CSIL Linux/Unix Known Issues
About the all-important SFU VPN, SFU MFA
To strengthen cyber security, SFU has implemented MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) and VPN (Virtual Private Network) solutions for the community.
SFU VPN is available to all SFU employees, including faculty and staff and to graduate students.
And it is now also available to all CMPT undergraduate students - this means anyone is enrolled in a CMPT course has access to SFU VPN.
- please set it up ASAP.
- if you have trouble with SFU VPN, please email us asap.
SFU MFA is a prerequisite of SFU VPN - set it up now.
No MFA, no CSIL access. - please sign up now!
OTP: One-Time Password; the password appears and changes every 30 seconds on your SFU MFA device.
Some of the terminologies we are using on this page:
myUserID : your SFU Computing ID
FQDN:
fully qualified domain name
- ending in csil.sfu.ca
(e.g., asb9700-g01.csil.sfu.ca)
RDP:
Remote Desktop Protocol
- it is also called Remote Desktop Connection
About System Access (login issues)
- I cannot login to any CSIL Linux workstation!
- I cannot login CSIL Ubuntu workstations while I could sign-in to CSIL Windows.
- I have login to CSIL Linux workstations previously, but now I cannot login. What's wrong?
- After I use my correct password login and click yes to agree with the CSIL policy, the system kicks me out. What's going on?
- I cannot find my sfuhome after I login to a CSIL Linux workstation.
- I cannot see any files under my sfuhome after I login to a CSIL Linux workstation.
- I cannot write to my sfuhome.
- I cannot see any files under my sfuhome after I use ssh key login to a CSIL Linux system.
- The system shows I have exceeded my disk quota; but I have plenty of space on my SFU Home space. What's the deal?
About Remote Access to CSIL Linux CPU servers and CSIL Linux workstations
- I cannot connect to a CSIL Linux CPU server!
- I cannot connect back to my suspended remote session.
- I get connection error while trying to login to CSIL desktop (GUI Login)!
- My remote CSIL desktop (GUI login) window shows no text.
- I get "Connection reset" error every 2 minutes while I connect to a CSIL host!
I cannot login to any CSIL Linux workstation!
There are number of potential reasons for this.
_ Did you register late?
In this case, your account may simply have not been processed yet.
Accounts are enabled in CSIL within one business day of being processed by the Registrar. If you don't have access after two business days of registering, email helpdesk.
_ Did you exceed the disk quota?
Every user gets a limited amount of disk space to use, and if the limit is reached, the Graphical User Interface (GUI) login session won't work. Some tips on how to fix this could be found here.
_ When was the last time you changed your SFU Computing ID password?
Due to technical limitations, the CSIL Linux workstations could only recognize the accounts which have the password changed since January of 2013. You may find more on the next Q&A.
If none of these applies to your encounter, or you'd like more help, please email helpdesk.
I cannot login CSIL Ubuntu workstations while I could sign-in to CSIL Windows.
At this moment, all of the CSIL Linux workstations are binding to ADSFU domain for "roaming profile" feature.
If you cannot login to the Linux workstation binding to ADSFU, please do the following:
- launch a web browser
- navigate and login to URL: https://my.sfu.ca/ChangePassword
- change your password
- wait for 15 minutes
This process ensures SFU AD can recognize your account from Linux. You may try to login after the wait.
If you still cannot login, please check out this Q&A now.
I have login to CSIL Linux workstations previously, but now I cannot login. What's wrong?
This is by design if you no longer take any CMPT course in current semester. Since CSIL is only available for CMPT users.
On the other hand, this might be a disk quota (of user profile) issue. Please read this Q&A for a solution.
If the answer does not resolve your login issue, please email helpdesk.
After I use my correct password login and click yes to agree with the CSIL policy, the system kicks me out. What's going on?
The most likely cause is: you've reached the quota of your CSIL home (aka profile folder).
The profile folder is "~", which is "/home/myUserID".
*!* If you filled this up with lots of (big) files, you will not be able to login through GUI.
Please note: /home/myUserID/sfuhome is mounted on a different server which is not part of the CSIL Linux profile.
