About campus (Supplementary reading) IT WS I - ICS102 Monsoon 2012

Saurabh Barjatiya IIIT Hyderabad 22nd July, 2012

Contents
1 Disclaimer 2 About campus 2.1 Ocial domains . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 Student maintained domains 2.1.2 Important points . . . . . . 2.2 Domain description . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1 Students email server . . . 2.2.2 Mess portal . . . . . . . . . 2.2.3 Courses portal . . . . . . . . 2.2.4 ISAS Portal . . . . . . . . . 2.2.5 Main IIIT site . . . . . . . . 2.2.6 Intranet website . . . . . . . 2.2.7 Courier portal . . . . . . . . 2.2.8 VPN . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.9 Library website . . . . . . . 2.2.10 Share a cab portal . . . . . 2.3 Useful email addresses . . . . . . . 2.3.1 Mailing lists . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Building names . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Contact points . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.1 Hostels . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.2 Mess . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 3 3 3 3 4 4 5 6 6 6 7 7 8 8 8 8 10 10 11 11 11

2.5.3 Technical problems . . . . . . . 2.5.4 Academic issues . . . . . . . . . 2.5.5 Accounts requests . . . . . . . . 2.5.6 General electrical requests . . . 2.5.7 General maintenance requests . 2.5.8 Miscellaneous request . . . . . . 2.5.9 Courses portal related requests 2.5.10 Campus doctors . . . . . . . . . 2.5.11 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.12 Mentor groups . . . . . . . . . . 2.6 Miscellaneous information . . . . . . . 2.6.1 EPABX extensions . . . . . . . 2.6.2 Proxy settings . . . . . . . . . . 2.6.3 Ambulance . . . . . . . . . . . 2.7 UG I workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.8 Dos and Donts . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Disclaimer

The information in the document is correct upto best of my knowledge. Since I am not member of any committee (Hostel, Mess, Campus life, etc.) some information in this document could be wrong or outdated. Whenever in doubt please contact one of the contact points (2.5) mentioned to get latest information. Many times information on ocial domains (2.1) is outdated and no longer valid, and hence in such cases it is best to contact some in-charge related to that area over email or in person to conrm the latest rules and guidelines. Readers are expected to verify the given information before using it in any serious matter. I accept no responsibility regarding errors in the document and should not be held liable for them. I should not be held responsible for problems that result due to this document. This document is only provided to help readers in understanding various aspects of campus. Students have asked many queries related to campus in past after lecture or during classes. I have tried to create a document which answers most of those common queries. Please note that this is not an ocial document on campus rules. Please refer to ocial sources for rules and regulations.

At many places guidelines usually taught in IT Workshop courses are mixed along with campus information in the document. It is occupational hazard, please live with it.

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2.1

About campus
Ocial domains
Section 2.2.1 2.2.2 2.2.3 2.2.4 2.2.5 2.2.6 2.2.7 2.2.8 2.2.9 URL http://students.iiit.ac.in/ http://mess.iiit.ac.in/ http://courses.iiit.ac.in/ https://isas.iiit.ac.in/ http://www.iiit.ac.in/ http://intranet.iiit.ac.in/ http://intranet.iiit.ac.in/courier/ http://vpn.iiit.ac.in/ http://library.iiit.ac.in/

Service Students email server Mess portal Courses portal ISAS portal Main IIIT website Intranet website Courier portal VPN information page Library website 2.1.1

Student maintained domains

Service Section URL Share cab portal 2.2.10 http://web.iiit.ac.in/~cab 2.1.2 Important points

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. It is used to specify exact location of a resource. Words portal and website are used interchangeably throughout the document. They both have same meaning. Adding www. in front of mentioned URLs is not required. In fact, many URLs will not work if www. is prexed. For example, http://www.mess.iiit.ac.in/ is not a valid URL. Many portals such as courses portal, mess portal etc. will take you to https://login.iiit.ac.in:443/cas/login URL. This is completely normal. This is Single Sign On (SSO) page of Central Authentication System (CAS). CAS username is complete email address including @students.iiit.ac.in part. CAS password is email password.

