Before you can use a Unix system, you must be assigned a login name (and possibly a password) by the system manager. (New accounts are sometimes created without a password, in which case you can log in by just using the login name. Of course, for your own protection you should give yourself a password immediately after logging in for the first time.)
The basic login procedure is similar to VMS. At the login screen you will be asked for your login ID (username) and your password. Remember to use all lowercase letters! (As with VMS, your password will not be echoed when you type it.)
If your logging in over the network, you will immediately be presented with a shell prompt (the dollar sign). If you're logging in at the console then you may need to open a window with a Unix shell. This is done by clicking and holding either the left or right mouse button on the Desktop entry in the Toolchest menu in the upper-left corner of the display. Move the mouse cursor to select Open Unix Shell and release the mouse button. In a moment a window with a shell prompt (the dollar sign) will appear.
If you are logged in at a workstation running IRIX so that you are using the GUI (graphical user interface), you logout by moving the mouse cursor into the root window (any portion of the background that is visible), clicking and holding the right mouse button, selecting Log Out and releasing the mouse button. You will be asked to confirm this, and you need to select your choice with the left mouse button.
If you are connected to a Unix machine over the network all you need to do
to log out is to type the end-of-file character (CTRL-D) at the shell
prompt. Alternately, you may type the command exit or the command
logout instead (at least when using bash as the shell).
If you have inadvertently typed CTRL-Z during your session, you may have created one or more stopped jobs, in which case the following message will appear:
There are stopped jobs.
and you will not be logged out. If you immediately try to log out again (i.e. without any other commands intervening), Unix will let you log out and will kill your stopped jobs - in most cases.
Sometimes, though, a job will not die! To get rid of such a job, use the
jobs command to get a listing of your stopped jobs; then use the kill
command to get rid of them. The jobs command will provide a job number (a
small integer) in square brackets for each job. When you issue the kill
command, use an argument of -9 to ensure the kill, and precede the
job number by a % sign.
For example, suppose that the jobs command shows two stopped jobs
[1] Stopped ....
[3] Stopped ....
You can terminate these by two kill commands:
kill -9 %1
kill -9 %3
(Specifying -9 is a "sure kill" that cannot fail. Some people claim
that this means "kill all nine lives" of the job or process).