To be able to login properly again, please use Virtual Console login to this CSIL host and move the files you stored under /home/myUserID to your SFU Home (/home/myUserID/sfuhome). Please check this Q&A for more instructions.
Remember: Always save files under your SFU Home which is
/home/myUserID/sfuhome
Never anywhere else!
I cannot find my sfuhome after I login to a CSIL Linux workstation.
This is a known issue. We are working to find a solution and we need your inputs.
There is one possibility: on the login screen, there are spaces in the Login ID box. Please logout and try to login again - please make sure there is no leading nor trailing spaces around your login ID.
Please try to re-mount the sfuhome by running the customized command:
mount.sfuhome
One thing you may try is: reset your account's password, especially when you haven't changed the password for more than a few months.
You may logout then login again; if you still cannot find "sfuhome", please email helpdesk with the output from the following commands to help us identify the culprit.
klist
mount
ls -l ~
I cannot see any files under my sfuhome after I login to a CSIL Linux workstation.
This is a known issue. We are working to find a solution and we need your help.
Here are some of the methos you may want to try:
1) re-mount the sfuhome by running the customized command:
mount.sfuhome
2) logout and login again.
3) switch to another CSIL computer, it might work for you.
4) sign-in to a CSIL Windows computer and check in your "U:" drive
If you have tried all of these and you still cannot see files under "sfuhome", please email helpdesk with the results of your tries and the output from the following commands to help us identify the problem.
klist
mount
ls -l ~
If you could, please logout and reboot the specific CSIL workstation, or try a different workstation.
- If you still cannot write to your sfuhome, please email helpdesk with the details.
If the problem persists, there are two main possibilities:
(1) You may have reached your quota on the ITS file server.
Currently (as of Spring 2026), there is a 10GB quota limit for everyone. You may need to remove some files to free up space.
Login to a CSIL Linux workstation and run the following commands to identify which folder(s)/file(s) are especially large:
cd ~/sfuhome
du -sh .[!.]* * | sort -h
After you identify the big file(s) and you are sure they are no longer needed, you may want to delete them.
Note: there could be a huge Trash file you definitely want to delete.
(2) There might be technical issues with the ITS file server.
Sign-in to a CSIL Windows workstation and see if you could write to your SFU Home.
(the U: drive is your SFU Home.)
If you can make a file in U: drive, it means that the filesystem is ok.
If you are not over quota and still cannot make a file in your CSIL U: drive, the CS helpdesk cannot assist you;
please contact the SFU ITS help line.
- please find
more details on this page.
I cannot see any files under my sfuhome after I use ssh key login to a CSIL Linux system.
First of all: please do NOT use ssh key to login to any CSIL systems.
Please logout - and login without using the "ssh key".
The technical details:
- when login with user/password paring, multiple resources are authenticated which includes the sfuhome.
- when login with ssh keys, only the machine is authenticated, thus the network mounts (including sfuhome) won't work.
Again: do NOT use ssh key to login to any CSIL systems.
The system shows I have exceeded my disk quota; but I have plenty of space on my SFU Home space. What's the deal?
The system is likely referring to your "profile" space, not your SFU Home space.
On all CSIL Linux workstations, each user's profile has a disk quota of 1GB ( 1,000MB ), this restriction is on /home/myUserID.
If this quota has been reached, the Graphical User Interface (GUI) login session won't work thus the user cannot login any more.
Please see the following Q&A for instructions on claiming back the space. After there is enough profile space, the user will be able to login.
I somehow exceeded my space quota. What I should do?
Being over quota on your CSIL home directory prevents you from logging on to CSIL Linux via the GUI (the graphical user interface).
You need to log on to CSIL Linux not via the GUI and clear up your space usage.
You can do this from a CSIL windows system, or your own computer if you have an SSH program like MobaXterm or Putty, or from a CSIL Linux workstation's Virtual Console.
Step 0, start a non-GUI session on a CSIL Linux workstation or a CSIL Linux CPU server by using one of these 3 methods:
1. Virtual Console:
From the CSIL Linux workstation login screen, press the key combination Ctrl-Alt-F1.
* This will make the system switch to a Virtual Console.
2. SSH session:
When you don't have access to a physical CSIL Linux workstation, you could always SSH into a CSIL Linux CPU server with special port number.
