Interacting with the Linode Server

The Teletortoise/Linode/Play server is accessible via browser here. Should you seek to ssh into the server, you should ask Jason to create an account for you. After that, the host that you will ssh into will be the following: li425-91.members.linode.com. (A nicer name may be forthcoming.)

After sshing in, you'll probably want to connect to the primary Play server. You are asked not to launch additional Play instances, though, since this Linode instance isn't exactly a beast of mythological proportions. Instead, you should only really interact with the server that runs on port 9000. The code that it references is in the directory /usr/local/Teletortoise, and you'll have to use GNU Screen to connect to the running Play console.

In order to find out the ID of the Screen session you'll want to connect to, run sudo ls -R /var/run/screen/ to see the list of currently-running Screen sessions. Odds are good that, if one is running for the user 'jab763', that's the Screen session that you want to connect to. To do so, run screen -r jab763/<file name> (where -r stands for "reattach").

Additionally, you will probably also want to know how to use Screen a bit beyond knowing how to attach to running sessions. The first thing that you should know is that ctrl+a is the general modifier key for Screen. Pretty much every command that you give to a Screen session is preceded by ctrl+a. Of course, if you're used to using a bash-derived shell, you'll quickly realize that, within Screen, you lack a way to move to the beginning of a line (which is a role that ctrl+a would fulfill when outside of Screen).

• In order to move to beginning of a line in Screen, press ctrl+a,a
• To disconnect from the Screen session that you're currently connected to, press ctrl+a,d
• While connected to a running Play instance, ctrl+d will kill the server and bring you back to the Play console
• Typing run into the Play console will start up the server on port 9000
• Typing run <port number> into the Play console will attempt to start up the server on port <port number>
• If you can find no suitable Screen session to attach to, type screen to start a new one
• If you find yourself with a Screen session and without a Play process, run cd /usr/local/Teletortoise;play, and then, as before, you can launch the server on port 9000 by typing run into the Play console when it appears