Once you login on any one of the portals that use CAS, you will not get prompted for username and password for any other portal that uses CAS. Please note that logout from CAS is not centralized. You should log out from all portals individually. Avoid entering your IIIT email address and password on untrusted websites, even if they are hosted within campus (Intranet). Change password of your account when you login for rst time. Do not share your IIIT email password with other students. Majority of intranet portals can will be accessible using your complete email address as username and email password as password. Most of this portals should authenticate users using CAS. Self-signed certicate warning will appear for all internal websites when using HTTPS. This is normal behavior. In most cases you can accept the certicate which is presented permanently. Please note that this is not a secure practice, but this is the only way to use HTTPS in campus at present. ISAS portal used for checking grades works only with https:// http://intranet.iiit.ac.in/, http://mess.iiit.ac.in/, etc. are internal domains and cannot be accessed directly from outside campus. To access these domains from outside use VPN services (section 2.2.8).

2.2
2.2.1

Domain description
Students email server

This is ocial email server for all B. Tech and M. Tech students. There is a separate server research.iiit.ac.in for research students. Faculty and sta use mail.iiit.ac.in email server. Do not use students mail server for unocial (non-study) purposes such as registering on social networking websites (facebook), or purchasing tickets etc. Mentioning students email ID at random places will attract SPAM (unwanted advertizement emails) and would cause problem to you in using your account eciently. There is quota for students email account. Please delete unwanted emails frequently and also remove deleted emails from Trash to keep your usage below quota. Some times emails get sent to lists (section 2.3.1) with large 4

attachments (more than 5 MB) which leads to quota being exceeded for many accounts. Once quota is exceeded emails bounce and do not get delivered to the user account. Hence it is important to keep enough (10 MB) space free in your INBOX at all times. Students are expected to check email regularly as considerable important information is communicated using email. It is possible that an important email gets sent in evening which requires action from your side next day. Hence you should check your email at least twice a day, once preferably late evening (after 08:00pm) and once during day (around noon). If for some reason you are not able to check email frequently, then you should consult your friends about any important announcements that might have been made using email. 2.2.2 Mess portal

This portal can be used to select mess where one wants to take meals on some particular day. There are four mess in campus, each serving dierent type of food: NBH mess : North + South mess Yuktahar mess : Student run mess with very high priority to health South mess: North mess: Located at OBH rst oor Located at OBH ground oor

All the four messes are 100% lacto-vegetarian, that is milk is served in all messes and considered to be vegetarian. Also egg and sh are considered to be non-vegetarian and not served in any of these four messes. To cater to people with non-vegetarian diet there is option of non-veg mess where on few selected days a non-vegetarian meal is provided to students in canteen. Mess bill is prepared with respect to actual usage. All students are expected to eat at least 25 days every month in mess. So at most ve cancellation days are allowed in a month. Please note that this is not equal to ve breakfast, ve lunch and ve dinner cancellations. Even if you cancel any one meal in a day that is counted as one canceled day. There are also juice shops and cafeteria for tea and snacks in campus. One such cafeteria is located outside Vindhya building near library. Other such cafeteria is located near International stadium boundary or basket ball court in front of Bakul hostel. There is also an canteen where students can order from menu and eat. This canteen is located near guest house and servers non-vegetarian dishes also. 5

Rules related to mess may change, hence one can contact mess caretaker as mentioned in section 2.5 to inquire about latest eective mess rules. Please remember disclaimer (section 1). 2.2.3 Courses portal

This portal can be used by many courses for hosting lecture materials, assignments, etc. Students can also be asked to submit their answers or solutions at this portal. Please note that it is not necessary that all courses use this portal. There are many courses which do not use courses portal in any way. Since it is not normally known whether a particular course will use courses portal or not, it is necessary for students to register for all courses they have taken in the semester, on courses portal. Please note that courses portal has peculiar terminology and dierentiates between use of subscribe and register. If you subscribe to a course then it will just appear in the list of courses on home page. Subscribe is just provided for ease of use and it does not changes anything signicant. Register however is a dierent type of option. It must be used only for courses that you have ocially registered for this semester through academic oce. UG I students do not register in academic oce as their courses are xed. But they still need to register on courses portal courses portal for those xed set of courses. Please note that it is responsibility of student to register himself or herself on courses portal for all courses that he/she has taken. Unless you register for a course on courses portal you cannot upload assignments for it. Also note that courses portal is opened for registrations only for few days in beginning of semester. You are supposed to complete your registration in the given time. 2.2.4 ISAS Portal

ISAS portal can be used to check grades. Most probably students email ID and password are used to log into ISAS portal. It may take few weeks after admission for academic oce to enable a students ISAS account. For any queries an concerns related to ISAS portal academic oce should be contacted as mentioned later. (section 2.5) 2.2.5 Main IIIT site

