Do-It-Yourself ADN Accounts

Sorry, this article is out of date now. Click on Accounts above and click the links in the Accounts section. -- Editor

You need an ADN account to use any of the ADN services, including the ADN public microcomputer labs. That's not a problem if you're a member of the UIC faculty or staff, or a registered student at UIC; you're eligible for the accounts, they're free (except for charges for excess printing and if you purchase personal computer software from us), and you can probably open your account by yourself.

"Account creation" is simple: you connect to an interactive program, prove that you're you, and select the machine you want your principal account on. The only tricky part is the "connecting". You must be using a computer on the UIC campus when you create your account. (No, it won't work even if you're dialing in on the ADN Dialin telephone lines.)

Student, Faculty, or Staff? Account creation is a little different for students than it is for faculty and staff. The CSO has step-by-step handouts for students, so we'll concentrate on how it works for faculty and staff. But we will point out how it differs for students.

Are you in the online faculty/staff directory? Check it out on the Web, on the UIC home page: http://www.uic.edu/ Select "Campus Phonebook"; it's at the top. That takes you to the Search UIC Web page. Type your name (and perhaps your first initial, followed by an asterisk) in the box labeled "Name", then click the Submit button. For example, Ada Byron could use: A* Byron

If you are faculty or staff: You choose your own netid and have it added to your entry in the online faculty/staff phonebook database. Your department's staff directory contact person will help you select your netid and will add it to the database. Then you must wait overnight for your phonebook entry and netid selection to be processed. Check your entry, making sure it's correct before you continue.

What should you choose for your netid? Netids are three to eight characters long, and may contain only letters or numbers, no blanks or other special characters. Select something that's easy to remember and represents you well. Most people use all or part of their name; for example, Ada Byron might choose "adabyron". Don't choose anything you can't live with forever; netids are permanent. Think of it this way -- it's probably going to go on your business card; don't use anything you'd be embarrassed to see there.

Netids are always all lowercase. However, case doesn't matter for email addresses, so Ada Byron could use adabryon@uic.edu as her email address, and, if she wanted, she could even ask her staff directory contact person to enter her netid in the phonebook database in mixed case: AdaByron. But no matter how it's written in the directory, when you use your netid to access ADN services you must type it in all lowercase.

If you are a student: Students don't select their netids; theirs are assigned to them, based on their name: first initial, followed by the first five characters of their last name, then an arbitrary number. So if Ada Byron were a student, her netid might be abyron22. (Student netids are always all lowercase.)

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Otherwise turn on the machine and its monitor. You might be asked to select an operating system; if so, any one will do. Next you'll see a menu of login options; select "Create an Account". (One way to "select" an item from a menu is to use the down arrow key to highlight the line, then press Enter.)

This will connect you to the account creation program. It will ask for your social security number (type it without hyphens or spaces), your birth date, and your i-card number, which is the 16-digit number immediately below your name on your UIC i-card picture id. After you've entered and confirmed this information, the program will ask you what machine you want your account on.

What machine should your account be on? Students' accounts are on icarus, a Sun Enterprise 4000 running Solaris UNIX 5.2.1. Faculty and staff accounts are on tigger, an IBM RS/6000 model J40 running AIX 4.1.4. The account creation program will also create a Novell account for you, which you need to use the ADN public microcomputer labs.

Next, the account creation program will ask you to read the UIC computer acceptable use policy. You can choose to read it now or later, but you must read it. And you must abide by it. (A copy will also be sent via email to your new account, and it's on the Web, with other Computer Center policies at: http://www.uic.edu/depts/accc/policies/ )

That's pretty much all there is to it, unless what you've entered doesn't match what we know about you. In that case, the program will try to tell you what you need to do to fix the problem, or you can go to the CSO or a lab monitor -- with your i-card -- and they'll take care of it for you.

Tigger accounts should be ready to use right away, Novell accounts in about an hour (although it might take longer, perhaps overnight), and icarus accounts by the following morning.

