Account information
From Peyton Hall Documentation
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.
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Who gets an account?
By default, if you're an undergraduate we'll setup an account for you. Usually the undergraduate adviser will send around a list of students in advance of the start of the semester, and we'll have accounts made up for those students in time for the first class. The user name chosen is based on whatever user name OIT gives you. Also, if you're a summer undergraduate, we usually get the list of names from the summer undergraduate coordinator and have those accounts created shortly after receiving the list. Same rules for user names apply - whatever OIT gave you, is what you'll get here.
For graduate students, postdocs, staff and faculty, we let you choose your user name when you arrive. The process to create an account - if all the information is received and we don't have to hunt for it - only takes a few minutes. And usually when one first arrives, there's so many other things to do that accessing a computer right away isn't nearly as high on the list of priorities, so if it takes a few hours (or even a day, especially if we don't get all the required information) you're not likely to notice.
What information is needed?
There is a "New User Application" which contains the list of information we need to generate an account. If you're here in person, you can fill out that sheet and drop it off in the '/usr/bin' on the door to room 126 and someone will create the account for you when they can. In some cases we'll leave the information sheet (see below) in the same folder, with your name on the edge; in other cases, we may hand the sheet to someone else or leave it in your mail box.
For those who may be requesting an account remotely, or those requesting an account for someone else (collaborator, etc), the information we need to know is:
- Full name
- Desired user name
- You can either list a few choices, or check with the 'finger' command to see if the user name is already taken
- Status
- One of Undergrad, Grad, Postdoc/Researcher, Visitor, Other (please explain)
- University account number to charge
- All accounts have some sort of charges associated with them. Someone who is allowed to post charges to a grant may, if the grant allows it, use that grant for setting up accounts. When in doubt, contact your faculty adviser or the department manager and ask.
- Expiration date
- This should be approximately one year beyond your expected date of departure (for students, graduation). It can be extended beyond this date in the future if necessary (see below).
- Faculty/Research/Staff adviser
- This is someone who can be responsible for your account. They will ideally be allowed to charge to the above grant number, and will be the person to be notified when your account is near expiration - it's up to them if it should be extended or not. If you're actively collaborating with someone, that is who you want to put here.
- [Internal use only] Tier
- Different tiers of accounts are charged differently, and have different access privileges. Primary users get support from the administration staff and more storage space for home directories; secondary users are those who are not in the building and collaborate remotely; tertiary users get no support and minimal storage space.
NOTE:
- ANY omissions in the above required pieces of information will result in a delay processing your account. If you don't give us all the information needed, we cannot create the account and just "fill in the blanks" later. We must have all the required information first.
Account creation
Once we have all the information above, 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 left in the '/usr/bin' on the door of room 126, 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 left in your mail box.
Expirations
So what happens when you leave? If you fill out an exit form (these are generally for postdocs and graduate students - people who have had offices long-term), we will set the expiration date of your account to one year from the day you left. During that time, nothing changes. At 11 months after you left, 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 (though it's at the discretion of whomever is paying for your account if you get a lot of time or a little). 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, as well as provide a project/grant number to charge for your account charges. 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 (which is now 18 months since you departed), 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 hammer3 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 charges are being applied to the proper project/grant number, 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 about what project/grant should be receiving your account charges, and have them reply to the mail they got with an extension date and verifying the account. 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 project/grant number is correct for your account charges. Just verify the number, we've probably already extended it before you emailed us.
Here's examples of what we don't need:
- "Please extend this account."
- For how long? On what project/grant number?
- "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
