Computing Support FAQS

There are three University systems which most students and Fellows have access to:

• Exchange Online/Hermes (Email)
• Raven (Web authentication)
• DS/MCS (Workstations, file and printing services)

Passwords for these systems are controlled by the UIS Password Management System. This allows existing users to change their passwords (via the “Login” button) and new users to collect their initial passwords (via the “New user” button).

UIS Password Management System

If you have forgotten your password, you can get a reset token by contacting the Churchill Computing Support (01223 336043) or UIS Helpdesk (01223 332999). You can then use the “Use token” button to reset your password.

Historically these three systems had separate sets of passwords, and those people who have had accounts for many years may still have different passwords for each system. After using the Password Management System, all three passwords will be the same.

• The most common cause of this problem is that you have selected the wrong password to use from the various passwords issued to you. To log in to the MCS computers, you need your DS/MCS password, previously known as your PWF password. In most cases your Hermes and Raven passwords will be the same as your DS/MCS password, however this may not be the case for people who have not changed their password within the last couple of years. You cannot use your old Churchill password to log in to the MCS computers.
• If you know your Raven password, you can use the UIS Password Management system to change your Raven, Hermes and DS/MCS passwords.
• You can also visit the Churchill Computing Support Office in person and have your password reset while you wait, upon production of your University card.
• Lastly, you can also visit the UIS Service Desk in person and have your password reset, upon production of a University card.

UIS Password Management System

UIS Service Desk

There are four different generally-available wireless networks provided in Churchill College:

• eduroam
• UniOfCam
• UniOfCam-IoT
• UniOfCam-Guest

More detail is shown in the below link:

Wireless Networks

This basically comes down to common sense. The College aims to have as few restrictions on the use of the network as possible, but there are two main areas where restrictions are in place:

1. You must not use excessive amounts of network bandwidth
2. You must not run peer-to-peer file-sharing software such as (but not limited to) BitTorrent.
3. You must not connect a wireless router or access point, unless in accordance with the College’s policies.

In more general terms, you must not do anything which causes problems for other users of the network, you must not attack or otherwise attempt to hack in to or damage either the network itself or any computers connected to it, you must not use the network for commercial purposes or personal gain (so you can’t, for example, run a business from your room!) and you must not in any case do anything which contravenes either the JANET Acceptable Use Policy or the rules for the use of the CUDN.

Finally, it should go without saying that you must not do anything which is in itself illegal (such as, for example, downloading copyrighted films or music which you haven’t paid for) otherwise, quite apart from the fines and other penalties imposed by the College, the University and/or the various Copyright protection agencies as appropriate, you may find that a squad of policemen burst unexpectedly into your room and do a lot of what’s-all-this-then-ing before carting you off to Cambridge Crown Court.

College Network Policies

Instructions to set up wired- internet access

• Remember that you must not connect your computer to the College network until you have registered for (and received) an IP address from the Computer Support Office.
• Check to make sure that you have entered all the network information correctly, according to the instructions. If you are having trouble accessing the Internet or e-mail, pay particular attention to the TCP/IP section of the instructions.
• If you can’t access the Internet, the problem may be in the way that your web browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome etc) is set up, or in the way that you have configured your TCP/IP. First, make sure that the problem is not just with the website you’re trying to look at – try several different ones such as www.chu.cam.ac.uk, www.cam.ac.uk or www.google.co.uk. Try going to a command prompt (known as ‘Command Prompt’, ‘bash’ and ‘shell’ in various different operating systems) and typing: ping www.cam.ac.uk
• If it produces a failure message similar to ‘DNS error’ or ‘Bad IP address’ or ‘Unable to resolve name’ then you should check the entries for ‘DNS Server’ in your TCP/IP configuration. If it produces a failure message similar to ‘Destination host unreachable’ then you should check the entries for ‘Host name’, ‘Domain’ and ‘Default gateway’ in your TCP/IP configuration. If you can access external sites such as Google but not sites within Cambridge, then check your ‘Subnet Mask’ setting.
• If it produces any other failure message then the problem is most likely to be in the network adapter.
• If it produces no response at all (or on Windows systems a series of messages saying ‘Request timed out’), you should check that your network cable is plugged in securely at both ends, and if so you should ask the Computer Support Office to check your network socket and cable for you.
• If none of the network features are working, make sure that your network interface card (or NIC) is able to ‘see’ the network. On desktop or tower case machines, there is usually at least one light on the NIC’s metal plate (on the back of the computer beside where you have plugged the network cable in). On a laptop machine, there is usually at least one light either on the edge of the NIC, or on the adapter (which has one end plugged in to the NIC on the computer, and the other end plugged in to the wall socket). One of the lights on the card should probably be flashing irregularly. If not, the card may not be correctly installed, so try uninstalling and removing it, and then re-installing it, possibly in a different slot. (Note that the design of different NICs varies, so a minority of them may not have a flashing light as described above.)

