rainwatr@ucqais.uc.edu (Donald J. Rainwater) (06/06/89)
We have just installed Ultrix 3.0 on a VAX 8650. We are now in the process of getting things set up for our user community, and there are some questions that need to be answered. First, is there a system-wide login/profile/whatever for CSH? We've found /etc/profile for SH, but no /etc/login (like on SysV?). Surely some- one out there has developed an alternative if there isn't already a system login file. Anyone have any suggestions? Second, is it possible to prompt the user for input from a csh script? (Something like 'read' in sh). We need to be able to do this in the aforementioned system-wide login script. Finally, we have a (potentially) large number of users. Being a university, our list of users is constantly changing. Also, it's rather difficult to assign usernames that are both unique and simple for the users. We've come up with one or two ideas for this, but would like to know what some other sites are using. Our VMS systems use social security numbers, along with a class code, but Unix won't allow that type of setup with only eight characters. Thanks to anyone who can be of assistance. -- Don Rainwater, University of Cincinnati Computer Center rainwatr@ucbeh.san.uc.edu rainwatr@ucbeh.bitnet rainwatr@ucqais.uc.edu
treese@cirocco.crl.dec.com (Win Treese) (06/07/89)
In article <1693@ucqais.uc.edu>, rainwatr@ucqais.uc.edu (Donald J. Rainwater) writes: > > First, is there a system-wide login/profile/whatever for CSH? We've > found /etc/profile for SH, but no /etc/login (like on SysV?). Surely some- > one out there has developed an alternative if there isn't already a system > login file. Anyone have any suggestions? csh doesn't have one. The easiest thing is to give the users .login and .cshrc files that source your system-wide ones, though that risks users editing them out. Of course, if you have source code, you can change csh to use a system-wide file. I've seen it done; the changes are minimal. > Second, is it possible to prompt the user for input from a csh > script? (Something like 'read' in sh). We need to be able to do this in > the aforementioned system-wide login script. You do something like echo -n "Type something interesting: " set foo = ($<) $< expands to a line of input. > Finally, we have a (potentially) large number of users. Being a > university, our list of users is constantly changing. Also, it's rather > difficult to assign usernames that are both unique and simple for the users. > We've come up with one or two ideas for this, but would like to know what > some other sites are using. Our VMS systems use social security numbers, > along with a class code, but Unix won't allow that type of setup with only > eight characters. MIT's Project Athena used the scheme of first initial, middle initial, plus the last name (if 6 characters or fewer, the first 6 characters if not). This generates some interesting usernames, but they are almost always unique. They are generally easy for the user who owns it to remember it, but it's often non-mnemonic for someone else -- although the VMS scheme is less mnemonic for both, I would think. Good luck with it. Win Treese Cambridge Research Lab treese@crl.dec.com Digital Equipment Corp.
kline@tuna.cso.uiuc.edu (Charley Kline) (06/08/89)
> > Finally, we have a (potentially) large number of users. Being a > > university, our list of users is constantly changing. Also, it's rather > > difficult to assign usernames that are both unique and simple for the users. > > We've come up with one or two ideas for this, but would like to know what > > some other sites are using. Our VMS systems use social security numbers, > > along with a class code, but Unix won't allow that type of setup with only > > eight characters. > > MIT's Project Athena used the scheme of first initial, middle initial, plus the > last name (if 6 characters or fewer, the first 6 characters if not). This generates > some interesting usernames, but they are almost always unique. They are > generally easy for the user who owns it to remember it, but it's often non-mnemonic > for someone else -- although the VMS scheme is less mnemonic for both, I would think. Please don't propagate the misuse of social security numbers in this way. They're not supposed to be used for identification (it says so right on your card), and using them as logins is quite the invasion of privacy. But anyway, one good system I've seen is to use the first 3 characters of the last name, the first three characters of the first name, and then the middle initial. This almost always produces easy-to-remember, pronouncable login names that are usually unique. Mine would be "klichav" under this system, and a friend's would be "pompaub". Besides all the above advantages, they're cute too. _____ Charley Kline, University of Illinois Computing Services kline@tuna.cso.uiuc.edu {uunet,seismo,pur-ee,convex}!uiucdcs!uiucuxc!kline "Just another useless dead thing, I've been killed by love."
mitch@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Mitch Collinsworth) (06/08/89)
In article <1181@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu> kline@tuna.cso.uiuc.edu (Charley Kline) writes: >Please don't propagate the misuse of social security numbers in this way. >They're not supposed to be used for identification (it says so right on >your card), and using them as logins is quite the invasion of privacy. Gee, it doesn't say that on my card. But I still agree that using the SSN for an ID is a dumb thing to do. I hope they get all sorts of grief from their users over that. -Mitch Collinsworth mitch@squid.tn.cornell.edu