ECE do's and don'ts

Welcome to the ECE department at University of Toronto. As a research user (grad student, postdoc, RA, visiting professor/grad) there are many computing services available to you within ECE. This page highlights key pointers on accessing these services.

DO's:

Please DO contact ecehelp at ece.utoronto.ca for help with all research computing needs

Please DO consult our user documentation http://ecehelp.ece.utoronto.ca

Please DO ask how our support services work, including “tier 1/tier 2/tier 3” and what tier your supervisor opts for. This page goes over what you need to know about these different tiers: [link]

Please DO use CC: (email 'carbon copy') to include your supervisor when requesting a charged-back service:

creating a new account on a research network
connecting a new or previously offline PC to Tier 1 or Tier 2 network
reassigning a Tier 1 or Tier 2 PC to a new user
converting a PC from one support tier to another

Please DO let us know who is the new user is whenever a 'tier 2' PC is reassigned, even though it is user-managed!

Please DON'T ASSUME we know everything about you:

subject: Help 
Email body: my computer doesn't work. 
Signed - Joe

Please DO help us with info in your initial contact:

are you a student? postdoc? visitor?
who is your supervisor?
where is your office/desk?
what computer? (name, IP address?) What O/S is your PC running?

For network connection issues, please tell us:

what is the jack number where your network cable connects to the network? Is it shared?
what is the MAC address of your PC's *wired* ethernet interface [link]

I.e., don't just say “my computer {won't connect|needs Matlab|etc.}” and just assume we know what PC, where it is and what O/S it runs.

DON'Ts:

Please DO NOT share your account password or VPN password with any other user [link]

Please DO NOT plug in any unregistered device to a Tier 1 or Tier 2 network port, and DO NOT move known PCs to new ports without first contacting ecehelp - the port could be locked out and require resetting [link]

Please DO NOT manually assign IP addresses on Tier 1 or Tier 2 networks, e.g. don't try guessing IPs until you find one that doesn't collide (yet) [link]

Please DO NOT install your own wireless access points on campus [link]

Please DO NOT run peer-to-peer networking such as BitTorrent on any UofT network, wired or wireless [link]

Please DO NOT install or run pirated software or post any content in violation of copyright or of non-disclosure agreements