Main IIIT site contains recent news information related to campus. It can be read to know about recent achievements of students / faculty. IIIT site also has list of all faculty / sta along with their email addresses. Hence students 6

who wish to contact some faculty / sta can nd out the contact details of particular faculty or sta from this site. Many other important information related to placements, or mandatory disclosure, etc. is also hosted on this main website. 2.2.6 Intranet website

Intranet website is used to link all major intranet pages. Intranet website has information about lecture, lab and tutorial time-tables. Links to other important documents such as almanac (academic calendar), course oerings, course registration details, etc. are also available. Intranet links to websites of various clubs. It is possible that most of these websites have not been updated since many years. Important new announcements are also displayed on Intranet homepage for few days. Links to courier portal, courses portal, mess portal, students mail etc. are also present on Intranet website. One very important page that is linked from Intranet homepage is academic administration page at URL http://intranet.iiit.ac.in/Information/academic/index.php. This page contains information such as list of current students, list of all students, course oering for previous semesters, course description (again could be outdated), etc. Apart from these, this page has links to various rules and policies related to admissions, awards, grading, leaves, etc. It is a good idea to go through most of these pages to understand various rules and regulations of the campus. Although it is possible that given information is outdated, but it is still a good place to start. 2.2.7 Courier portal

Students should enter their hostel and contact information in this portal. This will allow security guards to send email to student when a courier is received for his/her name or hostel room. Please note that automatically done at time of registration when rooms are allotted to various students. Students are required to log into courier portal to enter this information. Whenever a courier is received a mail is sent to all the courier recipient with courier ID. Students can go to main building security desk and collect the courier by mentioning this courier ID. While collecting courier security guard may ask you to produce your ID card and also acknowledge the receipt of courier into a courier register. 7

It should also be noted that only couriers and registered posts are distributed in this manner. Normal / regular posts are delivered to security guards of respective hostels and students are expected to look through these posts regularly. Usually regular posts received by security guard are kept on security guards table for few days, before being discarded or moved to storage area. 2.2.8 VPN

Since portals like courses, mess, etc. are not accessible publicly from outside campus, a VPN service is provided to all students so that they can access these portals from home. Explanation of VPN service is outside the scope of this document. Students can contact help team members mentioned in section 2.5 for help regarding VPN. 2.2.9 Library website

Library website contains information related to rules and regulations for use of library. Students can issue library books from library for a specic duration. To see which books are available in library and whether are already issued to some other students or not, students can use OPAC link from library website. Institute also subscribes to many online journals and libraries such as IEEE, Springer, ACM, Science direct, etc. These are indispensable resources for any researcher to obtain information about already published research work. 2.2.10 Share a cab portal

Share a cab portal is probably not ocial institute portal. It is managed by student community, in general so that users can share cabs while traveling to / from airport, railway stations, etc. to IIIT. This portal is especially useful at time of holidays when many students leave or arrive at campus on same day.

2.3

Useful email addresses

Few email addresses are created for specic purpose and not associated with a single person. Such email addresses are mentioned below for reference:

Email address help@iiit.ac.in

techsupport@iiit.ac.in

messcomm@students.iiit.ac.in

Description IIIT Systems Help Desk. This email address can be used for all IIIT technical resource related problems. Any problems related to servers such as email, vpn, mirage, web, etc. should be emailed to this address. All support requests such as creation of mailing list, not receiving mails sent to particular list, resetting password, etc. should also be sent to this address. All network related problems should also be reported at this address. IIIT help desk also helps in maintenance of class-room projectors and UPSs in the campus. Hence it can be contacted for class-room projector, sound system and UPS related issues too. Tech-support team. This email address can be contacted in case of hardware problems in systems that are kept in UG I workspace, class-rooms, teaching labs, etc. Please note that tech-support team is not available for resolving hardware or software problems with your personal laptops. Students are expected to solve all personal problems on their own. Students mess committee representatives. This email address can be used to contact student representatives of mess committee. Students can send request for change in menu, queries related to mess rules, problems faced in using mess portal, etc. to this address

Email address messwarden@iiit.ac.in

parliament@students.iiit.ac.in

apexbody@lists.iiit.ac.in

Description Mess warden. This email address can be used to contact mess wardens. Typically mess wardens should be contacted only for mess exemption requests. However if some complaint is not resolved after multiple reminders to messcom or mess caretaker, then the same complaint can be forwarded to messwarden for escalation. Students parliament members. This email address can be used to contact members of students parliament. Students apex body. There is students apex body to help with welcoming of new students in campus. Students apex body members can be contacted by sending email to this list.

