Installing Debathena

If you are planning on selecting the debathena-standard installation option, you should give your local user account the same username as your Athena account. You will need to run these installation steps as root.

Debathena installer script

Debathena now has an interactive command-line installer that should be easier to use than the manual installation instructions. You can run the Debathena installer by running the following commands:

wget http://debathena.mit.edu/install-debathena.sh;
sh install-debathena.sh

This installer is a new feature; if you run into any problems using it, please email us at debathena@mit.edu.

Manual installation

To make the Debathena repository available to your package manager, add the following two lines to /etc/apt/sources.list. Substitute the name of your distribution (sarge, etch, dapper, edgy, feisty, or gutsy) for DISTRO.
```
deb http://debathena.mit.edu/apt DISTRO debathena debathena-config debathena-system openafs
deb-src http://debathena.mit.edu/apt DISTRO debathena debathena-config debathena-system openafs
```
To give aptitude access to the new modules, run
```
aptitude update
```

Install the repository’s public key:

wget http://debathena.mit.edu/apt/debathena-archive.asc;
apt-key add debathena-archive.asc

If you are using Ubuntu, you must also make sure that the universe repository is enabled. This is already the default setting in Feisty and Gutsy. (See also the list of known Ubuntu-specific issues.)
Install the appropriate openafs-modules- metapackage for the kernel you are using. To find out which version that is, run the following command.
```
aptitude search ~i~nlinux-image
```
Look for an entry like linux-image-generic or linux-image-server. Substitute openafs-modules for linux-image and install that package. For example, if you have the linux-image-generic package installed, run the following command.
```
aptitude install openafs-modules-generic
```
Now you can install Debathena packages. The following will give you the recommended set of packages; other installation options are also available.
```
env DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive aptitude install debathena-standard
```
Please subscribe to our announcement list, so that we can send you announcements about changes in the project and important security upgrades, with the following command:
```
blanche debathena-announce -a $USER
```
If you are using debathena-login or debathena-workstation and want to configure access controls, or are using debathena-standard and have a local username different from your Athena username, or want to do other supported customizations, see customizing Debathena.

Troubleshooting

See the troubleshooting page for common issues.

If you run into any problems with Debathena not discussed on the troubleshooting page, please contact the maintainers.

Using debathena-standard

You should be able to use your Debathena machine to run all your favorite Athena commands. We recommend using the renew command as a convenient way to authenticate to Athena (rather than kinit -54 followed by aklog). After running renew and getting credentials, you should be able to run (e.g.) cd /mit/tabbott and access your Athena locker. If you don’t know how to use Athena, we recommend reading the Athena pocket reference.

Using debathena-login

A machine running debathena-login should function essentially like the Debathena dialup server linerva.mit.edu, modulo some special dialup security features that are not included in debathena-login.

Other package managers

We strongly recommend using aptitude to install and upgrade Debathena, because apt-get and other package managers are not always smart enough to figure out how to install the necessary packages. Also note that the synaptic and adept GUIs do not readily support setting the DEBIAN_FRONTEND environment variable. (If you have to use them, you should use dpkg-reconfigure debconf to change the Debian Frontend to noninteractive, and when you are done, change it back to the default of dialog. Alternatively, you can not change the Debconf priority; you will just be asked more unecessary questions.)