Server Use Policy

Last updated: October 22nd, 2025

Purpose

These systems are provided by Raphael Bitton for educational and research use by University of Chicago and UC Irvine students and faculty. Access is a privilege, not a right.

Acceptable Use

By accessing this system, you agree to:

• Use the servers only for academic, research, or learning purposes.
• Respect all other users and avoid any activity that could disrupt or degrade service.
• Keep your account credentials private and secure.
• Follow all applicable university policies and laws, including those on academic integrity, copyright, and data protection.

Prohibited Activities

The following actions are not permitted:

• Attempting to gain unauthorized access to accounts, services, or data.
• Running cryptocurrency miners, denial-of-service tests, or penetration tools.
• Using the system for commercial work, reselling access, or processing sensitive personal data.
• Torrenting of any kind.
• Storage or distribution of illegal content, malware, or materials that violate university harassment policies.

Software Installation

Users may install software within their home directories or containers as long as it does not require elevated privileges or affect other users.
Requests for additional global packages can be sent to [email protected].

Network and Security

The servers are not publicly exposed to the internet.
All access occurs through Cloudflare tunnels for safety.
Opening ports or bypassing network restrictions without permission is prohibited.

Collaboration

Collaboration is encouraged when consistent with course or research policies. Never share your login credentials under any circumstances. If you need to share data or files, use version control or approved shared directories instead of account sharing. Do not share anything that may breach the University of Chicago's academic honesty policies or those found in your syllabus if doing work for a class.

Resource Awareness

Each user has a 15 GiB storage quota and limited CPU and memory allocation. Please use nice, ionice, and systemd-run for heavy workloads. Be considerate of others.

Consequences of Misuse

Policy violations will result in immediate account termination and referral to the appropriate University office or law enforcement as necessary. There are no warnings or appeals.

Backups and Data Responsibility

While hourly snapshots exist for disaster recovery purposes, users are solely responsible for backing up their own important data. Snapshots are not guaranteed and should not be relied upon as a backup solution. Make local copies of any critical work.

Service Continuity and Administrative Discretion

This system is provided as a voluntary, educational service and may change or be discontinued at any time without prior notice. While I make every effort to maintain uptime and reliability, I reserve the right to modify, suspend, or terminate the service for any reason — including maintenance, resource limitations, or sheer burnout.

Users should not rely on this system for critical, time-sensitive, or graded work. If you have important data, make local copies or backups elsewhere.

Contact

Questions or issues: [email protected]