| 1 | ABOUT THIS FILE |
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| 2 | |
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| 3 | This file has been included in your home directory because the workstation you |
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| 4 | are on was unable to access your real home directory when you logged in. The |
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| 5 | directory you are in now is a TEMPORARY home directory created on the local |
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| 6 | workstation's hard disk to let you continue working. |
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| 7 | |
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| 8 | You may have noticed that the files you expected to find here are not here -- |
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| 9 | DON'T PANIC! Your files are still ok -- you are just not able to access them |
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| 10 | at this time, that's all. |
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| 11 | |
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| 12 | What should you do now? |
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| 13 | |
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| 14 | |
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| 15 | 1) IT MAY HAVE BEEN A MOMENTARY PROBLEM. |
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| 16 | |
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| 17 | It is possible that the workstation was unable to access your real home |
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| 18 | directory when you logged in because of a transitory event (e.g., a |
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| 19 | network glitch) rather than a persistent problem (e.g., a machine failure). |
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| 20 | If this is the case, then you should be able to access your real home |
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| 21 | directory by typing the following command at the athena% prompt: |
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| 22 | |
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| 23 | attach -n $user |
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| 24 | |
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| 25 | If you get a message like this: |
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| 26 | |
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| 27 | attach: filesystem yourname (machine1.MIT.EDU:/u2/lockers/yourname) |
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| 28 | mounted on /mit/yourname (read-write) |
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| 29 | |
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| 30 | then you are in fact able to access your home directory -- you should |
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| 31 | log out and log back in on the same workstation. Everything should be |
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| 32 | fine after that, and you may stop reading here. If it doesn't work, |
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| 33 | continue below. |
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| 34 | |
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| 35 | |
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| 36 | 2) THIS DIRECTORY IS TEMPORARY, SO WORK YOU DO NOW MIGHT GET LOST. |
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| 37 | |
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| 38 | When you log out from this session, this temporary directory and all of its |
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| 39 | contents will be PERMANENTLY DELETED. If you decide to continue with this |
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| 40 | session rather than logout now, you should be very careful about taking |
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| 41 | steps to preserve your work -- just "saving" the files won't do it! |
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| 42 | |
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| 43 | |
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| 44 | A) HOW TO SAVE TEXT FILES YOU CREATE. |
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| 45 | |
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| 46 | To preserve a file that you have created in this directory, you can mail it |
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| 47 | to yourself before logging out. The file will be safe on the post office |
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| 48 | server until you next read your mail. To mail a file to yourself, type: |
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| 49 | |
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| 50 | mhmail $user < filename |
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| 51 | |
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| 52 | (Replace "filename" with the name of the actual file). For example, if |
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| 53 | your username is "jruser" and you want to mail a file called "paper.tex" to |
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| 54 | yourself you would use the command line: |
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| 55 | |
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| 56 | mhmail jruser < paper.tex |
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| 57 | |
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| 58 | |
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| 59 | B) HOW TO SAVE ANY MAIL YOU READ. |
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| 60 | |
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| 61 | Normally, when you read new mail from the post office server it copies the |
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| 62 | file into your home directory and deletes the mail from the post office |
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| 63 | server. If you read new mail while using a temporary home directory you |
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| 64 | may lose the mail unless you takes step to preserve it. |
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| 65 | |
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| 66 | If you use "xmh" or the "mh" mail commands (inc, scan, show, etc.) then |
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| 67 | you will be safe -- these programs will detect the fact that you are using |
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| 68 | a temporary home directory and will read the new mail from the post office |
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| 69 | server, but they will NOT delete the mail from the post office server. That |
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| 70 | way, you can read the mail again when you have your real home directory. |
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| 71 | |
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| 72 | If you use Emacs RMAIL or any other mail handling you will have to |
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| 73 | explicitly take step to preserve your mail after reading it. For more |
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| 74 | information on how to do this please use the 'olc' program. |
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