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• What is your email address?
• What are the login id and password of your ADN UNIX account? Your Novell account? (And what is a "login id" and "password"?) What about the Dialin telephone servers?
• And what does all this matter anyway?

First, login ids and passwords: Usually, when you use your own personal computer, you just sit down at it and use it. It's personal, after all. But neither the ADN UNIX workstations nor the machines in a public lab are used by just one person. So, in both cases, you have to identify yourself to them before you can use them. What you'll do is "login": first, you use your "login id" to tell the computer who you are, and then you prove that you're really you by entering a "password" that only you and the computer know.

You need only one login id for ADN UNIX, for the public labs, and for the Dialin lines -- your netid. And you need only one password for all these services, too. (More about that in a minute.) Your netid is also part of your email address, and you'll use both your netid and password whenever you send or receive email, even if you do it on your PC or Mac.

Let's use Ada Byron, the faculty or staff member who selected the netid adabyron, and who requested and now has an account on tigger, as an example:

• AB's login id for tigger and for her Novell account is her netid: adabyron
• AB's password is the last eight digits of her i-card number. (And the first thing she should do after she gets her account is to log in and change this initial password!)
• AB's mailbox or POP account is: adabyron@tigger.cc.uic.edu (Note: this is read as "adabryon at tigger dot c c dot u i c dot e d u". In other words, you say "at" for the @, "dot" for the periods, and spell out the parts that can't be pronounced.)
• AB's email address is: adabyron@uic.edu

Changing Your Password

What about your Novell password? It's coordinated with your tigger, icarus, or UICVM password, as is the password you use to log into the ADN Dialin lines. So when you change your UNIX password, you'll also be changing your Novell password.

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Mailboxes and Email Address

Ada will, however, actually receive her mail at her tigger account, and to read it, she must either:

1. Connect to tigger, log in using her netid and password, and then enter the command: pine
2. If she uses Eudora, she must tell Eudora to use adabryon@tigger.cc.uic.edu as her POP account and enter her password when Eudora asks for it.

But adabyron@tigger.cc.uic.edu and adabyron@uic.edu are different, aren't they? Yes and no. "adabyron@uic.edu" is a "machine-independent email alias" that the account creation program sets to point to "adabyron@tigger.cc.uic.edu". So Ada can change her mailbox or POP account -- the address that her mail is delivered to -- without changing the email address that people use to send her mail. Want to know more? See the January/February 1997 ADN Connection.

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Logging In

Next you log in. Logging in always involves sending your login id and password to the system you're logging into. Sometimes the computer will already know your login id and all you'll have to enter is your password. (Eudora and other personal computer email programs work that way.) Sometimes there will be a login window where you type your login id, press Tab, type your password, and then press Enter or click on an OK button. (Novell and UICVM work that way.) Or the system might ask for your login id; type it, then press Enter. Then it will ask for your password; type that and press Enter again. (The Dialin telephone servers, icarus, and tigger do it this way.) In any case, your password will not be displayed as you type it.

Are you creating your account in an ADN public lab? Right next to the Account Create icon in the Windows machines' Main Menu there's an icon labeled How to Login (see Figure 2). It's an interactive slide show explaining how to log in to your new ADN UNIX account, how to change your UNIX password, and how to use pine to read your mail. Check it out before you go.

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Logging Out

To log out from a Windows PC in an ADN Lab:

double-click on the icon in the Main Menu labeled LOGOUT (or just turn off or reboot the machine)

To log out from a Mac in an ADN Lab:

double-click on the LOGOUT Special pull-down menu )

To log out from icarus:

enter the command: exit

To log out from tigger:

enter either: logout or exit

To log out from UICVM:

enter the command: logoff

Comments are welcome; send them to:
Judith Grobe Sachs, judygs@uic.edu
(an alias for judygs@tigger.cc.uic.edu)