3. from CSIL Windows:
Press the Windows key (near Ctrl, lower left of the keyboard) and launch "putty". This will launch application PuTTY.
Within this application, you could make an SSH connection to a CSIL Linux box
with special port number, then login.
(e.g. ssh into a CSIL Linux CPU server)
Once login to CSIL Linux with a non-GUI session, check your space usage and free up space in these steps:
Step 1,
option A: check to see how much space you've used by using the commands:
cd
du -smch
There is a 4GB hard quota limit on your CSIL home directory. If the result you got is close to 4GB, you must free up some space before you can log on with the GUI. If du reports your usage is significantly smaller than 4GB, please contact helpdesk and describe the situation.
option B: Or check if you are over quota with the command
quota -v
Check the first two numbers of the output, if they are very close, it means you've almost used up your quota.
For example, the output may look like this one:
Disk quotas for user myUserID (uid 99999):
Filesystem blocks quota limit grace files quota limit grace
rcg-nfs02.its.sfu.ca:/csilhomes
910751 921600 1048576 1270 0 0
As you can see, this specific user has an upper limit of 921600 blocks of disk space (quota), and the usage is very close. Normally, the usage should be much less than the quota, but this user is out of disk space and GUI login on CSIL Linux fails.
Once you know that you are at or over quota, look for files to delete or to move to your sfuhome - where the quota is 10GB (at the time of writing). Use this command at the Linux prompt:
du -sh * .??* | sort -h
(Explained: list the space used by files and directories (folders) in your current directory, sorted by the amount of space they occupy.)
You may get something like this:
4K /home/myUserID/.bash_history
104M /home/myUserID/.cache
...
20M /home/myUserID/Desktop
888M /home/myUserID/sfuhome
974M /home/myUserID/cmpt000
- size is shown in units like K (kilobytes), M (megabytes) and G (gigabytes).
In this example, the "cmpt000" folder occupies more than 900MB space - it must be checked.
Also, you could run commands like the followings in the Linux terminal:
cd folder-in-question
find . -size +10M -print
du -sh * .??* | sort -h
The results of the find command list large files or directories.
Identify in what location these huge files are, then cd to
these big directories and remove files you don't need.
Step 2, here are some common cleaning steps the CSIL users have tried and succeeded:
1) Often, the quota is filled up by the web browser cache. You may safely remove the files/folder under these cache folders, e.g.
rm -fr ~/.cache/mozilla
rm -fr ~/.cache/google-chrome
rm -fr ~/.cache/chromium
2) There could be a huge Trash file you definitely want to delete; e.g. run the command like:
rm ~/.Trash-????? -fr
3) When a Linux program crashes, it may create a memory image for future troubleshooting called core. Core files are often quite large but it's usually safe to just delete them. To do so:
find ~ -name core | xargs \rm
4) If one of your programs has an infinite loop, it may keep writing to an output file till all the space is filled up. terminate such program, delete such files, and then debug the code.
Once you free up enough file space by deleting unwanted files (use the "du -smch ~" command again to verify), you should be able to login to the system normally.
Please do so after logout from the Virtual Console first.
Important!!!
Do not go back to the Graphics login screen before you have logout of the Linux Virtual Console.
- if you forget to logout of the Virtual Console you will remain logged in to the Virtual Console, regardless of any logging out of any subsequent GUI sessions.
- if you forget to logout of the Virtual Console, anyone coming along later can then use your Virtual Console session and will have total access to all of your files!
Need more scratch space?
While you are using CSIL Linux systems, you may use the following scratch space (mounted network storage):
/usr/shared/CMPT/scratch/myUserID
- Every CSIL user can use up to 16GB off this network storage.
- For certain courses' students, more space is assigned. Please ask the course instructor for more details.
- WARNING: all contents under scratch space will be deleted/cleared at the end of each semester.
I customized my desktop environment yesterday, but it is gone today. What I could do?
If you are always using the workstations in CSIL and having this issue, please report to helpdesk.
A process (application) seems freezing (not responding, runaway). How to deal with it?
Given the complex nature of computers and software, it is inevitable that applications sometimes 'freeze' or 'hang'. There are many reasons why an application stops responding to the user, but often it is because the application programmer has entered defective code into their program. When this happens, often the only thing the user can do is interrupt the program.
