What do I do if the pipes are leaking, the elevator doesn't work, my room is too hot or too cold?

Last updated: August 15th, 2019 12:18 PM

During normal business hours you may contact Michele Thomas (Rm 6129 x4-5755, paum4b@cs.pitt.edu) for problems of this nature. After hours, in an emergency, such as when water is seen leaking from pipes, please call the campus police at 412-624-2121 and report the problem.

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Random FAQ

How often are my files backed up?

The technical staff performs backups every night starting at 12:30 AM. If you accidentally delete or change a file and do not discover the error the same day, send e-mail to tech@sci.pitt.edu describing the file you would like recovered.

If you discover the error the same day (i.e. before the next nightly backup is done), you can quickly recover the file yourself. Each night, a copy of all files within your AFS volume is backed up to a separate volume pointed to by the symbolic link called "Backup" in your home directory. You may use the UNIX command "cd" to get to this volume and its subdirectories which is a mirror of your home directory for the previous day.

Once you locate the file in question, use the UNIX "cp" command to copy this file to the appropriate spot in your home directory. See the "cp" man page for the system that you are logged onto; there are slight variations between UNIX platforms.

It is faster to recover files yourself from the ${HOME}/Backup directory whenever possible since it does not involve the staff loading tapes when time permits.