Rules and Policies

Account Policies

The general EML rules are available to all users along with the account application form. The University of California's computer use guidelines are also available via posted weblinks. It is the user's responsibility to read them, understand them, and obey them. These rules are also posted in 616 Evans, on the door to 616 and 614 Evans.

Do not share account information with any other individual. Any user who is identified as having logged in to another user's account will have his or her account closed immediately. If such access was freely granted, then both parties will have their accounts closed. Such activity may also result in further disciplinary action. Note that

  • Each individual is responsible for ALL activity associated with his or her account.
  • DO NOT log into your own account from another user's account, and do not permit another user to log into your account.
  • Send mail to "manager" immediately if you suspect that someone has gained access to your account.

Initial login to your Econometrics Laboratory account certifies that you understand and agree to (a) publication of your email address as directory information, and (b) comply with university policies governing email, campus online activities policy, and appropriate use of university computer facilities.

Abuse of any computer account by an individual within the EML system or abuse of any other computer system may lead to termination of the individual's EML account and permanent suspension of ALL EML privileges.

Abuse of an account includes, but is not limited to:

  • Unauthorized attempts to access accounts, files, or system resources.
  • Malicious mischief of any sort, including using a computer account that you are not authorized to use.
  • Obtaining a password for a computer account without the consent of the account owner.
  • Using the campus network to gain unauthorized access to any computer systems anywhere.
  • Knowingly performing an act that will interfere with the normal operation of computers, terminals, peripherals, or networks.
  • Knowingly running or installing on any computer system or network, or giving to another user, a program intended to damage or to place excessive load on a computer system or network. this includes but is not limited to programs known as computer viruses, Trojan horses, and worms.
  • Attempting to circumvent data protection schemes or uncover security loopholes.
  • Violating terms of applicable software licensing agreements or copyright laws.
  • Wasting system resources, such as playing games or broadcasting "chain" letters.
  • Masking the identity of an account or machine.
  • Any activity originating from an EML account (on any computer system) that results in an official complaint being logged against the user, such as broadcasting "for sale" or "want ad" messages to multiple departmental mailling lists (known as "spam"). Note that your account will be quickly and permanently revoked if you spam multiple departmental mailing lists that result in one or more complaints.
  • Unsolicited electronic communication with an individual who is not known to the user; using electronic mail to harass others.
  • Use of an EML account for commercial or personal benefit or financial gain.
  • Posting on electronic bulletin boards materials that violate existing laws or the University's codes of conduct.
  • Attempting to monitor or tamper with another user's electronic communications, or reading, copying, changing, or deleting another user's files or software without the explicit agreement of the owner.
  • Failure to cooperate with requests of the system staff regarding use of the system resources. System staff include all Statistical Computing Facility staff as well as all Econometrics Laboratory staff.
  • Repeated failure to follow posted rules.
  • Activities will not be considered misuse when authorized by appropriate University officials for security or performance testing.

Accounts must be renewed according to the following schedule:

  • Class accounts expire at the end of each semester and cannot be renewed.
  • Graduate accounts for Economics students are valid as long as the individual is currently enrolled (registered)
  • Alumni accounts are issued upon request to individuals who have left the Department in good standing and are valid for up to two months after separation from the Department if reasonable cause can be demonstrated. Alumni accounts cannot be renewed.
  • All other student accounts expire on January 1 and July 1 of each year and must be renewed.
  • Guest accounts must be renewed each year by July 1 and require approval of the sponsoring faculty member.
  • Faculty and visitor (associate research fellows) accounts expire upon termination of their appointments.
  • Contractor accounts are valid indefinitely, as long as the account is in good standing.
  • All other accounts expire on July 1 of each year and must be renewed.

Requests for extension of an account must be received within 5 days of the account expiration date (send electronic mail to rowilma @econ.berkeley.edu).

Account Disk Space

The allocation of disk space on all accounts (grads, faculty, staff, projects, etc.) is controlled by disk quotas. Disk quotas exist to ensure equitable access and to facilitate maintenance. In spite of these limits, from time to time it may be necessary to ask users to reduce their usage of disk space.

Below are the default allocations for home directories:
  Graduate students: 1 GB
  Faculty: 1 GB
  Staff: 500 MB
  Visiting Faculty: 100 MB
  Guest Accounts: 25 MB

When users reach their limit, the system will warn the users to remove files when they first login (in the login banner message), and will continue to do so for 7 days, after which the system will prevent the user from logging in again. To check quota limits, please run the command "quota -v" on a terminal or click "Quota" on the Mac. We appreciate your effort in conserving disk usage.

If more disk space is required, the user can request additional space by providing written justification to the EML manager. It is expected that requests for increased disk allocation come after basic account maintenance: deletion of files in trashcans and wastebaskets, removal of obsolete data, archiving or compressing of no longer used files, and so forth. An individual user is not limited to use of the disk space in a personal account. You may, at one time or other, have shared use of a project account, for example. Or, when you advance to dissertation status, you may request extended dissertation storage.

All users have access to additional disk areas on the EML system. These include:

/tmp is local to every workstation, i.e., to emily1,...,emily10, compute servers and the other workstations we support. /tmp is volatile, and is never backed up. Depending on the machine, this space could be quite large. Files can be erased at any time if the workstation is rebooted. Files may be automatically deleted after 24 hours. This is truly "temporary" storage. Users should remove their files as soon as their work has been completed. Do not store/create files under the directory /var/temp.

Public directories in the scratch partition (/scratch/public) is a cen/common area on the main server. Anyone can write files to this area. Make a subdirectory under your login name, and store all your files there. This is not private, so don't put anything in public scratch that is sensitive in nature. Files are not backed up, but they do not disappear when the server is rebooted. We will remove files by age (oldest first) and by size, as the area fills up.

Users are recommended to store critical files and confidential files safely in personal accounts, and use the unix file permissions to make these files secure and private (see 'man chmod'). Delete any old files that are no longer needed or that can be easily re-created. Compress large files. The command 'bigfiles' will show you your biggest files when invoked in your current working directory.

To prevent quota problems, users are required to manage mailboxes and disk space usage. In order for a user to occupy their current allocation, system and network administrators may compress mail folder/files older than 6 months and truncate the following files:

  • Spam
  • Contents stored under trash directories and trash files (eg. ~/Trash)
  • Application/program generated temporary files (eg. cache)

Printing

  • Printing: Student and faculty accounts are charged $0.05/page for any printing above their quota established according to the following categories:

  • 	400 personal, per semester
    	300 class account, per semester
    	600 dissertation, per semester
    

  • Contractor and non-economics UC staff accounts are charged for all printing at the rate of $0.05/page. Research projects are charges for all printing at the rate of $0.10/page.