Every application on the UNIX system runs as a separate process, and each process is assigned a process id number or pid.
To read more on processes and how to terminate them, follow the instructions on our How to kill Unix Processes page.
This Q&A has been moved to here.
I cannot connect to a CSIL Linux CPU server!
We have reports that the following error message shows up and the connection is refused:
"Reached the maximum number of concurrent sessions on this server"
This means this server has reached its limits. If you see this message, please try it again later or connect to a different CSIL Linux workstation or CSIL Linux CPU server.
I cannot connect back to my suspended remote session.
We have many reports on the failing to resume suspended/disconnected remote sessions. The symptoms are: the session has disappeared; when the same user tries to start a new remote session, there is this error message:
"The session negotiation failed. Error: Server capacity: reached for user: ????"
If this happens to you, you may try these steps:
1) try to "reset" your remote NX session by ssh into the corresponding NX server then do the following:
- remove all files under ~/.nx/
- kill all processes (click here for detailed instructions)
2) remote desktop into a CSIL Windows workstation and run NX Client from this computer.
This happens when someone else is already using the desktop (GUI login) of the selected workstation.
Please try another workstation.
- click here to identify an available CSIL workstation.
My remote CSIL desktop (GUI login) window shows no text.
We have seen this when a user attempts to login using something other than the SFU Computing ID as the username.
- for example, an email address as the username.
Admittedly, there is no error shown indicating that, which is unfortunate.
Remember - in order to login to any CSIL workstation / server, the SFU Computing ID MUST be used as the username.
I get "Connection reset" error every 2 minutes while I connect to a CSIL host!
Please double check your SSH client's "keepalive" settings. We recommend set the interval to 60 seconds.
Here are detailed instructions for two popular SSH clients (the other clients may have similar settings):
- click menu "Settings -> Configurations"
- within the newly opened dialog box, click "SSH" tab
- CHECK "SSH keepalive"
- click "OK" to save the configuration
try making SSH connection again.
- load your saved session (which is set to a CSIL Linux CPU server or a CSIL Linux workstation)
- on the left pane: click "Connection"
- now, on the right pane,
- under section "Sending of null packets to keep session active"
- set "Seconds between keepalives (0 to turn off)" to 60
- on the left pane: click "Sessions"
- now, on the right pane,
- click "Save" button to update your session
try making SSH connection again using the updated session.
(please note: this must be done for each session.)
Mozilla Firefox won't start and claims that "Firefox is already running".
Firefox stores start up information in its configuration directory, .mozilla/firefox/profilefolder/, located in your home directory. When Firefox terminates abnormally, sometimes it does not clean up the configuration directory properly. It may leave behind a lock and a .parentlock file in your profile sub-directory. Firefox uses these files to tell which profile is the active profile, as you can have more than one profile. If the lock and .parentlock files are present when Firefox is not running, then it will not start up. If you manually delete these files, you will be able to run Firefox.
Firstly, run this command:
cd ~/.mozilla/firefox/
Then locate the profile folder. The folder has a strange name, followed by a dot, followed by the name of the profile - normally default (for the default profile).
Change directory to it. For example, the commands might look like:
cd gx93dladd0.default
ls -al
The 'lock' and '.parentlock' files should show up. Remove them and attempt to restart Firefox.
For resolving the same issue on a CSIL Windows system, click here.
For more information on Firefox profiles, click here.
I have trouble using Eclipse; what I could do?
The Eclipse stores configurations under this (hidden) directory:
~/.eclipse
If you have trouble using Eclipse, please close all your Eclipse sessions and delete this folder.
For resolving the same issue on a CSIL Windows system, click here.
Visual Studio Code on my laptop suddenly cannot SSH to CSIL.
The common cause of this issue is: certain extensions, settings etc. of VS Code on CSIL system become corrupted.
Please check out this Q&A for the workaround.
Is your question not on the list? Have you checked the CSIL Linux/UNIX FAQ?
Having comments, suggestions, inquiries and more questions? Contact us!
Please click here and use the best practices to get assistance from helpdesk.
Last updated @ 2026.09.16