[WEB4LIB] RE: Anonymous users on Lib computers

[Knuth, Pat KNUTHP]

Kyle,

Our students have to login as themselves in the classrooms and computer lab.
We still provide a generic login in the library but some students login as
themselves in order to access resources on their network drives.  At some
point everyone who wants to use a networked PC will have to login with a
valid user id.  (we're exploring commercial ISP options for family members
and retired military)  We have NT Workstation on our public PCs and use
Novell Netware for networking.  

Some of the issues we have run into:

Students frequently don't realize all the changes they need to make at the
NetWare login screen to change their file server, their context and their
user ID for the NT domain.  We have instruction sheets posted in the area,
which helps the second time around.

In NT Workstation, you have to be logged in as the user to capture the
printer.  The networking team put a line in the NetWare login script that
looks for a capture file on the hard drive.  I have a printer.txt file on
each PC that captures the printer I want that PC to print to.  But they only
did that with the student login scripts.  Faculty members will have to
capture their own printers (I can't wait).

Right now, although users log into the NT domain, the profiles are stored on
the individual PCs.  One of our biggest problems is running out of hard
drive space.  When that happens I have to login as administrator and delete
users profiles.  The college networking team is exploring some fixes, but
they're severely overworked and understaffed, so I don't know when they'll
find a fix.

Hope this is useful

Pat Knuth
Electronic Resources Librarian
Combined Arms Research Library
US Army Command & General Staff College
Ft. Leavenworth, KS 66027
(913) 758-3019
knuthp at leavenworth.army.mil


-----Original Message-----
From: Kyle Harriss [mailto:kharriss at d.umn.edu]
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2000 9:52 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE: Anonymous users on Lib computers


Pat,

Thanks for responding.

On Fri, 3 Mar 2000, Knuth, Pat    KNUTHP wrote:
> What kind of OS & networking are you using?  We have 
> NT Workstation and Novell Netware, but our issues may 
> be different than if you're using NT server & Win9x

This library's public PCs access a heterogenous 
network: NT server, Novell servers, Unix servers, 
and the internet.

By fall semester, when user validation is scheduled to be 
in place, we'll be running Windows2000 "Professional" on
our public PCs.  We will validate logins against data
from the campus' email/network user database. 

I already expect these user issues to come up:

	Faculty/staff/students who are reluctant to
	use their logins/passwords on shared PCs.
	(What if the PC stores the info in a buffer..)

	Delays setting up logins/passwords for 
	walk-in patrons from the local community.
	
But I don't know what other issues and/or headaches
I should expect.  Any comments based on your
experience will be most helpful..  Thanks!

=======================================================
Kyle Harriss		      voice: (218) 726-6546
UMD Library		      email: kharriss at d.umn.edu
10 University Drive
Duluth,  MN  55812

> The "public" computers in our library have never
> been authenticated by logon/password.
> 
> Our students, staff and faculty - and anyone who 
> walked in our door - could always sit down at a 
> PC and start using the networked resources
> for research.  
> 
> This is about to change.  All users will have to 
> log in before gaining access to the network.
> We may be giving temporary network accounts to
> local residents who request access.
> 
> Has anyone else gone through this change?
> Any issues we should be warned of, so we can start
> working through those issues now?