Krypton

Krypton is a general purpose UNIX® server for use by students, faculty, and staff of Minnesota State University, Mankato. Krypton supports:

• Teaching the UNIX operating system.
• Teaching and using various programming languages, including C, C++, Fortran, and Java.
• LaTeX, a document preparation and text formatting system.
• A number of X-Windows and console applications.
• Personal web pages for students, faculty, staff, and Recognized Student Organizations (RSO).

Krypton is available on a 24-hour basis, year round, with the exception of planned hardware and software upgrades which would be announced in advance on the Announcements page. Unexpected down-times caused by hardware or software failures cannot be predicted and you should consider this when planning projects that require Krypton or its utilities.

Connecting to Krypton

Please see the Connect methods web page.

If you place files in your public_html folder they will be viewable on the web at the URL http://krypton.mnsu.edu/~userid.

You must change userid above to your own userid.

If you're an RSO user, an alternative URL was provided in the introductory e-mail message sent upon account creation.

Default Web Document

If you place a document named index.html in your public_html folder, this will be your web site's default web document.

Personal Web Site Directory

If you'd like to be placed on a list of people at MSU who have a web site please fill out the on-line form and you'll be placed in all on-line directories and in the MSU People Finder.

If you're an RSO user, please contact the office of Recognized Student Organizations to have your web site included in the RSO directory.

Advanced Topics

User CGI-BIN

Krypton has user CGI-BIN capabilities enabled. This allows users to create their own CGI-BIN program that execute via the web server. These programs execute as if the user had typed the command. All permissions and access control are limited by the privileges of the user owning the command.

The following must be true about a user CGI-BIN program in order for it to execute properly:

1. The program must have a extension of .cgi (Ex: program.cgi)
2. Permissions set for world read and execute (Ex: chmod 755 program.cgi)
3. All of the directories above the file must be at least world execute (Note: this must be true for web documents as well.)
4. The program and it's parent directory can not have world write permission. (Ex: chmod 755 program.cgi)
5. The executable must not exceed 2 seconds of execution time.
6. The executable must not exceed its allowed permissions.

If all of these items are true then the user CGI-BIN can be accessed on the web as URL:

http://krypton.mnsu.edu/~youruserid/program.cgi where youruserid is the userid of the user in question.

Please be aware of the restrictions to the user CGI-BIN extensions.

PHP

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor is available on Krypton.

We are implementing PHP on krypton.mnsu.edu as a suEXEC cgi-bin program. This allows you to implement PHP programs on your web page that run with your local permissions on krypton. This means you can have the same privacy on your web pages as you expect from local file permissions.

You must follow these rules to make suEXEC php programs work on Krypton.

1. Name the files with a .cgi or .php ending (.php) is preferred for clarity
2. The file must have the following first line
   #!/usr/local/phpcgi/bin/php
   1. the line must be exactly as is
   2. there can be no spaces or other characters on that line other than those shown.
   3. if you uploaded it from a Windows computer you may need to remove the extra blank characters that Windows appends onto lines
      The command dos2unix may be able to help. Use as follows:
      dos2unix < dosfile.php > goodfile.php
      (where dosfile.php and goodfile.php are replaced where appropriate.)
3. The file must be owned and group owned by you (this is default anyway.)
4. The directory must be owned and group owned by you (this is default anyway.)
5. The permissions must be such that you can execute it. Minimally:
   chmod 700 yourfile.php
6. The permission on the parent directory must not allow group or other write permission.
   chmod 2755 public_html
7. You must call the script by the following URL:
   http://krypton.mnsu.edu/~youruserid/yourfile.php
   Where youruserid is YOUR userid and yourfile.php is your php file.

Server Parsed HTML - SSI

Server parsed html has been enabled on Krypton. To cause a user document to be a parsed document give the file a .shtml extension. The exec feature have been disabled due to security concerns. For more information, please refer to NCSA's SSI page.