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Disabled WAM/Glue Accounts

Contents

A. Why/when are WAM/Glue accounts disabled?
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Your WAM or Glue account can be disabled for two main reasons: disciplinary and non-disciplinary:

Disciplinary Disablement

You are suspected of having violated University or WAM acceptable computing usage guidelines.

Beyond the following notes, this document doesn't deal with disciplinary disablements. If your account has been disabled for disciplinary reasons, you may have reason to know about it already. You will be unable to log in and will see one of the following messages. In the case of a Glue account, the message will depend on how you try to log in. (Important: For glue accounts, the message you see is the same for both disciplinary and non-disciplinary disablements.)

Non-Disciplinary ("not-here") Disablement

Your university ID number no longer appears in the campus faculty/staff/student databases available for checking by the Senior System Administrator. The multistage process of checking the match between University ID numbers in the campus databases and the WAM/Glue account databases, and disabling and deleting accounts occurs twice a year, roughly as follows:

* Between initial disabling and final deletion, accounts may be re-enabled for a variety of reasons.

WARNING: Official advance notice of disablement
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A news item similar to the following is posted on the um.wam newsgroup by the Senior System Administrator in advance of the biannual WAM/Glue purge/disablement:

WAM and Glue Account Deletions
  
This news item describes what the Office of Information Technology (OIT)
does about deleting WAM and Glue accounts.  We will be doing the next
set of account checks no earlier than November 24, 2007.
 
Twice each year, OIT compares our WAM and Glue account registration
records with University of Maryland, College Park records to determine
that all account holders are valid university students, employees and
affiliates. WAM and Glue login IDs for account holders who do not appear
in the records are disabled (made unavailable for use) for at least
three months before we delete them.
 
OIT periodically checks official university records and accounts
belonging to people who reappear in those records, and we enable (make
available for use) those accounts without the account holder needing to
request reinstatement.
 
Please contact me with any questions or if I can be of assistance.
 
Ira Gold
Office of Information Technology
University of Maryland, College Park
igold@umd.edu
301-405-3040 

An e-mail message similar to the following is sent to potentially-affected WAM account holders as a followup to the news item above:

This mailing is a follow-up to the news item which was posted on October
18, 2007 (copy is included at the end of this message for your convenience).

A preliminary check of WAM and Glue records indicates that your WAM and
Glue accounts will be disabled (made unavailable for use) starting
November 24, 2007, due to lack of evidence that you are still affiliated
with the University of Maryland, College Park.  We will make a final
determination based on a check of updated campus information just before
the accounts are disabled.

Accounts that remain disabled will be deleted in March 2008.

To retain your WAM and Glue accounts, you must appear in the campus
records.  Please contact your department about your status.

Otherwise, please copy anything you need from your accounts to another
system and create WAM / Glue mail forwarding, if needed, prior to your
account being disabled.  If you need help with either of these, here are
two URLs you can use:
  
  General info on downloading files:
  
       http://www.helpdesk.umd.edu/systems/wam/connectivity/ftp/
  
  Info on mail forwarding:
  
       http://www.helpdesk.umd.edu/topics/email/utilities/forwarding/
  
Please contact me with any questions or if I can be of assistance.

Mr. Ira Gold
Office of Information Technology
University of Maryland, College Park
igold@umd.edu
301-405-3040 

B. Who does and doesn't get disabled?
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The answer to this question depends on whether a person appears in one of the campus databases available for such checking.

1. Not disabled
   • Students registered this semester
   • Graduate students with active status in the Graduate program
   • Faculty, staff, TA's, RA's -- but only if they are paid with State funds
   • Emeritus professors
   • Students going to another university through the Study Abroad office who are on the list maintained by the Study Abroad office.
2. Disabled, eligible for reinstatement
   • Students who receive WAM or Glue accounts through special academic programs at College Park, but who are not officially registered at College Park
   • Students who can prove that Records and Registration are in error in saying they are not registered
   • Faculty/staff not paid by State funds (e.g., grants, externally funded Centers)
   • "Visiting" faculty, researchers, students
   • Non-employed providers of service to the campus who have received WAM accounts on the recommendation of unit heads
   • Gold-card holders
3. Disabled, eligible only for temporary re-enabling
   • Students who dropped all courses prior to the semi-annual WAM/Glue check
   • Students who have taken LEAVE OF ABSENCE -- a short-term withdrawal from the University for a variety of personal reasons
   • Students not registered for the current semester -- however, if you are planning to re-register:
   • Every week, normally on Saturday, the list of new registrants for the previous week is processed against the list of WAM and Glue disables, and anyone with a disabled WAM or Glue account who reappears as a registered student or is admitted to Graduate status will have that WAM or Glue account automatically reinstated, and available within 24 hours. The only circumstance in which this will not happen is when technical difficulties delay the list of new registrants.

