Engineering Computing Center Policies
This document describes the current computer policies of the Engineering Computing Center. These policies relate to all users who have accounts on the following ECC clusters: Windows NT (Engineering Domain), NEXTSTEP, and Digital AlphaStations. It is your responsibility to periodically check this document for any new or updated policies. It is recommended that you also take a look at the general Computer Use Guidelines.
Notice
Use of University of Houston computer and network facilities requires prior authorization. Unauthorized access is prohibited. Usage may be subject to security testing and monitoring. Abuse is subject to criminal prosecution. Remember, no network server processes of any king are allowed to run after you log out (this means, no IRC servers or bots, no network game servers, no mud/moo servers, no daemon/server processes of any kind!). Violation of this policy is grounds for permanent removal of your account from the ECC systems.
Policy on IRC and 'Bots'
We seem to be having problems again with users and IRC. I will restate the
official policy on IRC and 'bots' again. The ECC, and the College of
Engineering, do not "support" IRC. However, since we would rather not
have every user keep a client in their accounts, we provide the irc client
in /usr/local/bin for use. However, the ECC does _NOT_ tolerate 'bots' in any
form or fashion. We receive numerous complaints about IRC bots so, they
are not allowed on the ECC workstations. If necessary, we will kill all
jobs belonging to a user if the user is not logged in!
Continue to enjoy IRC but do not run bots or server programs of any kind (muds
and IRC included) without written permission of the Sys Admin. Enough said.
Screenlockers and logging out
Users are reminded that if they leave the ECC for more than 15 minutes, they are required to log out of the workstation they are using. This is for their own protection (if they don't log out, someone might delete or alter their files) and to make the workstation available for other users to use.
Even though the operating system might provide the ability to lock the screen on a workstation, Screenlockers are prohibited on ECC computers. This policy is to allow access to all operational computers by all users during the hours that the ECC is open. When a user locks a workstation and leaves, other users are unable to use that workstation, unless it is unlocked by the System Administrator or it is rebooted by the ECC staff. If the Sys Admin has to take time out of his day to unlock a workstation, that account will immediately be disabled by the administrator.
If you need to run a job that takes an excessive period of time, you need to learn how to run the job in the background. This is particularly true on the Alphastations. Users who continuely lock their accounts will find that their accounts are permanently removed from the system. If you have any questions or need to discuss this policy, please send email to admin@tree.egr.uh.edu. However, this policy is not up for any debate.
Last Updated: Thursday, August 08, 1996