Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!uunet!ora!minya!jc
From: jc@minya.UUCP (John Chambers)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.programmer
Subject: How to set up multi-user accounts?
Message-ID: <798@minya.UUCP>
Date: 19 Jun 91 00:59:25 GMT
References: <23182@shlump.lkg.dec.com> <5485@risky.Convergent.COM>
Lines: 61

| In article <5485@risky.Convergent.COM>, gilles@diox.Convergent.COM (Gilles COURCOUX) writes:
| > In article <23182@shlump.lkg.dec.com> jc@netrix.nac.dec.com writes:
| > 
| > [I tried to answer directly by Email, but mails bounced back with:
| >    ----- Transcript of session follows -----
| > User "jc" is no longer employed here and has moved to a site that
| > does not have electronic mail access. We therefore cannot forward the mail.]

This  is  actually  one of my accounts at work, which I'm following up
here at home for convenience and so you can  possibly  reply  to  this
one. The above is among the more brain-damaged messages that I've seen
in the last few years.  A simple "user unknown" would have  been  much
more useful.  The facts in the message are all entirely incorrect, and
I generally feel that an incomplete message is usually better than  an
incorrect one.

But enough flaming, however  mild;  the  above  poses  an  interesting
puzzle.   The  actual  login  id there was lan_csse, which is a shared
account that I and several other people are allowed to use to  get  at
news.   Of  course,  this is probably the worst possible way to access
news, since all the news readers try to keep track of  what  has  been
shown on a per-user basis. I mean, we do have fun reading each others'
mail and chuckling at all the flames, etc., but it's mostly a pain.

I've played around with some schemes to try to keep it straight.  What
I'm  doing  right  now  is  sourceing  a  file  that  does  a bunch of
initialization, including setting  $home  to  the  'jc'  subdirectory,
setting  $user  to  'jc',  and so on.  This works for keeping my stuff
(email, a few test programs) straight from other users. Unfortunately,
it  means  that  the  news/mail programs send things out identified as
coming from the 'jc' user, who isn't in  /etc/passwd,  so  it  doesn't
work  too  well.   I don't have write access to /usr/lib/aliases, so I
can't define the proper forward to my home machine.

So further research is necessary on how to kludge a multi-user account
so  that it works sensibly, without using super-user privileges.  Does
anyone have any clever ideas?

Yeah, I know; the correct answer is "Don't do something so dumb." Good
advice, but I'm not the owner of the machine, and I  can't  really  go
around insulting the guys who are nice enough to give me access to one
of the few real BB systems in the company. Anyhow, I've seen this done
so  often that I sorta feel that it is a permanent part of the growing
world of Unix system management, and we oughta know how to correct for
admins  that  do  such dumb things.  I mean, you and I know that a new
account on a Unix system ain't such a big deal, but there  are  admins
who take such things seriously, and they are not gonna go away.

So what's the right way to handle multi-user accounts gracefully?

[Of course, one partial answer is to remember to put a Reply-To:  line
in  all  outgoing  news  and  mail  messages;  too  bad I don't always
remember to do that.  ;-]

All opinions Copyright (c) 1991 by John Chambers.  Inquire for licensing at:
Home: 1-617-484-6393 ...!{bu.edu,harvard.edu,ima.com,eddie.mit.edu,ora.com}!minya!jc 
Work: 1-508-486-5475 {sppip7.lkg.dec.com!jc,ub40::jc}
-- 
All opinions Copyright (c) 1991 by John Chambers.  Inquire for licensing at:
Home: 1-617-484-6393 ...!{bu.edu,harvard.edu,ima.com,eddie.mit.edu,ora.com}!minya!jc 
Work: 1-508-486-5475 {sppip7.lkg.dec.com!jc,ub40::jc}