Computer Science Undergraduate Computing Laboratory Access Policies

The Computer Science Undergraduate Computing Laboratory is a limited resource that is shared by many students taking CSE and ISE courses. The objective of the system administrator for the Laboratory is to maximize the availability and utility of the Laboratory for students working on their CSE and ISE coursework, while attempting to minimize use of the laboratory for other purposes that tend to consume resources but are unrelated to coursework. To further this objective, certain policies are enforced by the system administrator regarding the physical access to the Laboratory itself, the issuance of accounts on the Laboratory systems, and access between the Laboratory and the Internet.

Physical Access to the Laboratory

Access to the Laboratory is limited to those having (a) active user accounts and (b) an access card to gain entry to the Laboratory. This policy is enforced by using a magnetic card reader, coupled with a database of current accounts, to control entry into the Laboratory and use of the workstation consoles in the Laboratory.

Account Policies

The following policies are applied regarding the issuance of accounts on the Laboratory systems:

To retain an active account, a student must be registered for a CSE or ISE course in the current semester. This is the same type of policy that would be applied, for example, to the use of a Chemistry laboratory.
The Computer Science Department hardly has enough laboratory resources to service the students registered in its courses; it cannot be in the business of supplying computer accounts to the general university community. Instructional Computing performs this service.
FEE: Note for Spring 2001: University regulations have made it impossible for us to collect and deposit this fee. Until further notice, the fee for the access card has been decreased to $0 (i.e. it is free). When we run out of money to pay for supplies and incidentals for the lab, we'll have to reassess the situation.
Magnetic access cards are required for access to the lab. At the present time, regular SUSB ID cards are being used for this purpose. If you have had your SUSB ID card for at least one semester during which you have also registered for a CSE or ISE course, then your card should get you into the lab, assuming that you have an active login account. If you recently got a new card, email "root" with the 16-digit number printed on the card to get that card activated. >
All student and TA accounts carry a disk quota of 50MB. TA accounts and student accounts are identical, except that a person who is a TA, and who has not already paid the fee, can receive an access card and print quota without paying the fee. If a person who has paid the fee subsequently becomes a TA, the fee already paid will not be refunded.

Access between the Laboratory and the Internet

Seats and resources in the Laboratory are very limited. For this reason, access to and from the Internet is controlled with the intent of reducing the desirability of Laboratory workstations being used as terminals to other facilities. These access policies are controlled by firewall code installed on the Laboratory's Internet gateway. The policies currently are as follows:

Communications to and from the Laboratory are generally limited to TCP connections having at least one port number in the range 1-1023. The intent is to prevent access from the laboratory to various chat servers on the Internet, which typically operate on port numbers 1024 and above. Persons using these chat servers tend to occupy seats for a long period of time for purposes other than coursework.
All communications involving the IRC port number are blocked. The intent is the same as above.
X protocol connections are mostly permitted at the moment, except that currently connections between an X server (screen) within the Laboratory and off-campus X clients (CPUs) are blocked. X connections between a server outside the Laboratory and a client inside the Laboratory are permitted.
Telnet and rlogin connections are currently unrestricted. However, if use of Laboratory workstations as terminals via telnet and rlogin to other facilities appears to be a severe problem, some of these connections may be blocked in the future.

If you wish to contact HTTP (Web) and FTP services on ports that are blocked by the firewall, then you may configure your browser to use the proxy server located at gatekeeper.ug.cs.sunysb.edu port 80.

webmaster@ug.cs.sunysb.edu