Computing Accounts Service ID Information for System Administrators Home | FAQ | Glossary | How do I...? Computing Accounts Database Makeuser Feed Overview If you are an administrator of Unix systems in your unit or department, perhaps you've considered some of following questions: Have you ever wanted to coordinate the login names on your systems with those used elsewhere on campus? Have the faculty, staff, or students you support ever asked to use the same username and password on your systems that they use on DaFIS, Banner, or the central e-mail servers? Would you like to automate the housekeeping for login names when people change jobs, leave the university, or forget their password? If the answer to any of the preceding questions was "Yes", you may be interested in using a ServiceID to manage the login names on your system. The Computing Accounts Database can send a regular feed of information - called "Makeuser" - to your system for automated account management.

Setting up a ServiceID for your systems involves the following seven steps:

1. Obtain and complete a Computing Accounts Database Access Form to gain access to the database for system administration functions.

2. Download and install several components of software on your system to process the Makeuser feed.

3. Create a four-letter ServiceID to uniquely identify your system or service to your customers.

4. Activate your administrator access to the Computing Accounts database utilities.

5. Match any existing user population on your systems with the corresponding information in Computing Accounts.
   (Note: This may involve correcting and changing login names or Unix UIDs on your system and/or adding additional LoginID information into the Computing Accounts database.)

6. Initially populate your ServiceID in Computing Accounts with your existing users.

7. Activate your ServiceID and the transfer feed from Computing Accounts to your system.

A Computing Accounts ServiceID is not for everyone. If your user population is small or relatively static, you may not derive much benefit from Computing Accounts. A Makeuser feed is most useful (and worth the effort to set up) when your system has one or more of these qualifications:

• Your user population is more than 50-200 users. (Some administrators with only 50 users derive great benefit from Computing Accounts because they are freed of housekeeping. Other administrators with 200 users find it barely useful because they really don't mind the housekeeping. If you favor automation you may find value at 50, if you crave manual control you may not feel a payback until 200 or higher.)

• Your user population consists of a significant number of students (20% or higher).

• Your user population is dynamic, changing 10% or more each year.

• Your users also use DaFIS, Banner, or campuswide POP e-mail service, and would like to use the same LoginID everywhere.

• You use NFS or AFS (distributed file systems) within your department or between departments, and would like to keeps UIDs and names consistent.

• You would like to have usernames automatically removed from your system when individuals graduate, retire, or leave the university.

• You would like to automate the activity of creating users, managing passwords, etc.

If you think a Computing Accounts ServiceID might be useful for your system and you are interested in finding out more, contact the Computing Accounts management team computingaccounts@ucdavis.edu.

Makeuser Software and Documentation