If your account doesn't become active the weekend after you register, contact the Office of Information Technology (OIT) Help Desk to see what the problem is.

These are general guidelines. Final decisions made by the Senior System Administrator can take into account the particulars of the situation.

C. How can you tell if an account has been disabled?
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There are a variety of ways to determine if an account has been disabled:

1. if, when you attempt to log in, you see (depending on whether it is a WAM or Glue account) one of the messages shown below, and are then forcibly logged out. However, since many ssh programs close the window immediately after logout, this message may not be visible long enough to see clearly.
2. if someone else with a WAM account uses the finger command to get information about your account and finds that the login shell is

   /local/lib/logins/norecord	(non-disciplinary)
   /local/lib/logins/disabled	(disciplinary)

3. if certain other symptoms arise (see What does and doesn't work, below).

Official disabled notification displayed at login
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If your account has been disabled, you may see a message something like the following. We say "may" because many ssh programs close the window so quickly after you log out that the message may not be visible long enough to see it clearly

WAM Accounts

Your login ID has been disabled because you do not appear in student,
affiliate, or employment records for the University of Maryland, College
Park campus as of November 24, 2007.

The Office of Information Technology compares our records with campus
records, and people who reappear in campus records will have their WAM /
Glue accounts reinstated without needing to request reinstatement.

Disabled login IDs and files will be deleted starting March 15, 2008.

Please contact Mr. Ira Gold via electronic mail at igold@umd.edu or by
phone at 301-405-3040 if you have any questions.  You will need to
supply your full name, University ID number, WAM / Glue login ID and the
reason for requesting temporary account reinstatement. If you call,
please also leave a phone number, including area code, where you can be
reached if there are questions.

Phone calls that provide sufficient information to warrant reactivation
will result in the account being made available by the next work day.
E-mail will be sent to such accounts explaining what action was taken.
 
Please contact me with any questions.
 
Ira Gold
Office Of Information Technology
University of Maryland, College Park
igold@umd.edu

Glue Accounts
(depends on how you try to log in)

D. What does and doesn't work on a disabled account?
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1. What will work:
   • Automatic e-mail forwarding using a .forward file
   • Receipt of e-mail (unless the growing inbox causes the account to go over its disk quota (100 megabytes), in which case any subsequent e-mail that arrives will be "bounced" (returned to the sender).
2. What won't work
   • Logging into the account via ssh or slogin
   • Accessing e-mail via POP or IMAP client programs
   • Accessing web-page material (you get a403 Forbidden error message if you try)
   • Accessing the account's files via AFS from WAM or Glue or other system.
   • Making use of WAM-id-authenticated resources such as
     • PPP service

E. Do you lose anything when your account is disabled?
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The answer is "No," except for being unable to access your files. The files will remain safe. The only time you'll lose files is if you both

• fail to get the account re-instated by the time the next semi-annual check is run, and
• fail to get the account temporarily re-enabled and move your files/e-mail to another system.

Also, if your incoming mail pushes your account over its disk quota, you'll lose all the mail that arrives from then on, and the senders of that mail will have their messages bounced back to them.

F. How can you get an account re-enabled?
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Only the Senior System Administrator has the power and discretion to re-enable disabled accounts. Re-enabling is done on one of three bases:

1. temporary re-enabling -- This applies to accounts which no longer have status with the University, to enable the person to move their e-mail and files to another system, and/or to set up mail forwarding to another address (which will last until the account is finally deleted in the next semi-annual purge).
2. reinstatement
   • semi-annual renewal -- This applies to an account which is disabled at each 6-month check because the owner, while having a valid University connection, does not appear in a campus database.
   • re-registration -- This applies to an account whose owner skipped a semester, but has just re-registered for the next semester.

To get an account re-enabled (except in the case of a re-registered student -- see box below), you should call the Senior System Administrator at 301-405-3040 (leaving a message if you get his voicemail) -- or send him e-mail at igold@umd.edu , if you have alternative e-mail -- and provide him with the following information:

1. full name (spell it if leaving a message)
2. WAM login ID (likewise spell it)
3. university ID number
4. circumstances/reasons under which the restoration of access is being requested
   • reinstatement -- semi-annual renewal (for re-registering students, see note below)
   • temporary re-enabling
5. telephone number, including area code (if leaving a message)

The one exception to this procedure is that of a newly re-registered student, who should not contact Ira Gold:

SSA's Response -- The SSA will make a reasonable effort to contact you by phone. If he is unable to do so in a reasonable amount of time (e.g., you have no answering machine or your line is always busy), but he has no questions about your request, he may grant it and send e-mail to your WAM account. So if you don't hear back in a day or two, try accessing your account.