Updated: 2017-02-12 03:38 EST

1 Due Date and DeliverablesIndexup to index

Do not print this assignment on paper!

WARNING: Some inattentive students upload Assignment #7 into the Assignment #6 upload area. Don’t make that mistake! Be exact.

2 Purpose of this AssignmentIndexup to index

Do not print this assignment on paper! On paper, you cannot follow any of the hyperlink URLs that lead you to hints and course notes relevant to answering a question.

This assignment is based on your weekly Class Notes.

  1. Create your shell start-up files: .bash_profile and .bashrc
  2. Know the values of key shell environment variables.
  3. Work with your shell search PATH.
  4. Study shell quoting and fix the quoting in a broken shell script.
  5. Create hard links and soft (symbolic) links.
  6. Examine how hard links work with disk usage.

Remember to READ ALL THE WORDS to work effectively and not waste time.

3 Introduction and OverviewIndexup to index

This is an overview of how you are expected to complete this assignment. Read all the words before you start working.

For full marks, follow these directions exactly.

  1. Complete the Tasks listed below.
  2. Verify your own work before running the Checking Program.
  3. Run the Checking Program to help you find errors.
  4. Submit the output of the Checking Program to Blackboard before the due date.
  5. READ ALL THE WORDS to work effectively and not waste time.

You will create file system structure in your CLS HOME directory containing various directories and files. You can use the Checking Program to check your work as you do the tasks.

You can check your work with the Checking Program as often as you like before you submit your final mark. Some task sections below require you to finish the whole section before running the Checking Program; you may not always be able to run the Checking Program successfully after every single task step.

When you are finished the tasks, leave the files and directories in place on the CLS as part of your deliverables. Do not delete any assignment work until after the term is over!

Assignments may be re-marked at any time on the CLS; you must have your term work available on the CLS right until term end.

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.

3.1 The Source DirectoryIndexup to index

All references to the Source Directory below are to the CLS directory ~idallen/cst8207/16w/assignment07/ and that name starts with a tilde character ~ followed by a user name with no intervening slash. The leading tilde indicates to the shell that the pathname starts with the HOME directory of the account idallen (seven letters).

You do not have permission to list the names of all the files in the Source Directory, but you can access any files whose names you already know.

3.2 Searching the course notes on the CLSIndexup to index

All course notes are available on the Internet and also on the CLS. You can learn about how to read and search these CLS files using the command line on the CLS under the heading Copies of the CST8207 course notes near the bottom of the page Course Linux Server.

4 TasksIndexup to index

4.1 Set Up – The Base Directory on the CLSIndexup to index

You must keep a list of command names used each week and write down what each command does, as described in the List of Commands You Should Know. Without that list to remind you what command names to use, you will find assignments very difficult.

  1. Do a Remote Login to the Course Linux Server (CLS) from any existing computer, using the host name appropriate for whether you are on-campus or off-campus. All work in this assignment must be done on the CLS.

  2. Set your PS1 shell prompt. This is the last time you will have to do this manually; this assignment configures your .bashrc file.

  3. Create the following directory structure in your CLS personal HOME directory and record (for study purposes) the series of Unix commands you used to create it. (You do not have to create any directories that you have already created in a previous assignment.) Spelling and capitalization must be exactly as shown:
    1. Create the CST8207-16W directory in your CLS HOME directory.
    2. Create the Assignments directory in the CST8207-16W directory.
    3. Create the assignment07 directory in the Assignments directory.

Hint: You can create the entire directory tree above using one single command.

This assignment07 directory is called the Base Directory for most pathnames in this assignment. Store your files and answers in this Base Directory, not in your HOME directory or anywhere else.

Run the Checking Program to verify your work so far.

4.2 Creating Shell Start-Up FilesIndexup to index

You need to understand Start-Up Files and how to use a text editor such as The VI Text Editor to do this task.

.bash_profile

.bashrc

  1. Use a Linux text editor to create your .bash_profile and .bashrc files with the minimum suggested content described in Start-Up Files. These files do not exist yet; you must create them.

    Do not set any options or aliases in your .bashrc that you do not understand! If you don’t know the meaning of a setting, don’t use it. You can RTFM in the bash man page for all BASH settings, and RTFM in command man pages to learn about options to commands.

