Contents:

• Why a Departmental Account?
• What is a Departmental Account?
• Using the Departmental Account
• Adding or Dropping Access to a Departmental account
• Getting the Departmental Account's E-Mail
• Transferring Files to a Departmental Account
• Submit a Request for a Departmental Account
• Need Help?

Note: This page is for users who have an intermediate level of experience in using their UNIX account, an Ftp program and web authoring. If you don't feel comfortable using the instructions on this page, ask someone with experience in your department to help you or call the NBCS Help Desk at (732) 445-HELP (4357).

Why a Departmental Account?

With the growing popularity of the World-Wide Web has come a growth in requests for departmental accounts. Employees are increasingly seeking to move departmental services, such as web pages and e-mail addresses, off of their personal accounts.

Rutgers Computing Services has received requests for departmental accounts almost as long as there have been computer accounts. In the past, these accounts proved to cause security and administrative problems, as people routinely shared passwords for the accounts, making it difficult to tell who was using the account at a given time.

On RCI, we've come up with a solution that gives departments the flexibility they want and gives us the accountability we need: the departmental account. 

What is a Departmental Account?

A departmental account on RCI is in most respects just like a personal account on RCI, with one important difference: it has no password of its own but instead uses the passwords of specific authorized users to access it. Consequently, anyone who is going to have access to the departmental account must have a personal RCI account. This means that students or non-Rutgers employees who do not have a faculty/staff status in the Rutgers Online Directory will not be able to work on this account, unless you obtain a guest account for them on RCI.

See the section Submit a Request for a Departmental Account for instructions on how to request a departmental account.

Using the Departmental Account through SSH or Telnet

To log into a departmental account, you must give the departmental account name as the username, and include an authorized username in the password area, separated from the authorized user's password by a colon (:).

For example, to access an RCI account called deptacct, an authorized person with the e-mail address of user@rci.rutgers.edu and a password of 1234Abcd would use

deptacct

as the username, and

user:1234Abcd

as the password. Of course, for a real account, you would replace deptacct with the actual departmental account name, user with your username, and 1234Abcd with your password.

After logging into the departmental account, the user can do anything with the departmental account that was possible with his/her personal RCI account: send e-mail, create web pages, etc. People can send e-mail to the departmental account's address. Messages to the departmental account will be kept separately from any mail sent to the user's personal account.

Moreover, if more than one person is authorized to use the account, more than one person can log into the departmental account at the same time. This both makes some tasks easier and creates problems. For example, those who share access to a departmental account must take care that two or more people don't try to write to a file at the same time. (The RCS (Revision Control System), a program that manages multiple revisions of files, is available on all OIT central systems. Type man rcsintro at your system prompt for further information and instructions. - ed.) Furthermore, two people should not access a departmental account's mail files at the same time, at risk of damaging those files and their contents.

You exit from the departmental account as you would any other account, by typing:

logout

If you have an SSH program that automatically connects you to RCI as your personal account, you will have to give the username of the departmental account in the hostname, as if it were an e-mail address:

ssh deptacct@rci.rutgers.edu

Provide the password in the user:1234Abcd form above.
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Adding or Dropping Access to a Departmental Account

Before you can add someone to your departmental account, he/she must own a personal account on RCI. If the person to be added does not have a RCI account and is a faculty or staff member, use the normal account creation process at http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/rats/rats.cgi to create an account on RCI. Otherwise, you'll need to obtain a guest account at http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/guest-form.html for him/her. For students who are not listed as faculty/staff in the Rutgers Online Directory, you will also need to request a guest account on RCI for them.

You can add another RCI user to your departmental account, by going to the following web page: http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/ratspriv/grouptool and logging in with your RCI username (NetID) and password. This web page allows you to perform account administrative tasks such as to list users who have access to the departmental account, to add or remove a user from the account. Under the "ChangePrivs" submenu, you can grant permission to additional departmental account users to be able to add users and change user privileges.

Getting the Departmental Account's E-Mail

If you're using an RCI-based mail program, such as pine, you can also use it in the departmental account.

If you're using a desktop-based mail program, such as Pegasus Mail, Eudora, Netscape Mail, or Outlook Express, you have to provide the departmental account name and user:Abcd1234 password in the appropriate place for your mail program; check the documentation for your specific mail reader. For information on configuring Windows-based mail readers, consult the NBCS documents, http://www.nbcs.rutgers.edu/newdocs/windows.index.html .) This will cause the mail reader to get the mail from the departmental account, rather than the authorized user's account.
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Transferring Files to a Departmental Account

Transferring files through FTP requires logging into the departmental account just as you would through SSH or Telnet: use the

deptacct
user:Abcd1234

format.

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Submit a Request for a Departmental Account

To request a departmental account, the department or project head, department chair, director, or other appropriately responsible administrator should use the online form at http://www.nbcs.rutgers.edu/newdocs/for00701/deptform.php3 .
It will ask for the appropriate information and send a request automatically via e-mail.

Need Help for RCI Accounts?

Mail any additional questions and inquiries about RCI accounts to help@rci.

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