Machine Usage Agreement

Summary

This is a brief version of the usage policy. Everyone who receives an account on one of the CS Club machines must sign the full Machine Usage Agreement, and this summary lists the things that the users will agree to.

Use of accounts

  • One person per account.
  • Usage intended for personal or course work.
  • Don't abuse system resources.
  • Use the machines in a respectful manner.

Security

  • Your .rhosts file should only contain your user IDs on CSC and CSCF machines.
  • Don't use passwords that you use elsewhere, and never tell anyone your password.
  • If you find security holes, report them to the Systems Committee. Intentional malpractice will not be tolerated.

The Systems Committee may

  • Examine programs that seem to be violating policy or security; this includes the following, when necessary,
  • Remove accounts with short/no notice and provide an reasonable explanation to the user as to why their account was removed.

General

  • You are completely responsible for your actions.
  • Don't do anything illegal, damaging, or unethical.
  • The executive team can change their policies with reasonable notice.
  • CS Club machines will not be up at all times, and may crash while you are using them.
  • This document and its rules also apply to CSC Cloud resources.

Usage Policy

Everyone who receives an account on one of the CS Club machines must sign the agreement in the final section. This document does not state who will be allowed accounts on CS Club machines, the normal expiry period of accounts, nor any other similar matters. Further, this policy does not, in general, guarantee any rights to users.

Note: that in the following sections, the term "user" implies a user of a CS Club machine, unless otherwise specified.

The usage policy is divided into the following sections:

  1. Acceptable and Unacceptable Use
  2. User Responsibilities
  3. Security
  4. Rights of the Systems Committee and the CSC Executive

Acceptable and Unacceptable Use

The CSC machines are intended for research, personal projects, and general use in accordance with the aims of the CSC (see the CSC Constitution for further details). Projects that are of interest to the CSC may be given special priority by the CSC Systems Committee.

Users must adhere to the CSC's policies concerning machine usage.

The same policies apply to the CSC Cloud resources.

User Responsibilities

Users must be responsible for their behaviour. Users, and not the CSC, will be held accountable for any of their illegal, damaging or unethical actions. Such actions are obviously not permitted on CSC machines.

Users must act responsibly, and the needs of others with regard to computing resources must be considered at all times. In particular, no user should use any resource to an extent that other users are prevented from similarly using that resource, and no user's actions shall disrupt the work of other users.

Users must also abide by the usage policies of all machines that they connect to from CSC machines, or use to connect to CSC machines. It is the users' responsibility to check the policies of all machines that they connect to.

Security

Users may not attempt to gain access to accounts other than those which they have been permitted to use. Similarly, users may not attempt to access other users' private files, nor may they attempt to find out the password of any account.

An account may only be used by the person assigned to it. Do not tell your password to anybody, or let anyone else use your account. Users should consider the security implications of their actions. For example:

  • Passwords for accounts on CSC machines should not be used on other machines
  • Accounts not on CSCF or CSC machines should not be granted automatic access to CSC accounts (e.g. via .rhosts files).

The appropriate members of the systems committee must be notified immediately in the event that a security problem is found. Naturally, the problem should neither be exploited nor made public until it can be corrected.

Rights of the Systems Committee and the CSC Executive

The Systems Committee may examine any files or programs believed to be out of control or in violation of the usage policies for the CSC network. Examination of a program includes examination of the running process and its binary. Files believed to be the data or source to the process may also be examined. The process may be killed, stopped or otherwise interrupted at the discretion of the Systems Committee. If the Systems Committee takes any of the above actions, the owner of the process will be notified.

The Systems Committee may at any time revoke a user's permission to access an account provided that a written (possibly electronic) explanation is given. Cause for removal of access to an account includes, but is not limited to, violation of the machine usage policy. In the event of a dispute, a user whose account has been revoked may appeal to the CSC Executive for its reinstatement, as per the CSC Constitution.

The Systems Committee may delete a user's CSC Cloud resources when their CSC account expires, at its sole discretion.

The CSC Executive has the right to update any policy, including this one, with reasonable notice.

Club Accounts

The club accounts policy is divided into the following 2 sections:

  1. Access Control
  2. Responsibility and Accountability

Access Control

Note: For the given section, any mention of the club, except in direct reference to the Computer Science Club, will refer to a club other than the CSC, which has, or requests, an account on a Computer Science Club machine.

Clubs are given accounts and provided with an e-mail and WWW pages, but are subject to the following to certain rules. They are as follows:

  1. The club account is subject to all restrictions of a user account, except that it is a shareable account.
  2. The club members must have regular user accounts on the CSC machine that the club account will be on. If the club member does not already have such an account, one will be created to allow the member to manage the club account.
  3. The members of the club with access to the club account shall be known to the CSC Systems Administrator to ensure that these people are aware of this section of the user agreement.
  4. The club members with access to the club account shall not grant access to any other members by any means that are available to them, other than approaching the CSC System Administrator and requesting the change of access.

Responsibility and Accountability

The account is the responsibility of the members who have access. If the resources owned by the club account are found to be in violation of any policy/rule/law of any of, but not limited to, the Computer Science Club, CSCF, the University of Waterloo, or any relevant law enforcement agency, then the members with access will be held equally responsible for that action.

Club reps are required to read the Club Hosting page on the CSC Wiki when they first become a club rep, and thereafter at least once every term, and abide by any notices, warnings, recommendations and best practices provided on it.

Definitions

CSC

  • The University of Waterloo Computer Science Club whose office is located in room 3036/3037 of Mathematics and Computer Building (UW campus), telephone number (519) 888-4657 x3870.

CSC Network

  • The network of computer hardware and peripherals owned by, rented to, on loan to, or otherwise under the control of the CSC, including everything under the csclub.uwaterloo.ca DNS zone.

CSCF

Machine

  • Computer, terminal or other piece of hardware.
  • Non-CSC machines include CSCF's xterms and printers.

Systems Committee

  • An appointed body responsible for the operation of the CSC network and the software that runs on it. A complete description is available in the CSC Constitution.

Network Bandwidth

  • The percentage of bytes per unit of time that can be handled by the network(s) in question. These networks include the University of Waterloo on-campus network and the Internet.

Computing Resources

  • Resources the CSC considers limited include
    • Public temporary disk space
    • Swap space
    • Other commonly held disk space (which may include the home file system)
    • inodes
    • Memory
    • CPU time
    • Processes
    • TTYs and pseudo-TTYs
    • Network bandwidth
    • Ports
    • CSC Cloud Services

User Agreement

I have read and understood the CSC Usage Policy of 10 July 2022, and I agree to use my CSC account(s) in accordance with this policy. I am responsible for all actions taken by anyone using this account. Furthermore, I accept full legal responsibility for all of the actions that I commit using the CSC network according to any and all applicable laws.

I understand that with little or no notice machines on the CSC network and resources on these machines may become unavailable. Machines may shut down while users are using them, and I will not hold the CSC responsible for lost time or data.

Name:         ___________________________

Signature:    ___________________________

Office Staff: ___________________________

Signature:    ___________________________

Date:         ___________________________