    Using the PS1 variable from Worksheet #2 HTML, set your prompt to include your user name, your computer name, and the basename of your current working directory. Put this setting (or one like it) in your .bashrc file.

    Your .bash_profile must contain only one line. Your .bashrc must contain at least two lines (not including comment lines).

I will be spot-checking your knowledge of your aliases and shell options. Students using aliases they don’t understand will experience much confusion trying to do future assignments. Only use aliases and shell options that you understand.

  1. Verify that nothing prints on your screen after you enter your password when you run the non-interactive shell connection using ssh localhost true as described in the section on Non-interactive shells and PS1:

    $ ssh localhost true
    *** COURSE LINUX SERVER ***
    user@localhost's password:
    $

    For non-interactive commands to work properly, there must be no output on your screen after you enter your password using the above non-interactive command line using the true command.

Your instructor will mark the .bashrc and .bash_profile files in your account after the assignment due date. Do not upload them to Blackboard. Leave them there on the CLS. Do not delete anything.

Run the Checking Program to verify your work so far.

4.3 Using shell environment variablesIndexup to index

You need to understand Shell Variables to do this task.

Follow correct double-quoting procedures when expanding variables, as noted in Shell Variable Quoting.

  1. Make the Base Directory your current directory while you work on this task, so that the file you create is in the current directory. (Be lazy: Choose a current directory that makes your pathnames as short as possible!)

envlist.sh

  1. Use the echo command to display on your screen the value of the environment variable containing your HOME directory.

    When you have the right command line, put a copy of the command line into file envlist.sh in the Base Directory (which should be your current directory). (Put a copy of the command line in the file, not the command output.) You may use a text editor such as The VI Text Editor to create this file.

    The file should now contain one command line – exactly the same command line that you typed to display the value above. If you run the file you created using the shell, it should print your HOME directory:

    $ sh -u envlist.sh
    /home/abcd0001
  2. Use the echo command to display on your screen the value of the environment variable containing your userid.

    When you have the right command line, append a copy of the command line to the end of the file envlist.sh in the Base Directory. (Append a copy of the command line to the file, not the command output.) You may use a text editor such as The VI Text Editor to edit and add to the end of this file.

    The file should now contain two command lines. If you run the file using the shell, it should print your HOME directory and your userid.

  3. Use the echo command to display the value of the environment variable containing your assigned shell.

    Append the command you use to do this to file envlist.sh in the Base Directory. (Put in the command, not the output.) The file will contain three command lines and should output three lines when you use the shell to run it.

  4. Use the echo command to display the value of the environment variable containing your shell search path. Append the command you use to do this to file envlist.sh in the Base Directory. (Put in the command, not the output.) The file will contain four command lines and should output four lines when run by the shell.

  5. Use the sh shell to run (execute) your four-line shell script by typing sh -u envlist.sh and the values of all four environment variables should display on your screen. (If envlist.sh is in some other directory, use the appropriate pathname.)

  6. To verify that you have used proper procedures for expanding variables inside your script, set the HOME variable to be a GLOB character temporarily and then run the script again like this:

    $ HOME='*' sh -u envlist.sh

    Make sure that the first line of script output is the single GLOB character * and not a list of file names. If you see a list of file names, re-read all the words in the double-quoting message at the start of this task, above.

  7. Add one or more shell comment lines to the end of the file, describing in your own words the use for or meaning of each of the four variables in your script. A shell comment line starts with a number sign (octothorpe, pound-sign, or hashtag) character “#”, e.g.

    # This is a shell comment line.  The shell will ignore it.
    # This is another comment line.  It starts with the # character.
    # Comment lines should be added to the bottom of the file.
    1. Use your own words (do not copy mine or others) in your comment lines.
    2. Use as many comment lines as you need to describe all four variables.
    3. The comment lines should all be on separate lines; do not add comments to the ends of any executable lines in the file.
    4. Do not put any blank lines in the file (lines with nothing on them). Every line should contain some text. No blank lines. Use a program to count the lines in the file to be sure.

Run the Checking Program to verify your work so far.

