[HECnet] Effects of Rogue Duplicate HECnet Node?

[Thomas DeBellis]

Tops-20 will allow multiple accounts for a user and this was used at a 
number of university sites that I knew of (but not all).  It had a 
certain amount of flexibility that I have not often seen.

The university had a small commercial programming department (of one or 
two programmers), yet a number of clients.  If you had to do some work 
for one client, then you would switch your account to that client's with 
a "SET ACCOUNT" command along with a remark as to why you did that.  On 
occasion, a systems programmer or user services consultant could be 
drafted to do some development and we would switch from university 
overhead accounts (systems programming was I-X-CU-SY) to whatever the 
client was and switch back when done.

No login or logout was necessary to do this.  Under normal conditions, 
you could not use an account to which you were not authorized.  Account 
usage was strictly enforced and also formed one basis for the class 
scheduler, determining what share of the processor you could hope for.

The default account (if one is wanted) can be stored in the Tops-20 
login directory (I don't recall whether it is in the FDB or not).  This 
means that you can connect (via TELNET, FTP and FAL) without having to 
type an account anywhere. /However/, if no default is specified in the 
login directory, then you MUST give it or you won't be able to get any 
service.  The FAL and FTP server ANONYMOUS code will allow account 
specification.  I guess I put it in out of habit...

With the exception of IBM z/OS (née MVS/TSO), I am unaware of any 
operating system that has that degree of granularity of accounting.  Job 
cards for accounting still exist in JCL, but I don't remember how this 
was handled in TSO.

I would assume that VMS could provide similar services, but I never 
administered a installation.  I can't remember how (or if) we did 
accounting on Ultrix, either.  I think we did.

On 3/5/20 1:39 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> Accounting in RSX is related to the user, so it's tracked by 
> user/password only. There are accounts, but you cannot select such 
> things, or change between multiple ones for one user.
>
> I think VMS is exactly the same. I am a bit curious about how Tops-20 
> actually made use of them.
>
>   Johnny
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/hecnet-list/attachments/20200305/e5cae4d6/attachment.html>