Acceptable use
The University's official Acceptable Use Policies for IT equipment are on the main University web pages; they are fairly detailed. We have a couple of extra notes here.
We assume that the users in the building are reasonably techie and responsible. Note, however the following.
- This is a work environment: your usage of the machines and the network should reflect the manners appropriate for that.
- Bittorrent or other streaming/downloading services: don't. The University frowns on this, and monitors it. If you believe you have a work-related need for such protocols, talk to local IT staff.
- If you're planning anything which might have an effect on others, for example in terms of network bandwidth usage, have a chat with local IT staff first.
- Act in the intersection of the golden rule and the categorical imperative. Short version: be nice.
Using sudo – adminning your machine §
In some research groups, a few users may be given sudo access to
desktop Linux machines, which allows them to use apt-get or yum to install software.
The following points probably don't need to be explicit, but for the sake of completeness:
- being able to
sudois a privilege not a right; - don't use this to be antisocial (very much not encouraged) – specifically, don't install any services visible on the local network;
- if you're uncertain what's OK, talk to local admins;
- if you break the machine, you get the fun of fixing it!