Your homework can be submitted from the kdd unix systems using the "hwsubmit" command.
The kdd unix systems include ringil.cis.ksu.edu and fingolfin.user.cis.ksu.edu. Fingolfin only allows logins via ssh, and ringil allows logins via ssh and telnet. You may securely access ringil from over the web at:
http://www.kddresearch.org/Resources/Login/
Once you are on one of the kdd systems, you must have your homework in a directory. (Instructions for getting your homework to kdd's systems is below.) This directory will be given to hwsubmit and will then be packaged so the grader can retrieve it.
For example, lets say I have a directory named "classes" which has a subdirectory named "cis732". Thats where I do all my cis 732 work. So, the path to this directory is ~/classes/cis732. (Without the trailing period.) In there, I have homework1.txt, and homework2.c. I wish to submit homework2.c. Since I have both homeworks in the same directory, I'll need to move the one I wish to submit into its own directory and then submit it. Here goes:
[jfrear@fingolfin jfrear]$ cd ~/classes/cis732
[jfrear@fingolfin cis732]$ mkdir hw2
[jfrear@fingolfin cis732]$ mv homework2.c hw2
I'm now ready to actually submit using the hwsubmit command. The command requires exactly 3 arguments: the course, homework number, and homework directory. For this example, the course is cis732 and I am submitting homework number 2. Let's try it:
[jfrear@fingolfin cis732]$ hwsubmit cis732 2 hw2
Submitted homework successfully!
If you saw any errors then it is likely there was a permissions
problem with one or more of your files. In that case, please
notify admin@www.kddresearch.org immediately.
Currently, you have this assignment on file:
-rw-r----- 1 jfrear hwsubmit 254 Sep 7 17:02 /kdd/fingolfin/data/submitted-homework/hwsubmit-cis732-hw2-jfrear.tar.gz
It contains:
drwxr-xr-x 2 jfrear jfrear 0 Sep 7 17:02 hwsubmit-cis732-hw2-jfrear
-rw-r--r-- 1 jfrear jfrear 147 Sep 7 17:02 hwsubmit-cis732-hw2-jfrear/homework2.c
Hwsubmit complete on Mon Sep 7 17:02:21 CDT 2001
Thank you!
And that's it, the homework is submitted now. If I want, I can change my assignment and submit it again. The system will only store the last submitted assignment. It timestamps the submissions, so if you have a submit that is on-time and then you wish to resubmit after the due date, you should notify the teaching staff of this so they will know that you had an on-time submission.
Make sure to always read the hwsubmit output very carefully. The last line will be "Hwsubmit complete on ..." and "Thank you" if and only if your homework was submitted successfully. If there were any problems, hwsubmit will tell you about them. Some of the problems you can correct yourself, and some you may wish or need to notify the course instructors about. In either case, pay very close attention to the hwsubmit output.
An example problem:
[jfrear@fingolfin cis732]$ hwsubmit cis-732 2 hw2
Fatal: The course you supplied does not seem to be valid.
Valid courses are:
cis730 cis732
You supplied: [cis-732]
This is a problem you can correct yourself. I said I am in course "cis-732" and the dash is not acceptable for hwsubmit. Hwsubmit tells me what things are considered acceptable, so I can see what the problem is, correct it, and try the submit again.
Getting your homework to kdd's systems:
Many students probably didn't do their homework on kdd's systems. If you did your homework on CIS or CNS unix systems, it is very easy to copy the data from there to kdd. A single 'scp' command can do the job. Let's say I use CNS unix (unix.ksu.edu) to do my homework. I have my homework in ~/classes/cis732 on the CNS systems. I can log on to the CNS unix systems and enter:
cd ~/classes
scp -r cis732 jfrear@fingolfin.user.cis.ksu.edu:.
I will be prompted for my password, and after entering that, everything which resides under the CNS ~/classes/cis732 directory will be copied to the ~/cis732 directory on KDD unix. (Be sure to only copy over the things you actually need. Please don't copy your 1.5gb of .mp3's by mistake!) At kdd unix, I can now submit my "cis732" directory and then erase it when the submit is complete.
If you use other systems, perhaps a pkzip file (a.k.a. winzip file) is more convenient. In that case, zip your homework submission into a single file. You now need to get this to the kdd unix systems. If your homework isn't big, one way is to email it over. Since you have a user account on kdd's systems, you also have a mail account. If your username is "abc1234", take the zip file and mail it to "abc1234@www.kddresearch.org" to transfer it to kdd's systems. Now, log in to kdd's unix systems using the URL provided at the top of this document. Once logged in, you may use pine to open the mail, save the attachment, and delete the mail. Next, since the assignment needs to be in its own directory for submission, quit pine and create that directory. Get into that directory and extract the zipfile. Now, you can use hwsubmit on your homework data. Make sure to erase the zipfile and extracted directory once your are done with them.
Please send any questions or comments about the homework submission procedure to your class TA address. This address is:
or
If your comment is regarding hwsubmit, please make sure [730] or [732] appears in the subject line of your message.