Getting started
From FreeSide Wiki
So, you've now got a FreeSide account, which means you've got various facilities available to you.
A good first port of call, would be visiting Wop, and getting your password changed.
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Accessing Wop
To access Wop, you will need an SSH client. In Windows, PuTTY is recommended. Download putty.exe, and then run it. You will be presented with a window like that to the right. Enter freeside.co.uk or freeside.dcs.hull.ac.uk in the "Host Name", make sure the port is 22, and SSH is selected below. To make your life easier, you can save these settings for easy use. Type "FreeSide" or whatever you want to call it into the "Saved Sessions" box, then press save. You can then double click on that in the future, and be taken to the SSH login prompt.
In a Linux/UNIX based system, from a command line, you can just type "ssh freeside.co.uk".
Now, you will need to enter the username you selected when you signed up. Type that, and press enter, and then your password. Typing your password will not show any characters on the screen. You should now have a command prompt. It would be a good time to change your password, from whatever you requested your account to be setup with.
To do this, type "passwd" and press enter. You will then need to enter your current password, and then your new password twice. After this, your password will be changed.
If you are away from your normal computer, but still want SSH access to FreeSide, you can use our web client.
What next
Webspace
So, you are now in your "home" or user directory. This is where you can store any files. Typing "ls" will show you a directory listing, and you should notice you have a folder called "public_html". This is the folder where you can put any files that you want to be accessible from the internet in your own webspace. To access your webspace, visit http://www.freeside.co.uk/~yourusername/ in a web browser. You should see a directory listing of all files in there, or a webpage, if you have an index.htm/index.html/index.php.
NOTE: We currently have both Python and Mono web servers running that will be publicly available as soon as we find an appropriate method of allowing users storage access for their python / .NET apps.
Databases
A MySQL database is created by default with a new account and is the same name as your username. Along with the database we use phpMyAdmin for administration. See phpMyAdmin for phpMyAdmin
MySQL user checks are separate from general freeside services. You may change your password in the phpMyAdmin control panel by logging in and clicking "Change Password".
FTP/SFTP
FTP is currently offline/tempremental, however, you can use SFTP to upload your files to FreeSide.
Use WinSCP on windows.
Blogs
Everyone on FreeSide can have a blog. To visit and use yours, visit http://blog.freeside.co.uk and login. This will automatically create your blog. You can login using your FreeSide username and password.
FreeSide Blogs use Wordpress MU.
Instant Messaging
IRC
An IRC server is available at irc.freeside.co.uk. It is accessible using any IRC client (XChat (Windows or Linux), Pidgin, irssi) or via a web browser using Mibbit.
Jabber
Teamspeak
A Teamspeak server is available at freeside.co.uk:8767
Need Help
If you're stuck and need help, people are usually around in IRC - irc.freeside.co.uk
Bugs and Feature requests may be reported at projects.freeside.co.uk/freeside