2.3.1

Mailing lists

Considerable communication in campus is done using emails. For example, communication about cancellation of class, change of class-room, exam time-table, etc. is done using email. In order to send email to a group of people mailing lists are used. Information about mailing lists is mentioned at Intranet page. At the time of this writing URL of the page is http://intranet.iiit.ac.in/maillist.html. Please follow decorum of the Institute when sending email to such lists. Use of hate or abusive language on such lists is not welcomed. Few lists such as students, all, research, faculty, etc. are moderated. Hence mails sent to these lists require approval from moderator (IIIT Systems Help Desk) before it is forwarded to all list members.

2.4

Building names

Many buildings such as Vindhya, Nilgiri, Palash, Parijat, Kadambh etc. have been in campus since many years. These building may be referred by their old names in documents or conversations. Old names of these buildings are mentioned here for reference.

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Old name New name NBH Kadambh nivas OBH Palash nivas GH Parijat nivas Main building Nilgiri Library or research center building Vindhya Bakul hostel and Himalaya buildings are new and hence they do not have any old name.

2.5
2.5.1

Contact points
Hostels

For common problems related to electricians, plumber or carpenter, complaint registers are kept with security guard at entrance of each hostel. Students can write the complaints in the register. There is also hostel caretaker for each hostel. For other issues that are not related to electrician, plumber or carpenter one may approach respective hostel care-takers. Hostel care-takers for various hostels are mentioned below: Hostel Care-taker Kadambh B Lakshmi Narayana Palash M Balagangadharan Parijat B Lakshmi Narayana Bakul Bhanu Pratap Sharma Email addresses for the care-takers can be found on IIIT website in People section. 2.5.2 Mess

For any issues and concerns related to mess you can also contact Mess caretaker Mr. Balasubrahmanyam Uday Kumar. 2.5.3 Technical problems

For any network or software related problem such as servers contact help@iiit.ac.in. For class-room projectors, sound systems and UPS also mail can be sent to help@iiit.ac.in. For any hardware related problem in labs, workspace etc. contact techsupport@iiit.ac.in.

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2.5.4

Academic issues

For any academic concerns contact one of the members in Academic oce (Room 115, Nilgiri building). The academic concerns could be of nature: Clarication regarding academic rules Clarication on time-tables Clarication on attendance rules Request for change of seat due to medical reasons Leave applications Issue of Residence proof, mark sheet, bona de certicate etc. Re-issue of ID card Submitting original passing certicates, AIEEE score card, etc. Please note that if you are not well then you do not need to contact all the faculty members teaching various courses for leave. You only need to submit one application in academic oce (which most of the time requires medical certicate). If your request is approved by dean, the approval is intimated to all faculty members so that they can take appropriate corrective actions. To contact academic oce using emails mails can be sent to Mr. N N Appaji or Mr. Y V S K Kishore. 2.5.5 Accounts requests

For accounts related queries and requests students can contact accounts oce Room 103, Nilgiri building. The only type of accounts request that student should have in normal circumstances is re-issue of fee receipts for bank loan, etc. purposes. 2.5.6 General electrical requests

Apart from electrical requests in hostels, students may have electricity related requests or complaints in rest of the campus. For example it is possible that some important street light is not working and students do not feel safe in crossing corresponding street in night. In such cases mail can be sent to Dy. Executive Engineer (Electrical) Mr. K Venugopal.

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2.5.7

General maintenance requests

Apart from carpenter, plumber etc. requests in hostels students may discover problems with equipment in other parts of campus. For example students may discover that chairs in class-room have some problem or water cooler in Himalaya building are not working properly etc. In such cases mail can be sent to Deputy Executive Engineer Mr. K Srinivas. 2.5.8 Miscellaneous request

For requests related to trimming of trees or bushes, issues related to ambulance, issues related to house-keeping and security sta, mails can be sent to admin support@iiit.ac.in. This address is associated with Mr. Ramana and Mr. Srinivas Vasuri who both help in management of such issues. 2.5.9 Courses portal related requests

For issues related to courses portal contact Mr. G Rama Krishna in academic oce or over email. Please note that it is students responsibility to ensure that he/she is registered for all of his/her courses on courses portal. If you face any problem in registering for your course, you should contact Mr. G Rama Krishna in academic oce and get it rectied as soon as possible.s 2.5.10 Campus doctors