4.4 Working with your search PATHIndexup to index

You must know how to use a text editor and understand how a shell uses a search PATH to do this task. You need to know how to append to a shell variable.

  1. Make the Base Directory your current directory while you work on this task, so that the file you create is in the current directory. (Be lazy: Choose a current directory that makes your pathnames as short as possible!)

pathwork.sh

  1. Use a text editor to create a file named pathwork.sh under the Base Directory (which should be your current directory). This file will contain these four command lines:

    1. The first line must set the shell search PATH variable to include the Source Directory for this assignment appended at the (right) end of the PATH. Append the Source Directory to the right end of the current PATH variable.
    2. The second line must safely echo the new value of the PATH environment variable onto your screen. Follow correct shell variable double-quoting procedures when expanding variables.
    3. The third line must be a command line that shows which shell PATH directory contains a command named assignment07check (the basename of the Checking Program). This third line contains a command name and one argument that must be assignment07check
    4. The fourth line must have the shell find and execute a command named assignment07check, which it will do using the modified PATH you set at the top of the script. No slashes should appear in this command name, so that the shell uses your modified PATH, set on the first line, to find it and run it. (Review how the shell search PATH works.)
  2. After you have created your four-line shell script, enable execute permissions on the script file and then run (execute) it using these two command lines:

    $ chmod u+x pathwork.sh                       # all lower-case letters
    $ ./pathwork.sh

    Remember how to make a file executable and run it from the current directory; you will need this again. Write it down!

    When you run the script, each of the four command lines in the script will execute, one after the other. The first line, setting the search path, should produce no output. There will be three outputs that come from the next three lines of the script:

    1. The first line of the script sets a variable and will display no output.
    2. The second line of the script will display the modified PATH.
    3. The third line will display the absolute path of where the shell finds the assignment07check command name in its PATH.
    4. The fourth line should find and run the assignment07check checking program and generate lots of output.

Hints:

  1. You need to know how the shell uses the PATH variable to find and run commands.
  2. You need to know how to append to PATH.
  3. Remember to quote all variable expansions.
  4. If you see command not found output coming from commands inside the executing script, you have either spelled a command name incorrectly or have not correctly set the shell search path inside the script file. This script will only work if the shell search PATH is set correctly at the beginning (top) of the file.
  5. The command that tells you which PATH directory contains a command name is documented in shell search PATH.
  1. As you did in the previous task, add one or more shell comment lines to the end of the file, describing in your own words what this script does and how it does it. Use your own words (do not copy mine) in your comment lines. Use as many comment lines as you need to describe the script.

Run the Checking Program to verify your work so far.

4.5 Quoting Exercise – Easy VersionIndexup to index

You must know how to use a text editor and understand how shells use Quoting to do this task. Remember to read the Hints below.

  1. Make the Base Directory your current directory while you work on this task, so that the files you create are in the current directory. (Be lazy: Choose a current directory that makes your pathnames as short as possible!)

fixquotes.sh

  1. Copy the script file badquotes.sh from the Source Directory into the current directory using the new name fixquotes.sh as you copy it.

  2. Enable execute permissions on the script file and run the script (as you did in the previous task).

    Note that the output of running the script generates an error message and the lines output on the screen don’t match what is written in the script file. For example: many quotes are missing, GLOB characters and variables are expanding, and the spacing of the words is different.

  3. Use a text editor to add Quoting inside the script file so that the text given to echo is fully quoted to be one single argument to the shell, and the text must display on your screen exactly as written in the file, blanks included, with no meta-character expansion by the shell. The correct ten lines of output should look exactly like this when you are finished, including all the extra spaces between some of the words:

    Where is the question mark after the file name /etc/passwd?
    Is one also missing after the file name /etc/group?
    Do you see any  *[square]*  *[brackets]*  in this line ??????????
    The BASH shell prompt is contained in the upper-case  $PS1  variable.
    This line isn't appearing on my screen correctly.  It's missing the quotes.
    This line is also "missing" all the quotes.  It is "not right" yet.
    This line is also missing "quotes".  It's output that doesn't make sense.
    This line isn't working either.  The shell gives an error message.
    ***  This is a file to practice shell quoting.  Do you see this line?  ***
    Do   you   see   this   last   line   with   the   extra   spaces  ?

