2,000 Greater & Lesser Mysteries

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August 7, 1987 The Schools of Engineering at Purdue University maintain and develop the Engineering Computer Network (ECN) facilities in order to enhance the effectiveness of their instructional, research, and administrative missions. The primary goal of the ECN staff is to maximize the available computation resources within prevailing financial constraints. Historically, and certainly at this writ- ing, available computational resources have not adequately handled Engineering's needs. Thus, prudent utilization of available resources is a necessity. The following policies have been adopted in order to maintain a reasonable level of such prudence. In rela- tion to the Engineering missions, policies given here seek to pro- mote usage directly related to Engineering, curtail moderately related usage, and eliminate unrelated, illegal and abusive usage. In addition, policies are included to help maintain an ethical and amicable working environment for ECN users. Only persons properly authorized may access the ECN facili- ties. Proper authorization is provided by ECN staff or their designate in the form of an issued in the name of the authorized person. Users may not permit other persons to access ECN via their account. Users who violate ECN policies may lose their access authorization for a period of time commensurate with the infraction. Repeat offenders may be denied access indefin- itely. To enable ECN staff to accurately maintain information about the user of each account, each user has the responsibility to pro- vide current status information to ECN staff, including school or department of affiliation, degree program (undergraduate or gradu- ate), expected graduation/termination date, and University position (faculty, professional, clerical, or graduate assistant). To check the current information ECN staff has on file, use the command finger If you are classified incorrectly, or the account termination date is incorrect, contact your site specialist/manager or your school's office which handles computer accounts. The ECN machines are intended to provide Engineering's stu- dents, staff, and faculty computational resources needed to meet their recognized educational, research, and administrative commit- ments to the Purdue University Schools of Engineering. Other uses of personal interest (such as checkbook balancing) are proper only if machine load is low, the terminal is not otherwise needed, and the use is not prohibited by other applicable policy, i.e. Univer- sity, School, Department, or ECN. Game playing is only permitted as discussed below. Low machine load is considered to be times when the fifteen minute system load average is below 7. The - 2 - fifteen minute load is the last number displayed by the uptime com- mand. Users may harass or threaten other users, attempt to steal passwords, files, or other user/system information, attempt to crash, violate the integrity of, or adversely affect the activities of a computer system. When a process is consuming excessive system resources or objectionably degrading system response it may be ter- minated, or its priority may be altered, without notice. Accessing restricted facilities and remote resources without proper authori- zation may be considered unlawful. If activities as described above occur, the account may be disabled pending an explanation. Disk files not related to Engineering's missions and which consume large amounts of space may be removed without warning by ECN staff. When users exceed their disk allocation, they are noti- fied by the system. The message will indicate disk usage at the time disk accounting was performed, and the user's disk space allo- cation limit. If the disk allocation is exceeded for an extended period, the machine account may be disabled. ECN Systems are operated at Purdue under license agreements with AT&T, IMSL, PVI, and others. Under these agreements ECN Sys- tems may be used for instructional and research purposes only. The UNIX license binds each and every user to respect the proprietary nature of UNIX software; the specifics of the operating system may not be taught, nor may the system or any part thereof be moved to, or copies released to any non-licensed sites. Under the license agreement and Purdue policy the ECN Systems may under no cir- cumstances be used for personal gain, or to place a third party in a position of commercial advantage. To protect our license status, ECN requires that any person wishing to transport software from an ECN machine, which he or she did not personally develop, get appro- val from Bill Simmons (EE 334B/49-43651), or Jeff Schwab (EE 258/49-44326). Wasteful and Abusive Usage In general, the Engineering Computer Network does not have enough computing resources to meet the need of Engineering's stu- dents, faculty, and staff. Therefore, all users are expected to use good judgment in sharing limited resources. Except as indi- cated in 2. above and in the discussion of games below, computer usage not necessary to meet recognized educational, reseach, and administrative commitments to the Purdue University Schools of Engineering will be considered wasteful, abusive, and theft commit- ted against users attempting to complete recognized work. Waste can also be in the forms of unnecessary storage of disk files, careless execution of high resource consuming programs, or genera- tion of excessive printed output. The general guideline is that disk space used for unrelated and personal interest work should be less than 10 per cent of the user's total disk usage. Users should also be aware that hard copy output devices are expensive to - 3 - operate and that wasteful usage of such devices must be avoided. Game playing is considered wasteful and abusive except as prescribed here. The first problem, of course, is to define game playing. Recognizing that such a definition is very difficult in an absolute sense, ``game playing'' is defined here as development or execution of a computer program which primarily provides amuse- ment or pastime diversion. Game playing is permitted only when all applicable rules given below are met. a. Game playing is permitted on ECN systems only when the ``games flag'' is raised and when the terminal is not needed for other purposes. The games flag will be raised and lowered according to system load and other machine specific policies. b. Games which encourage excessive terminal wear or are disrup- tive to other users of a terminal room will not be permitted. c. Game playing is not generally permitted over dialup links or other inter-machine communication links due to the inability to insure that the games flag (or its equivalent) is raised on the two or more systems involved. d. System games are stored in /usr/games. These games will only execute when the games flag is raised. Files may not be copied from this directory. e. Games not stored in the system games directory (/usr/games) may be developed and executed only while the games flag is raised. Executable games which are files must be designated as a game by use of the command setgame filename. or must monitor the games flag via calls to ganes(2) at five minute intervals and proceed to play only if the games flag is raised. To assist the user in determining if the games flag is raised, the games command may be used. Games source programs being developed when the games flag is not raised are subject to removal without notice and the offending user may lose ECN access authorization. Executable games files not designated as a game via the setgame command and which do not prop- erly use games(2) are subject to removal without notice and the responsible user may lose ECN access authorization. Losses of ECN access authorization and accounts being disabled are always reported to the Site Specialist of the involved computer system and to the ECN Manager of Network Services. Subsequent report dispositions and actions vary for the several Engineering Schools. Reports involving students are gen- erally handled as follows: First report; filed with student's records within his respective Engineering School. Second report; same as first report with copies sent to his respective School's - 4 - Academic Affairs Office and the Purdue Dean of Students Office. Third report; same as second report with indefinite loss of ECN access authorization.