Account information

Every person who wishes to use computing facilities in Peyton Hall will require an account to login. Some accounts are generated "automatically", while others require someone set the account up for you. Here you will find information about requesting an account, as well as what happens when you're done with it.

Can I pick my own username?

In the days of yore, when the department was quite standalone from the rest of the University, sure! However, as we have come to rely on more and more OIT services, this has proved problematic. In fact, in order to leverage some future storage technologies that are in the planning phases right now, we will need to make sure all of our user IDs (names and numbers) are identical to OIT NetIDs. So no, you can't pick your own name - unless you first convince OIT to give you that name, and then we can match it.

Who gets an account?

Anyone who needs to access systems in Astrophysical Sciences will need an account here. If you're only using your own laptop, and working with OIT or Research Computing machines, then you may not need one at all. If you do, then the appropriate person will pass along the information that we need so we can get it created.

Account creation

Once all the information has been collected and entered, someone will create your account and generate a "New User Information Sheet". This contains your user name, password, and information on logging in. There is also information on where to find help, including these pages here. This sheet will either be handed to the faculty/staff adviser on record for the account, handed to some other staff member who will be giving you information anyway (visitor packets, etc) or perhaps sent to you via SecureSend.

Expirations

So what happens when you leave? We generally set the expiration date of your account to one year from the day you left, but some times it may be shorter. During that time, nothing changes. One month before the account's expiration date, the person responsible for your account will get an email notifying them that your account is due to expire next month, and they can at that time request that it be extended. Reasons for extending an account range from active collaboration to more time needed to clean off your home directory and scratch disks. At 12 months from departure, your account is expired and you cannot login - though at that time, if you realize you need an extension, you can have someone contact us and ask that it be reopened. Usually around six months after an account has been expired is when they're actually deleted.

What about undergraduates?

Similar rules apply; your account is usually not set to expire until at least September of the year you depart. If you're still actively working with someone, have them contact us to "claim ownership" of the account and become responsible for deciding if it's time for your account to expire. If your collaborations change, this information can always be updated to reflect your current affiliations.

What about old files?

We do not keep copies of your home directory forever; after that six month period, when the account is deleted, so are the files left there. If you had files in a department scratch disk they will also be deleted, however files on scratch disks owned by a project are generally chown'd to that project. For example, files on fahl would be chown'd to dssadmin. If the directory and/or files appear to be strictly for that user, the project administrator(s) will be notified of the files that are now theirs, but if they're data files or svn check-ins that happen to have been owned by a user now expiring they will just have their ownership changed. This holds true for other files the expired account may have written in /u (but not in their home directory), though more often than not those files would be chown'd to whomever owns the parent directory (the project they were working on, or the collaborator with whom they shared the files, etc).

OMG I GOT AN EXPIRATION NOTICE!

Also known as, "YOU CAN'T DO THIS YET I STILL HAVE WORK TO DO OMG WHY IS MY ACCOUNT BEING DELETED FIXIT AAAAAGH!"

First, RELAX. READ the message you got - it's an automated message, and it's explaining how to go about extending your account anyway. If you're actively working here, that's fine - this is an opportunity to make sure your account information is still valid, and get a better idea for an expiration date. For example, graduate accounts are set to expire 5 years after they're created, but we know that you're not necessarily done right at that point - and that you're likely going to want your account to remain around for a little bit after that anyway.

Next, RELAX. If you're non-faculty, talk to your faculty advisor and have them reply to the mail they got with an extension date and verifying the account sponsorship. You'll see who got the email based on the content of the message: The "Requested By" field is the person we have on record as being someone responsible for your account, so if it's wrong then have the correct person contact us.

If you are a faculty member that received an expiration notice for your own account, RELAX (are we seeing a pattern here yet?). We have to put something in as a date for when your account will expire, and we tend to pick a nice round number. Which means in five years or so, we revisit the account. This is good since we can also make sure the other information about your account is accurate.

Here's examples of what we don't need:

• "Please extend this account."

  For how long?

• "Why am I getting this, I'm still here!"

  Everyone does, see above

• "You shouldn't be expiring accounts for people who are still here."

  We're not, that's why it's a warning with 30 days lead time