    The correct script output (above) is exactly ten lines, 114 words, 677 characters and has a checksum of 27422 1.

Hints:

  1. You must edit the fixquotes.sh file to make the entire line of text on each line one single shell argument to echo. Review how the shell finds arguments and how to use Quoting to hide shell metacharacters.

  2. You can check whether you have successfully created one single argument on each line by using an alias to temporarily substitute the argv.sh program from the Class Notes for the echo command.

    You can easily get a copy of the argv.sh program from the course notes on the CLS using the newnotes symbolic link you created in a previous assignment.

    Read the comments inside the fixquotes.sh file for details on using an alias to run argv.sh. You have to put the argv.sh program into the same directory as fixquotes.sh under the name argv.sh and make it executable.

  3. If your line and word count is correct but the number of characters is less, you probably failed to make the entire text one argument to echo on each line. You must use Quoting to hide all the blanks and special characters from the shell on each of the lines. The argv.sh program will tell you if you got it right.

  4. If your output is mostly correct but you can’t find your mistakes, copy the above correct text into a file foo on the CLS, run your script and save the script output in file bar, then use the diff command to compare the two files and show you just the lines where the differences are. In the course notes you can learn about how to use diff.

fixquotes.txt

  1. When the output of your edited script is correct, run the script and redirect the script output into file fixquotes.txt in your Base Directory (which should still be your current directory).

    The file must contain exactly the same lines, words, and characters as given above. The checksum of the file must be the same as above.

    Hint: Make sure you spell the extension on the pathname correctly.

Run the Checking Program to verify your work so far.

4.7 Hard and Soft Linking exerciseIndexup to index

You need to understand Hard Links and Symbolic Links and to do this task.

ln1/abcd0001.txt

  1. In your Base Directory, create a sub-directory and an empty file ln1/abcd0001.txt (no spaces), where the text abcd0001 is replaced by your own eight-character userid in the file name. NOTE: The sub-directory name is ln1 (two letters and one digit).

  2. For every unique character in your own eight-character userid, create a sub-sub-directory under ln1 with that single-character name.

    For example, the userid abca0151 would result in six unique sub-sub-directory names under the ln1 directory – one sub-sub-directory for each of the unique characters a, b, c, 0, 1, 5. Each new directory must be directly under the ln1 directory. (Note: You can create multiple directories with one single command line.)

    Do this for your own userid, which means you may have more or fewer sub-sub-directories, depending on the letters and digits in your own userid.

  3. Inside each of those new sub-sub-directories, create a single Hard Link to the empty file from the first step. Keep the same file name as the original for each hard link you create. Use hard links, not symbolic links.

    Continuing the above example, the abca0151 user would hard link the original empty file name abca0151.txt into each of those six new sub-sub-directories, creating six additional names for the same file. Keep the same file name as the original for each hard link.

    Check the link counts on everything to make sure that you have created links to the same file and not made copies of the file. Use hard links, not symbolic links.

  4. For every lower-case letter directory name you created, create a short, relative Symbolic Link that is its upper-case equivalent. If you created directory a, then create symlink A that points to (has a target of) a so that both ls ln1/a and ls ln1/A give identical results. (You must use symbolic links, because you cannot make hard links to directories.)

  5. In every file you have just created in this section, enter the following information, one name per line: Enter the names of the three common file system commands that are “directory only” commands that require permission only on the directory inode to work properly, and that do not require permissions on the file inode to work. The answer is three lines, one command name per line. (See your in-class notes for the three names I wrote on the board, or read the course notes about links and inodes.) The right answer has a word count of 3 3 9.

Hints: All the file names you created in this section should be hard links to the same file; you have very little editing to do. The three command names are all commands that are directory operations that manipulate file names; they don’t touch the file data and don’t need any permissions on the file data.

Use your symbolic link ./check (created in the previous task) to run Checking Program to verify your work so far.

4.8 Four Disk Usage Exercises: easy, medium, hard, ug1yIndexup to index

You need to understand Hard Links and Disk Usage to do this task.

