Over recent years the IT department has been streamlining CERN users' access to all central computing services. The goal is to converge on a unique CERN account, which will increase computer security and simplify the maintenance of accounts. Administrative Information Service (AIS) applications, MAIL, Simba, the Engineering Data Management Service (EDMS), Windows and others already use this common CERN account, and the Andrew File System (AFS) accounts will soon be synchronized as well.
The following paragraphs explain how CERN and external users can manage their unique account via a standard web browser.
CERN users
In order to manage their unique account, CERN users should first go to http://cern.ch/CERNAccount (figure 1). Here they can set their password, sign the computing security rules, or view information about their account and services.
It is possible to add, delete or modify an account by clicking the Edit/Add/Delete Account link, which will redirect the user to the appropriate AIS site.
As the CERN account is the unique central account for CERN applications, changing a password will cause a global change for all CERN applications, including access to AFS.
Clicking the Check Account Status link will show the user's status and other information, such as group membership and mailing list ownership (figure 2). The green box at the top of the CERN Account Status page shows available identifiers that can be used to authenticate on CERN resources: these are usually the user's login or his/her registered e-mail address. The CERN Account Status page also shows various service-related information, from web sites owned by the user to available space in his/her home directory (figure 3).
External users
External (non-CERN) users who need access to a CERN resource have to follow the lightweight registration procedure based on their e-mail address to create an external account. They can do this at the CERN Portal for External Accounts, at http://cern.ch/externals (figure 4).