frequently asked questions

general information

• How do I get more information? Who do I contact if something goes wrong with my account? I miss my mommy. (answer)
• What's the difference between undergrad.ca and theorem.ca? (answer)
• How do I connect to theorem.ca? Why can't I use telnet and ftp? (answer)
• What services are offered by theorem.ca? (answer)
• How much does an account cost? (answer)
• Do you run fortune and nethack? (answer)
• How do I use IRC? (answer)
• I can't run certain programs that are installed on the system, why? (answer)
• How can I lock my terminal? (answer)
• What web browsers are installed? (answer)

mail

• What mail clients are installed? (answer)
• How can I be notified as I receive new mail? (answer)
• How can I access my mail without logging in? (answer)
• Can I access my email on the web? (answer)
• I'm using Pine for email, but it won't let me create new folders. How can I fix this? (answer)
• How can I see folders I have created folders using IMAP using a local email client? (answer)
• How can I see folders I have created folders using a local client over IMAP? (answer)
• How do I change the "From: " line in Pine? (answer)
• Do you have PGP installed? How do I integrate this with my mail client? (answer)
• How do I set up email aliases or redirect all of my mail? (answer)
• How do I set up spam filtering? (answer)
• How do I use the email autoresponder? (answer)

web hosting, scripting and development

• If I am hosting a domain with you, how do I set that up? (answer)
• How do I create a webpage? (answer)
• Do you have any web indexing/search engine tools installed? (answer)
• Can I put a counter on my page? (answer)
• What compilers and scripting languages are installed? Do you have a version control system available? (answer)
• Is LaTeX installed? (answer)
• If I want to be able to send feedback by email from my webpage, how do I do it? (answer)
• Where are web server logs stored? What do you have in the way of web stats packages? (answer)
• How do I use mySQL? (answer)
• I want to convert between two file types, how do I do this? (answer)
• Do you have any GNU based image manipulation programs? (answer)

answers

• How do I get more information? Who do I contact if something goes wrong with my account? I miss my mommy.

  Email pollock@theorem.ca.

• What's the difference between undergrad.ca and theorem.ca?

  There is no difference other than the name. Both should be completely interchangeable. As will a couple more domains that we plan to add in the future. This allows you to choose which domain you like best. if you have suggestions for other domains that we should offer, please email me.

• How do I connect to theorem.ca? Why can't I use telnet and ftp?

  To connect to theorem.ca, you need to use an ssh client. If you are connecting from a *nix system, you most likely already have ssh at your disposal. In which case simple type ssh username@theorem.ca. You will be prompted for your password. If you have an ssh key, you can add your public key to the file ~/.ssh/authorized_keys. If you do not already have an ssh client, a good windows client is PuTTy. For file transfer, you will need to use an scp or sftp client. On *nix systems use the command line scp program. For windows users, pscp is a good command line program, and WinSCP is a good windows graphical sftp client. Both are freeware. The reason behind insisting on ssh and scp (or sftp) is simply one of security. For more information on ssh, check out openssh.com.

• What services are offered by theorem.ca?

  Standard accounts get three hundred megabytes of disk quota and one gigabyte of transfer bandwidth per month. Web pages can be served using Apache, equipped with mod_perl, PHP, mySQL and more. Free domain hosting is available. If you do not have your own domain, we can provide you with username.theorem.ca. Custom web access logs are available for your domains and unlimited unique email aliases are available at no charge. Suggestions for more offerings are most welcome.

• How much does an account cost?

  Personal accounts are eighty dollars per year (Canadian funds). If you are interested in a business account, contact me at pollock@theorem.ca. Additional services can be purchased at a reasonable price (including, but not limited to dedicated IPs, ports, more quota, more bandwidth, etc.)

• Do you run fortune and nethack?

  Yes we do.

• How do I use IRC?

  Run irc or BitchX. For more useful instructions, check out the FAQs for IRCII and BitchX, and more info at IRC Help.

• I can't run certain programs that are installed on the system, why?

  Your path is probably wrong. Run /bin/showpath to see the default path and edit your path as appropriate. (If using tcsh edit the setenv PATH line in your .cshrc file to say "setenv PATH `/bin/showpath dir1 dir2`"

• How can I lock my terminal?

  If you have connected directly to the server, running vlock should work.

• What web browsers are installed?

  Lynx and w3m. Both are text only browsers, however w3m is better at handling tables and colours. As well, w3m supports frames. Finally, you can read slashdot with a text browser.

• What mail clients are installed?

  Pine and Mutt are available. As well, email can be accessed from the web at https://theorem.ca/horde/.

• How can I be notified as I receive new mail?

  One, somewhat crude way, is to run the very basic biff script I wrote. Either add the line "biff&" to your .cshrc or .bashrc file, or run it from the command line. It's not perfect, but it works. The source is all there, in case you want to improve upon its basic design.

• How can I access my mail without logging in?

  Both IMAP-ssl and POP3-ssl are supported. If you would like insecure access (unencrypted pop3 or imap), let me know, and I will will grant you access to username-email as a login to the POP3 or IMAP server. This login will have access to email only, and will have a different password from your main account.

• Can I access my email on the web?

