentOS VM to update the tar archive on the CLS so that the checking program can mark the latest CentOS information.

4. When you are done with checking your assignment, and you like what you see on your screen, redirect the output of the Checking Program into the text file assignmentNN.txt under your assignment base directory on the CLS, where NN is replaced by your current assignment number, e.g. assignment99.txt for Assignment 99. Use the exact name in your assignment base directory. Case (upper/lower case letters) matters. Be absolutely accurate, as if your marks depended on it.
   • Do not edit the output file. Submit it exactly as given.
   • Make sure the file actually contains the output of the checking program!
   • The file should contain near the bottom a line starting with: YOUR MARK for
   • Really! MAKE SURE THE FILE HAS YOUR MARKS IN IT!
5. Transfer the above assignmentNN.txt file from the CLS to your local computer and verify that the file still contains all the output from the checking program. Do not edit this file! No empty files, please! Edited or damaged files will not be marked. You may want to refer to your File Transfer notes.
   • Do not edit the output file. Submit it exactly as given.
   • Make sure the file actually contains the output of the checking program!
   • The file should contain near the bottom a line starting with: YOUR MARK for
   • Really! MAKE SURE THE FILE HAS YOUR MARKS IN IT!
6. Upload the assignmentNN.txt file from your local computer to the correct Assignment area on Blackboard (with the exact name) before the due date:
   1. On your local computer use a web browser to log in to Blackboard and go to the Blackboard page for this course.
   2. Go to the Blackboard Assignments area for the course, in the left side-bar menu, and find the current assignment.
   3. Under Assignments, click on the underlined assignmentNN link for this assignment.
      1. If this is your first upload, the Upload Assignment page will open directly; skip the next sentence.
      2. If you have already uploaded previously, the Review Submission History page will be open and you must use the Start New button at the bottom of the page to get to the Upload Assignment page.
   4. On the Upload Assignment page, scroll down and beside Attach File use Browse My Computer to find and attach your assignment file from your local computer. Make sure the assignment file has the correct name on your local computer before you attach it.
   5. After you have attached the file on the Upload Assignment page, scroll down to the bottom of the page and use the Submit button to actually upload your attached assignment file to Blackboard.

   Use only Attach File on the Upload Assignment page. Do not enter any text into the Text Submission or Comments boxes on Blackboard; I do not read them. Use only the Attach File section followed by the Submit button. If you need to comment on any assignment submission, send me EMail.

   You can revise and upload the file more than once using the Start New button on the Review Submission History page to open a new Upload Assignment page. I only look at the most recent submission.

   You must upload the file with the correct name from your local computer; you cannot correct the name as you upload it to Blackboard.

7. Verify that Blackboard has received your submission: After using the Submit button, you will see a page titled Review Submission History that will show all your uploaded submissions for this assignment. Each of your submissions is called an Attempt on this page. A drop-down list of all your attempts is available.
   1. Verify that your latest Attempt has the correct 16-character, lower-case file name under the SUBMISSION heading.
   2. The one file name must be the only thing under the SUBMISSION heading. Only the one file name is allowed.
   3. No COMMENTS heading should be visible on the page. Do not enter any comments when you upload an assignment.
   4. Save a screen capture of the Review Submission History page on your local computer, showing the single uploaded file name listed under SUBMISSION. If you want to claim that you uploaded the file and Blackboard lost it, you will need this screen capture to prove that you actually uploaded the file. (To date, Blackboard has never lost an uploaded file.)

   You will also see the Review Submission History page any time you already have an assignment attempt uploaded and you click on the underlined assignmentNN link. You can use the Start New button on this page to re-upload your assignment as many times as you like.

   You cannot delete an assignment attempt, but you can always upload a new version. I only mark the latest version.

8. Your instructor may also mark files in your directory in your CLS account after the due date. Leave everything there on the CLS. Do not delete any assignment work from the CLS until after the term is over!

• I do not accept any assignment submissions by EMail. Use only the Blackboard Attach File. No word processor documents. Plain Text only.

• Use the exact file name given above. Upload only one single file of Linux-format plain text, not HTML, not RTF, not MSWord. No fonts, no word-processing. Linux plain text only.

• NO EMAIL, WORD PROCESSOR, PDF, RTF, or HTML DOCUMENTS ACCEPTED.

• No marks are awarded for submitting under the wrong assignment number or for using the wrong file name. Use the exact 16-character, lower-case name given above.

• WARNING: Some inattentive students don’t read all these words. Don’t make that mistake! Be exact.

READ ALL THE WORDS. OH PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE READ ALL THE WORDS!