Read this task all the way through, especially the Hints, before you delete anything, or else you will have to start over again.

For the next task, you will need to look up the copy option that means archive that preserves hard links (as well as all the other attributes) when you copy a directory (RTFM).

My Disk Use

  1. After you have run the Checking Program at least once, you will find created for you in the Source Directory a disk usage directory named DiskUse/abcd0001 (where abcd0001 is replaced by your own userid). Copy, using the archive option, this directory into your Base Directory using the name My Disk Use.

    You will know you got it right if your personal copy of the My Disk Use directory has the same disk use summary (du -s) as the one in the Source Directory and there is a sub-directory named My Disk Use/e with one file in it. Do not create the My Disk Use directory before you do the archive copy or else you will create an extra level of directory.

In your personal My Disk Use directory, some of the files are hard links to each other. (If there are no hard links anywhere, you didn’t use the archive option to the copy command that preserves hard links. Delete everything and re-copy.)

Your personal copy of the My Disk Use directory contains almost three dozen sub-directories, each of which may contain one or more files and further sub-sub-directories. (If you don’t see almost three dozen sub-directories under your copy of My Disk Use, read all the words in the Hints again.) A recursive list of pathnames under My Disk Use counts 364 names.

There are four levels of difficulty in this task, one for each of four specially-named sub-directories in your personal My Disk Use directory. Do the easy level first, followed by the medium level, followed by the hard level, followed by the ug1y level.

Read this task all the way through, especially the Hints, before you delete anything, or else you will have to start over again.

4.8.1 The easy level and the three steps A B CIndexup to index

Locate the sub-directory of your personal My Disk Use directory that contains the text easy in the name. Make this your current directory and then follow steps A through C below:

  1. Under the current directory, there is a directory named foo.

  2. Reclaim all the disk space used by the files under foo by removing all the files under foo and any hard links to those files. Some of those hard links may be to files in other sub-directories under the current directory; you don’t have to scan the whole file system to find the hard links. Read the Hints carefully before you remove anything.

  3. Run the Checking Program to verify your work so far. See the Hints if you need to start over.

4.8.2 The medium levelIndexup to index

Locate the sub-directory of your personal My Disk Use directory that contains the text medium in the name. Make this your current directory. Repeat the steps A through C above.

4.8.3 The hard levelIndexup to index

Locate the sub-directory of your personal My Disk Use directory that contains the text hard in the name. Make this your current directory. Repeat the steps A through C above.

4.8.4 The ug1y levelIndexup to index

Locate the sub-directory of your personal My Disk Use directory that contains the text ug1y in the name. (Note carefully the strange spelling, which is not the same as ugly.) Make this your current directory. Repeat the steps A through C above.

4.8.5 Hints for each level: easy, medium, hard, ug1yIndexup to index

Hints: The current directory must be set as given above for each level.

  1. Do not remove any names from foo until you also know how to find and remove all the other names for these files. Once you have removed all the files from foo, it is too late to try to find out which other names were hard links to the files in foo.

  2. One or more of the files in the foo subdirectory have more than one name. Some of those other names may be located in other subdirectories somewhere under the current level. (You don’t have to search the whole disk partition to find them.) The disk blocks for these files in foo will not be freed until you find and remove all their names. You may need to look at inode numbers to know which files in directory foo are also named in the other directories. You read about how to do this in Disk Usage.

  3. Options to ls to display hidden names and nongraphic (unprintable) characters will be needed for the harder sections (RTFM). Many names will need to be quoted to hide shell metacharacters (see Quoting).

  4. If you don’t get the right answer for a difficulty level, you can start over by re-copying all or part of your My Disk Use directory from where you originally got it in the Source Directory.

    If you make errors in this task and need to redo one of the four sections, you can remove and re-copy from the Source Directory just the sub-directory for that one section. You don’t have to remove and re-copy the whole DiskUse/abcd0001 directory, since that would lose the work you did on the other sections.

    If you do want to remove your entire personal My Disk Use directory to start over, you will need to redo all four levels. If you are smart and rename the directory instead of removing it, you can salvage from the saved directory the parts of the task you have already done successfully, so you won’t have to redo those parts.

