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User Etiquette

* For more general best practices when it comes to using email systems, see this Microsoft article. *

This document is a summary of the best and worst practices for University IT UNIX systems, including mail.rochester.edu. It is not intended to fully explain the rules, or give explanations for them. You should be familiar with the User Agreement as well as this document. All users are responsible for knowing and abiding by these rules.

There are practices that all users should strive to follow, outlined in the Good User Etiquette section.

There are also practices that should be avoided. Practices that appear on the Worst list are punishable by account locking, and it is possible that your account will be revoked permanently. Depending on the activity, it is also possible that University disciplinary proceedings might be initiated, which could result in your expulsion from UR. Also, for some activities on the Worst list, you could face criminal prosecution.

Practices appearing on the Worse list could lead to file damage, disciplinary action, and the locking of your account. Repeated violations of the Worse list could lead to the revoking of your account.

Practices appearing on the Bad list could lead to unwanted file tampering by malicious users, disciplinary action, or loss of data.

Good User Etiquette

You should:

• Read the man page before executing new commands.
• Contact the consultant for help in learning new utilities.
• Contact the operator when a machine seems to be down or severely crippled.
• Use a password that is not based on a single word in any language.
• Use a password that has a mix of upper and lower case letters, numerics, and puncuation.
• Use the away command to notify University IT if you are using your account from outside the Rochester Area.
• Use quota -v to see how much disk you are using and to avoid over-filling your disk quota.
• Be sure to always logout when you are not using your account.
• Read the message of the day when you log in to check for machine availability or other important news.
• Use the msgs program to read about changes to the system (for example, new versions of programs, new programs, new peripherals available, added functionality, changes in e-mail, routing, etc.) and other items of interest to UNIX users.
• Send email to problem when things seem broken.
• Send email to problem when you read about scheduled system changes which you believe may have a damaging effect on your work. System changes are carefully planned to have minimal effect on the users, however you can always help improve the scheduling by making your exact needs clear before the change takes place.

Worst Activities

To avoid having your account revoked, you must follow the rules below. Be aware that violating some rules below can constitute serious criminal offenses, and could lead to your expulsion from the University.

• Do not continually and/or deliberately perform activities that are on the Bad or Worse lists below.
• Do not share your account with anybody, especially over the Internet. This includes sharing your password and granting privileges to others via your .rhosts file.
• Do not threaten, harass, or intimidate other users. This can constitute a felony under state and Federal law.
• Do not execute administration commands (located in system areas outside of the public directories).
• Do not attempt to break passwords.
• Do not attempt to crash or reboot a machine.
• Do not intentionally hog system resources (CPU, memory, disk).
• Do not forge electronic mail or Usenet messages.
• Do not misrepresent your identity to other users.
• Do not start or forward a "chain letter" of any type, even if it does not ask for cash. A chain letter is any letter which asks the recipient to forward the letter, via any means, to others while maintaining the request that the letter be forwarded.
• Do not send unsolicited mass mailings or spam newsgroups.
• Do not run any daemon processes.
• Do not run any process that provides network services. This includes programs which provide TCP/IP access, such as TIA and SLiRP.
• Do not cause a mail forwarding loop.

Worse Activities

To avoid causing unintentional problems for yourself and others, and possible locking of your account, you should avoid the following activities:

• Do not store more than 1 megabyte of email in your inbox on the server.
• Do not execute scripts or programs which use commands you are not familiar with.
• Do not install or execute binaries foreign to the system.
• Do not give world write permissions to your files and directories.
• Do not allow others to execute commands from your account, or leave your account unattended.
• Do not print large files or manuals (over 100 pages).
• Do not print object or executable files.
• Do not interrupt other users while they are working (i.e. sending talk requests, banner, write messages, etc.)
• Do not play games, including network games such as MUDs, MUSHes, and IRC.

Bad Activities

To avoid causing unintentional problems for yourself, you should avoid the following activities:

• Do not execute commands from another user's account.
• Do not search through, read or execute any commands while in another user's directory.
• Do not hardcode your path into your programs. We may need to move your directories for disk space.

Questions or corrections? problem@mail.rochester.edu