If none of the above suggestions solve the problem, please contact the Computer Support Office for assistance. We should be able to arrange for someone to have a look at the problem for you.

Please do NOT bring your computer itself to the Computer Support Office for diagnosis without first contacting us and making an appointment.

Email Computing

• It is possible that your computer has been discovered to have a virus, has malfunctioned in some way detrimental to the rest of the network, has exceeded the bandwith limit or has been found to be doing something in breach of the various regulations for use of the network. In any of these cases, your room may have been disconnected from the network, so you should check your pigeonhole for an orange ‘Notice of Disconnection’, which will explain why you have been disconnected as well as giving advice on what to do next.
• If you have just moved in to a new room and your computer worked fine in your old room, it is possible that a clerical error has occurred resulting in the network connection in your new room not being set up for your use. If your computer appears to be connected properly and the normal flashing lights, connection messages and/or network icons appear as expected, but you can’t make use of any network facilities, this may be the cause. Please contact the Computer Support Office where this condition can be quickly checked for.
• Your computer may have developed a hardware fault, or a virus or malware may have infected it and interfered with the networking software. If you believe this to be the case, please disconnect your computer from the network and contact the Computer Support Office for advice. Amongst other things, we have a stock of security CDs which can help in removing virus or malware infections.

Email Computing

If you care about your work, BACK IT UP!

• Any work which you save to your MCS filespace (which is automatically accessible on the College MCS PCs as drive U:, and is also known as the DS-Filestore service) is regularly backed up by the UIS. However, you are encouraged to make your own backups to CD-R/RWs or to USB flash drives, especially if you are working on a very important file. The Computer Support Office has a stock of CD-R/RW discs and USB memory sticks for sale.
• Even if you normally work on your own computer in your room and do not use the College MCS PCs, we recommend that you use the University’s DS-Filestore service as an additional backup for your work; you can never have too many backups, and disks and flash drives can get lost or damaged. You can access the DS-Filestore service from your own computer by following the instructions on the UIS website. Remember that the space on DS-Filestore is provided for academic work, so the University are unlikely to look favourably on requests for more space if it turns out that you have used your existing space to back up your personal music collection and last year’s holiday snaps.
• If you don’t keep regular backups of your work, you will almost certainly discover, with a horrible sinking feeling, about two-and-a-half hours before the submission deadline, that you have either accidentally erased your one and only copy of your work entirely and are unable to recover it, or that the hard drive in your computer has gone bang and all your work is gone.
• OneDrive is Microsoft’s cloud-based file hosting service, and it’s available to people who are eligible for a University Microsoft account. OneDrive for Business | IT Help and Support (cam.ac.uk)

• If nothing seems to be happening, DON’T send several more copies to the printer without investigating the problem first. If there is a problem with the printer, all the copies will be queued up and eventually printed, and you will end up with (and be charged for) many more copies than you wanted!
• The first thing to check is that you actually sent the document to the intended printer. Remember that in most Windows applications the “Print” button on the toolbar will send a single copy of your document to the default printer, so try selecting “Print…” from the File menu and check that the default printer is the one you were expecting.
• Read the screen on the printer – in many cases it will explain the problem, such as having run out of paper or toner. If you do not understand the message, contact the Computing Support Office with the exact message displayed on the screen.

The majority of the details required are in the main Computing support page (Link below)

Computing Support

Connecting to DS-Print.