  Yes you can. Using IMP from Horde. You can access it at https://theorem.ca/horde/. If you accept the SSL certificate, it will be over a secure connection.

• I'm using Pine for email, but it won't let me create new folders. How can I fix this?

  Check the contents of the file ~/.qmail. If it contains the line ./Maildir/ then go to your home directory and type "makefolder foldername". If it says ./mailbox let me know, and I'll fix it.

• How can I see folders I have created folders using IMAP using a local email client?

  Type "makefolder foldername". Remember that this is case sensitive.

• How can I see folders I have created folders using a local client over IMAP?

  Type "makefolder foldername". Remember that this is case sensitive.

• How do I change the "From: " line in Pine?

  From Pine's main menu (M), select Setup (S), then Config (C). Move down to customized-hdrs and add a line in the format "From: "My Real Name" <myusername@domain.tld>". Then press (return) to enter the change, and (E) to exit. Be sure to save the configuration.

• Do you have PGP installed? How do I integrate this with my mail client?

  Yes. PGP version 6.5.8 is installed. As well, for those using Pine, we have pgp4pine installed.

• How do I set up email aliases or redirect all of my mail?

  The short answer is that you use .qmail files. (Check out man dot-qmail). For more help, or if you wish me to set up the aliases for you, please email me at pollock@theorem.ca.

• How do I set up spam filtering?

  SpamAssassin, Vipul's Razor and Anomy Mailtools are installed. You are free to set up your own spam filter and MIME defanger, or use the spamcheck wrapper I have written.

  To set up spam filtering requires two simple steps. First run `makefolder spam` and then add the line "|spamcheck ./mail/spam/" at the beginning of your .qmail file in your home directory. This will have the effect that all detected spam will be marked (to explain why it was considered spam) and delivered to the folder spam instead of your inbox. The information will be placed in the header, to view headers in Pine press H. If that doesn't work, set enable-full-header-cmd on in the configuration. (Press M S C to access config)

  Be sure not to remove the "./Maildir/" line. I repeat, you must make sure that that line is still present, or no mail will be delivered to your inbox.

  Read `man spamcheck` for more advanced setup instructions.

• How do I use the email autoresponder?

  qmail-autoresponder is installed and information on its use can be found at `man qmail-autoresponder`.

• If I am hosting a domain with you, how do I set that up?

  Email me to let me know the domain name, and whether you want email and/or web set up. The primary NS is erdos.theorem.ca: 72.2.4.176. The secondary is dns2.bigpipeinc.com: 64.251.87.194.

• How do I create a webpage?

  Create a public_html directory (mkdir ~/public_html). Place your webpage files in this directory. CGI scripts must be world executable (chmod a+x <filename>). All other files must be world readable (chmod a+r <filename>). If you are using CGI scripts, be aware that they will be executing as you.

• Do you have any web indexing/search engine tools installed?

  Yes, give htdig a try. Check out htdig.org for more information.

• Can I put a counter on my page?

  Yes you can. From within any webpage execute the command counter (located at /bin/counter). By default this will return the current number of hits as text, however you can have it return the appropriate HTML tags to display a graphical counter. To do this simply run "count STYLE", where STYLE is any one of the styles listed at theorem.ca/faq/counter/. Furthermore, if you wish to start your counter above 1, try "counter STYLE NUM" where NUM is the starting number. You can also reset the counter to 1 by setting NUM to -1. Email me if you require assistance.

• What compilers and scripting languages are installed? Do you have a version control system available?

  We have gcc, arch, and CVS (Concurrent Version System) installed. As well, we have Perl, Python, Tcl/Tk installed. If you need something else, email me and I'll see what I can do.

• Is LaTeX installed?

  Yes. Check out /usr/local/teTeX/bin/latex. for more information on LaTeX, check out the LaTex Project.

• If I want to be able to send feedback by email from my webpage, how do I do it?

  I strongly recommend that you use mailto tags. If you need to be able to receive email from a web form, you can point it to a simple mailscript. An example of how to get qmail to work for you can be found at www.theorem.ca/faq/scripts/mailscript/. It is important that the recipients of the email be hardcoded into the script, and not left as variables. This is crucial to ensuring that this server is not used by spammers.

• Where are web server logs stored? What do you have in the way of web stats packages?

  Logs can be found in /www/logs/. If you have a domain hosted with us, you get a dedicated custom log for each domain. If you would like this can be made public, or only viewable by you. Webalizer is installed. I will also be setting up wwwstat in the near future. webalizer is configured so that anyone can use it. As well, if you want, I can have it automatically generate a stats page for you on a nightly basis. Email me if you want any assistance.

• How do I use mySQL?

  Email me for access to the database. Check out mySQL.com for more information.

• I want to convert between two file types, how do I do this?

  You can use pdf2dsc, pdf2ps, pf2afm, pstotext, ps2ascii, ps2epsi, ps2pdf, ps2pdf12, ps2pdf13, ps2pdfwr, ps2ps, dvips, dos2unix, catdoc (for MSWord documents) and more.

  wvWare from www.wvware.com is also available for more advanced MSWord filtering. Check out `man wvWare` for more info. If you need other filters installed, let me know.

• Do you have any GNU based image manipulation programs?

  Why yes, we do. Check out the GIMP (gimp.org)