Dierent types of doctors (Ayurvedic, Homeopathic, Allopathic, etc.) are available in campus on various days to help students in health related issues. There is medical center in campus where these doctors visit on some specic days at specic times. Please consult notice board outside medical center for such information. Usually an email is sent to all IIIT members when timings of doctors are changed. In case you nd that information on board outside medical center is not accurate, and you are not able to meet particular doctor, then you can contact Mr. M Balagangadharan (OBH care-taker) for more accurate information. If Mr. M Balagangadharan is also not reachable then you can also contact Mr. B Lakshmi Narayana (NBH or GH care-taker) for the information. 2.5.11 Sports

For any queries and concerns related to sports you can contact Physical Education Ocer Mr. K S Kamalakar. Queries and concerns when sports in-charge should be contacted: 13

 Request for improvement of ground Request for repair of some sports facility such as basket ball court Request for improvements in gym. Request of issue of sports material such as TT bat, Badminton rackets, Basket ball, Foot ball, Cricket related materials, etc. Note that there is a gymnasium in both NBH cellar and Girls hostel (probably on second oor above TV room) so that students who are interested in keeping themselves t via gym can do so. There is also international stadium near campus where sports facilities of international standards for swimming, badminton, etc. are available. Students can meet with Sports in-charge Mr. K S Kamalakar for queries related to membership, rules, fees, etc. of international stadium. 2.5.12 Mentor groups

In case you are not clear on whom to contact for particular issue you can approach your respective mentor group. The information mentioned in this document is not exhaustive and mentors can help in issues which are not explicitly covered in this document. If you are not very condent about who is the best person to contact in case of overlap, then you can send email to many dierent persons. You can also send email to mentor and request him/her to forward the request to correct person.

2.6
2.6.1

Miscellaneous information
EPABX extensions

Many times various people in campus can ask you to reach them at given extension number. Such extension numbers are four-digits in length and have their rst digit is 1. You can use any land-line phone in campus like the ones kept near hostel security, in mess, in most oces, etc. to dial these extensions. 2.6.2 Proxy settings

To be able to use Internet from campus, you will need to congure proxy server proxy.iiit.ac.in and use proxy port 8080. Procedure of how to congure proxy for Firefox would be explained in IT WS I lectures. Similar process can be followed for most other browsers. 14

2.6.3

Ambulance

Ambulance is available in campus for medical emergencies. Please note that ambulance is for emergency and not for regular appointments. During an emergency you can contact hostel security guard or main building security guards (ext. 1120) and request for ambulance. Many faculty members including myself stay in campus and you can feel free to contact any of us during emergency.

2.7

UG I workspace

Up to last year (2011-2012) UG I students were not recommended to purchase laptops in rst year. However the rules have changed and from this year (2012-2013) onwards UG I students are required to purchase laptops in rst year. UG I students were not provided Internet in hostels earlier and the same is applicable even now. Thus in order to use Internet or check mails, etc. students should come to UG I workspace along with laptops and use network points in workspace for network access. Note that students are expected to purchase network cables at time of admission and carry it with them at all the places in the campus for network access. UG I workspace is air conditioned, but air conditioner is used only in summer seasons. UG I workspace may be open only from 06:00am to midnight 12:00. Security guard would close the workspace around midnight and all students must cooperate with the guard in closing the workspace at correct time. Few PCs are also being kept in workspace so that students who are not carrying laptops with them can use these machines for checking email, timetable, etc.

2.8

Dos and Donts

Following list of dos and donts can be used for more comfortable stay in campus Do not play music using laptop or cell phone speakers in common areas such as workspace, mess, etc. If listening to sound output is necessary use ear-phones, in a manner such that they do not disturb others. Since library in just below UG I workspace, making any kind of noise in UG I workspace will aect students who are studying in library. Hostel rules may also have specic guidelines related to refraining use of loud music. 15

 Do not call faculty or sta members on mobile phone unless they have specically asked you to do so. Finding out mobile number of any faculty or sta is not dicult, but having someones mobile number is not a warrant for calling them. If you have missed an assignment dead-line, whether due to submission portal not working, power failure, lack of Internet, etc., it is completely your problem. Calling faculty to resolve such problems is not welcomed. A faculty or sta member should be called only during real emergencies such as re (unlikely), friend is really sick and you do not know what to do, etc. Assignments, courses, grades, etc. do not count as real emergencies and for all such cases email should be used.

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