Help with the staff portal
What the portal is for
It shows the lab: whether students can sign in, the students of your sections, their recent sign-ins, banned addresses and web access. The lab administrator also sees backups, alerts and disk use.
It also helps a student of your sections: a new lab password, a new container password, a new authenticator, or a rebuilt container, from the student's page; and web access for your sections, opened for a set time and closed, from the Web access page. The lab administrator can also clear bans. Each change shows what it does before you confirm it, and the lab's host checks and records it.
Fresh codes for changes
A change needs a code from your authenticator app no older than 15 minutes. Signing in counts. After 15 minutes, the form asks for the code your app shows now, in the same form, so nothing you typed is lost.
New passwords are shown once
A new password is shown on the next page only, once: the portal does not keep it, and no handout is made. Give it to the student privately, never on a projected screen. If it was lost, set a new one.
Words used here
- Lab website
- The page where students sign in and get a terminal (Guacamole).
- Container
- A student's own small Linux system. "Running" means it is switched on.
- Terminal reachable
- The lab website can open that student's terminal (SSH from the website to the container answers).
- Authenticator
- The app on a phone or computer that shows a new 6-digit code every 30 seconds.
- Ban
- After many failed sign-ins from one address, the lab website refuses that address for a short time. A classroom often shares one address.
- Data as of
- When the lab's host collected what the page shows. Load the page again for newer data.
- Lab password
- The student's password for the lab website.
- Container password
- The student's password for sudo inside their container.
- Rebuild
- A fresh container from the template. It erases the student's home folder, and cannot be undone.
- Web access
- Whether a section's containers can reach web pages on the internet. It is always opened for a set time.
Lost your password or authenticator?
Ask the lab administrator. For a lost authenticator, they give you a new enrollment code from the lab's host: choose "Set up your account" and use it as on your first day (your current password will do). A forgotten password is replaced on the lab's host, and the administrator gives you the new one privately. Neither can be reset from the portal: a reset from anywhere would be the easiest way in.
Something on a page is wrong
The lab administrator's runbook (docs/FACULTY-RUNBOOK.md, "Using the portal") lists what each page shows and what to do about it.