File Management - ARC-Lab-UF/docs GitHub Wiki
You will almost certainly need to edit files on the servers. There are several ways to accomplish this.
Git is the preferred method for storing project files (HDL, scripts, documentation, etc.) and allows for version management. It also provides an intuitive mechanism for getting files onto the servers initially.
Here is a nice video tutorial by some students from MIT. It provides a nice in-depth introduction to how Git works. If you want a shorter introduction, you can search around YouTube a little bit and find plenty of options.
Visual Studio Code is the most "popular" text editor as of 2023. It provides a plethora of extensions and features to customize the way you edit files or write code.
More importantly for us, it has an extension that allows us to edit files on a remote machine using a local instance of the VS Code application. For a guide on getting started, see VS Code Remote Development.
Several methods exist for editing your files directly on a server.
The visual editor improved (vim) is the traditional Unix editor; however, it is not necessarily the most intuitive editor.
- Vim interactive tutorial: https://www.openvim.com/
- Vim cheatsheet: https://vim.rtorr.com/
Emacs is a much heavier duty editor, but again has the problem of having commands that are non-intuitive.
- Emacs homepage: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
Nano is a lightweight text editor with a simpler user interface than Vim or Emacs, but it is not very convenient for editing a lot of text. It is better suited to editing a couple of words in an existing file.
- Nano homepage: https://www.nano-editor.org/
A common important task is to transfer files between your local machine and the server. There are several GUI and CLI tools to accomplish this.
If you would like to use a GUI, we recommend:
- FileZilla for Windows or MacOS X
-
WinSCP for Windows.
- If you wish to open files with WinSCP, you can choose to open files in something other than the default editor by clicking the option tab, preferences, editors, Add. Then either specify an external editor to use (for example notepad++) or use the associated application with your windows machine (like open csv using excel). Feel free to specify a file type and press ok. Make sure to double check the editor preference order.
- Cyberduck for MacOS X
After you have chosen and downloaded a client, configure the client to connect to <server>.hcs.ufl.edu, specifying port number 22. Use your username and password (or possibly an SSH key) to log in.