College of Engineering
            Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences
			  Instructional Support Group

                           Student Group Accounts on
                        EECS Instructional UNIX Systems

								 Apr 2, 2012

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    => What is a 'group' account?

         A group account is shared by more than one user.  This is generally
	 undesirable and it is discouraged by campus and departmental policy.
	 The use of a group account creates a greater security risk for the 
	 individuals in the group as well as for the rest of the campus 
	 computer community because it is more difficult to identify illicit 
	 access to the account and more difficult to trace illegal behaviors 
	 that originate from the account.
	 
	 However, for specific needs on the Instructional systems, group 
	 accounts are occasionally allowed.

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    => 'group' accounts for classes

	 Some class accounts are created so that a group of students in that
	 class can share the password and files of the account for homework
	 projects.  The instructor must request these from the sys admin staff 
	 and must also monitor the distribution so that it is clear who should 
	 be using the account.  These accounts will expire and be deleted at
	 the end of the semester.

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    => 'group' accounts for student organizations

	EECS Instruction provides group accounts for selected student 
	organizations.   These are the typical questions we ask when
	evaluating a request from a student organization for a new
	account:

	1) Who represents the group on campus?  Is it an ASUC affiliate?
	2) Who is the faculty advisor?  What department is the advisor in?
	3) Who are the officers that would use the account?
	4) Are all members UCB students?  What percentage are CS/EECS majors?
	5) How will our group account benefit the membership?
	6) What are the goals and membership requirements?   Do they
	   specifically benefit CS and EECS students?

	EECS Instruction will typically provide an account to organizations
	that are largely UCB CS/EECS students, sanctioned by the ASUC and
	represented by a CS/EECS faculty advisor.  Requests for such an
	account can be made in email to "inst@eecs.berkeley.edu".

	Organizations that have such an account are expected to follow all
	of the rules of any other UCB and EECS Instructional account and 
	to strictly regulate the use of the account.   Only the officers,
	and not more than 6, should be able to login, and their activities
	should be only for the maintenance of information and services that
	are for that organization.   The users should notify "inst@eecs"
	when there are changes to the list of officers who are using the
	account.  Any communications sent out from a group account should 
	contain the real name(s) of the person or persons who composed the 
	message.

	Abuse of the account by any single member would probably result in 
	the closing of the account for the entire organization.

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    =>  mailing lists for 'group' accounts
	
	A mailing list can be set up for a student group or instructor's
	class account.  This is useful for small lists and for messages
	that are private.  It is better to use a newsgroup for messages 
	to a large group or an entire class, because the messages in a 
	newsgroup remain on-line for later review and are not duplicated 
	for every recipient.

	To create a mailing list, you create a world-readable text file that 
	lists the recipients' email addresses, one per line.  Then notify 
	the sys admins ("inst@eecs") about it, and tell them what you'd
	like the email alias to be called.   It is the responsibility of
	the officers or TAs to maintain the contents of the list file.

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    =>  group account disk usage

	Permanent disk space for student organization group accounts is 
	limited to the same disk quota as a standard student 'named' 
	account (100 MB).  This disk space is in the group home directory 
	and is archived to tape by EECS Instruction.
	
	Groups that expand into temporary Instructional disk space (/home/tmp, 
	\\inst_fs\tmp) during the semester must avoid excessive use of 
	that shared space.  Instruction does not archive the temporary disk 
	space.  So, groups must archive their own data if needed before that 
	space is purged at the end of each semester.  This policy is intended
	to prevent situations in which Instruction becomes responsible for 
	maintaining permanant and increasing disk space for groups.   By 
	requiring groups to archive their own data each semester, the groups 
	are encouraged to delete obsolete data to conserve disk space.

  	Options for groups that need to retain large amounts of disk space:
	
	1) Archive the files to CD, DVD or external hard drive each semester.
	See http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/pub.cgi?file=multimedia.help
	for information about CD and DVD burners in our labs.  External disks
	with FireWire or USB 2.0 can be connected to our Macs and PCs.  These
	external disks cost about $1 per gigabyte in standard retail outlets.
	
	2) Have the group faculty advisor fund an EECS research account, which 
	will be charged for disk usage.  For a comparison of EECS Instructional 
	vs research accounts, please see 
	http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~inst/resources.html
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                                    EECS Instructional Support Group (ISG)
                                    378 Cory Hall, 333 Soda Hall
                                    inst@eecs.berkeley.edu