  5. If you find that you don’t own any of the files under your My Disk Use directory, and that you have no permission to remove any files, then you didn’t copy the files correctly. Delete everything and re-read and re-do that first step.

  6. Do not remove any names from foo until you also know how to find and remove all the other names for these files. Once you have removed all the files from foo, it is too late to try to find out which other names were hard links to the files in foo.

4.9 When you are doneIndexup to index

That is all the tasks you need to do.

Check your work a final time using the Checking Program below and save the standard output of that program into a file as described below. Submit that file (and only that one file) to Blackboard following the directions below.

When you are done, log out of the CLS before you close your laptop or close the PuTTY window, by using the shell exit command:

$ exit

5 Checking, Marking, and Submitting your WorkIndexup to index

Summary: Do some tasks, then run the Checking Program to verify your work as you go. You can run the Checking Program as often as you want. When you have the best mark, upload the single file that is the output of the Checking Program 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.

  1. There is a Checking Program named assignment07check in the Source Directory on the CLS. You can execute this program by typing its (long) pathname into the shell as a command name:

    $ ~idallen/cst8207/16w/assignment07/assignment07check

    You learn one way to make this shorter in the current assignment.

  2. When you are done, execute the above Checking Program as a command line on the CLS. This program will check your work, assign you a mark, and display the output on your screen.

    If the Checking Program is not yet ready, it will say NOT FINISHED YET and DO NOT SUBMIT THIS FILE. No mark is shown; do not submit the file. Wait until the checking program is finished (it gives you a mark) before you save and submit your marks.

    You may run the Checking Program as many times as you wish, allowing you 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.

  3. When you are done with this assignment, and you like the mark displayed on your screen by the Checking Program, you must redirect only the standard output of the Checking Program into the text file assignment07.txt in your Base Directory on the CLS, like this:

    $ ~idallen/cst8207/16w/assignment07/assignment07check >assignment07.txt
    $ less assignment07.txt
    • Use standard output redirection with that exact assignment07.txt file name.
    • Use that exact name. Case (upper/lower case letters) matters.
    • Be absolutely accurate, as if your marks depended on it.
    • Do not edit the output file; the format is fixed.
    • 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!
  4. Transfer the above single file assignment07.txt (containing the output from the Checking Program) from the CLS to your local computer.
    • You may want to refer to the File Transfer page for how to transfer the file.
    • Verify that the file still contains all the output from the Checking Program.
    • Do not edit or open and save this file on your local computer! Edited or damaged files will not be marked. Submit the file exactly as given.
    • The file should contain, near the bottom, a line starting with: YOUR MARK for
    • Really! MAKE SURE THE FILE YOU UPLOAD HAS YOUR MARKS IN IT!
  5. Upload the assignment07.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 assignment07 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 assignment07 file from your local computer. Make sure the assignment file has the correct name on your local computer before you attach it. Attach only your assignment07.txt file for upload. Do not attach any other file names.
    5. After you have attached the assignment07.txt file on the Upload Assignment page, scroll down to the bottom of the page and use the Submit button to actually upload your attached assignment07.txt file to Blackboard.
    6. Submit the file exactly as uploaded from the CLS.
    7. Do not submit an empty file. Do not submit any other file names.

    Use only Attach File, Browse My Computer on the Upload Assignment page. Do not enter any text into the Write Submission or Add Comments boxes on Blackboard; I do not read them. Use only the Attach File, Browse My Computer 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.

  6. 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. Click on the Download button to open and view the file you just uploaded. MAKE SURE THE FILE YOU JUST UPLOADED HAS YOUR MARKS IN IT!
    5. 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.)
    6. Make sure you have used Submit and not Save as Draft. I cannot mark draft assignments. Make sure you Submit.

    You will also see the Review Submission History page any time you already have an assignment attempt uploaded and you click on the underlined assignment07 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.

  7. 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!

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

Author: 
| Ian! D. Allen  -  idallen@idallen.ca  -  Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
| Home Page: http://idallen.com/   Contact Improv: http://contactimprov.ca/
| College professor (Free/Libre GNU+Linux) at: http://teaching.idallen.com/
| Defend digital freedom:  http://eff.org/  and have fun:  http://fools.ca/

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