Re: .cshrc file

You were close: what matters to the shell is the contents of the
~/.cshrc file at the time of SHELL CREATION.  Conveniently enough, a
shell is created at login time, as you've noticed.  Shells are also
created when, for instance, you run xterm to set up another window; so
your .cshrc file will affect that shell as well.  The contents of your
.login will NOT be run on subshells.

To force the running of the .login or .cshrc, use the command 'source'.

% source .cshrc

Re: aliasing

I don't believe that option exists in alias.  The way to do what you
want to do is with a small shell script -- a program written in the
shell's command language.

What you want is a file containing something like this: 

#this is a silly script, but it'll do.
f $1@red.rutgers.edu
f $1@blue.rutgers.edu
f $1@green.rutgers.edu

What is the $1 for, you ask?  this is the name of the FIRST ARGUMENT you
give to any shell command.  They exist from 1 to 9: $1, $2 ... $9.  $0
is the name of the program, and $* stands for ALL the arguments (an
unlimited number).

So, this script fingers a username (given as the one argument) at
several different machines.

A good way to deal with shell scripts like these is to make a
subdirectory called ~/bin, and put the scripts there.  Make sure that
you have used chmod (like: chmod +x scriptname) to make them executable,
and that you have modified your PATH variable so that the shell will
search ~/bin.