CETS/Eniac Policy

The overarching policy governing computing and networking at Penn is the Policy on Acceptable Use of Electronic Resources.

The Eniac computers support course work and provide email for students, faculty and staff in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. In order to provide sufficient resources for the entire SEAS community, the Computing and Educational Technology Services Department (CETS) must limit resources given to each individual. Additional resources may be available from academic departments and research facilities. These policies apply to all CETS computers, including Eniac, PCs and Macs.

Security

You are responsible for what is done using your account. If there is evidence of unauthorized or improper use of your account, CETS will temporarily disable your account. This protects your files and other users in the system. You will be asked to come to CETS, show your Penn ID, and change your password and/or take other appropriate actions. If you suspect that someone else is using your account, come to CETS and report it immediately.

Don't let other people use your account. CETS treats any account sharing as a major security violation.

Keep your password a secret. Your password belongs to you alone. Don't even give your password to a computer system administrator.

Logout when you are finished at a terminal. If you don't, other people may use your account, change your files, and so on.

No computer system is immune from forgeries or spoofs. Don't take any irreversible actions based on electronic communication alone. In particular, don't believe everything you read on April Fools' Day.

Privacy

Only read other people's files if you have permission from the owner to read them. This applies to both protected and unprotected files. On the other hand, complete privacy cannot be guaranteed. For more details on privacy Policy on Privacy in the Electronic Environment .

Contacting other Computers

Only attempt to connect to other computers if you have reason to believe that the owner wants you to connect. This includes any protocol (ssh, scp, sftp) or login. If you are requested to stop connecting to certain computers, you must stop. You may not run any server program which accepts incoming connections to Eniac.

Limits

To provide a reasonable level of support for the SEAS community, CETS limits the size of computing tasks performed on Eniac. The limits, 20 cpu-minutes per program and 30 megabytes of program memory per user, are automatically enforced. People whose processes exceed these limits, or whose total exceeds 200 cpu-minutes per month may be contacted by CETS. CETS and their professors or faculty advisors will work together to find computing resources sufficient for the project or coursework. People who exceed these limits, for reasons other than coursework, mail and news, may be required to reduce their compute time on Eniac. There are no limits on the amount of time you can be connected to Eniac.

Eniac is intended primarily for interactive, academic work. You may not leave programs running unattended on any Eniac machine. In CETS computer labs, you may use two adjacent workstations at the same time, provided that less than half of the workstations in the room are in use. Otherwise, you may only use one workstation at a time.

In the summer, the CETS labs have scheduled down time, and they may be reserved for specific programs. CETS does not provide support for non-SEAS computing.

Computer Room Etiquette

Eating, drinking, smoking and use of tobacco are not allowed in any of the computer or terminal rooms. Tampering with equipment or preventing the use of equipment is not permitted. Computer room documentation must be kept in the room. Priorities for certain types of computing are posted in some computer rooms.

Automatic Enforcement

Several of the policies in this document are automatically enforced, such as quota and job size restrictions. However, even if the automatic enforcement programs are circumvented, the policies still apply.

Shared Resources

Eniac and its network connections are shared resources. Using eniac gives us computational abilities, world-wide communication, and much more. However, it is a fragile system which depends on the honesty of its users. Every user is involved in preserving and protecting the system.

© Computing and Educational Technology Services