The College uses DS-Print, also provided by the UIS, to enable members to use the College printers. The printers at the College can be used from  both Desktops and Laptops by installing the DS-Print utility available in the link below.

The printers can also be used from computers running Linux; if you wish to do so please also refer to the macOS instructions as they will provide the SMB shares and general process that you will need to adapt for your distribution.

Setting up printing

Guidelines for the use of the College-provided email lists

1. Think twice before sending anything to the lists. If a message for the students is not immediately urgent then maybe it should go out in the JCR/MCR weekly bulletin emails via the JCR Secretary (jcr-secretary@chu.cam.ac.uk) or the MCR Secretary (mcr-secretary@chu.cam.ac.uk). Likewise for the Fellows or staff lists; in both of these cases you should consider sending the message to the Registrar (bursar@chu.cam.ac.uk) who can include it in the Fellows’ bulletins or the weekly Staff Information Sheet.
2. If you do have to notify the Fellows or students directly, try to put the whole message in the message body rather than in an attachment. If the formatting is important, use the body to express as much of the attachment content as possible.
3. If the prospective file for attaching is not generally going to be readable, try to convert it to a format that is. This may be a PDF file, which is still far from ideal; plain text in the message body is still the best solution if possible. The prime example of inappropriate files are Microsoft Word documents, which are neither readable via the Pine email client (the University’s recommended email program), nor reliably readable on the PWF Linux systems, nor easily readable by any Windows or Mac user who hasn’t spent money on an appropriate version of Microsoft Office.
4. If you can put the main bulk of the message in the message body as plain text, do you really need the attachment file? If it’s accessible via the Web, a URL (web address) is much better as the message won’t require so much downloading time – while not an issue on the University network, for students or Fellows living out with modem connections this can be a big problem.

In the event of problems with the College computing facilities, please use the following guidelines to determine how best to get the problem resolved. It greatly assists us in solving problems if you supply as much information as possible about the nature of the problem.

There are two main groups of problems; those requiring “Normal support” and those requiring “Emergency support”.

Normal support:

To obtain Normal support, you should use an appropriate method from the list below.

• Please visit our Support Portal https://churchillcollege.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portals
• Send an email to computing@chu.cam.ac.uk
• Telephone (01223) (3)36043If you have to leave a message, please be sure to leave your name and contact telephone number.

Normal support is intended for matters such as:

• Suggestions and requests

• Queries about computers and networks in ChurchillIf you have a general question about the use of any of the network and computer facilities provided at Churchill, such as if a particular facility is available or how to use a certain feature.
• Problem with your MCS accountIf you cannot log in, you cannot print or you are experiencing problems with one or more applications which other users are not experiencing.
• Problem with personal computerIf you have a network-related problem with your own computer in your room, such as not being able to connect to the network or print to the printers, or if the computer has some severe problem such as not being able to start up.
• Problem with specific MCS computerIf a computer does not seem to be connecting to the network properly, or you cannot print from it, or certain applications do not work properly.
• Problem with specific MCS printerIf the printer has run out of paper, or it will not print, or it is displaying an error message which you cannot get rid of. Note that if a printer runs out of paper outside office hours, you should contact the Porters, who will arrange to have it refilled.

We are also happy to help with other matters such sales and general computing advice.

For severe, system-wide problems you should use Emergency Support detailed below.

Emergency support:

To obtain Emergency support, contact Computing Support Office during office hours (computing@chu.cam.ac.uk) , or otherwise contact the Porters’ Lodge.

Emergency Support should only be used for severe problems such as the following:

• Problem with all the MCS printersNone of the printers will print documents for any user, or all the printers have run out of paper or toner.
• Problem with all the MCS computersIf none of the computers are allowing any user to log in, or if they are all generating error messages and refusing to run applications, or if they are all unusable for some other reason.
• Other severe problem involving the entire networkFor example, loss of network services within Churchill such that you are unable to connect to anywhere outside of College. Loss of the connection to the University when no period of network downtime has been publicised is normally the responsibility of the University Computing Service, as the cause of such a problem is unlikely to be within Churchill itself.

We welcome comments and feedback about the Computing facilities provided at Churchill, and aim to improve the facilities based on this feedback.

Contact Computing Support