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<h1><center>ACUA Overview</center></h1>
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<br>
<br>
<b>ACUA</b> is a software package designed to facilitate the administration of user accounts and the enforcement of access restrictions on a Linux system. <b>ACUA</b> is most often used on systems that host modem pools such as:<br>
<ul>
<li><b>ISPs</b></li>
<li><b>BBSs</b></li>
<li>school dial-ups</li>
<li>business dial-ups</li>
</ul>
<br>
However if you have a close look at <b>ACUA</b> you'll find that you don't need to have a modem pool to make use of it. Here is an overview of the functionality provided by the package:<br>
<br>
<h2>Access Control</h2>
<hr>
<ul>
<li>Temporarily "freezing" accounts - <a href="acua_lock.html">acua lock</a>, <a href="acua_unLock.html">acua unLock</a>.</li>
<li>E-Mailing users to explain why they were kicked off the system - <b><i>ExplainBoot</i></b>.</li>
<li>Warning users when their time is almost up - <b><i>WarnBoot</i></b>.</li>
<li>Warning users (via email) when their account/subscription will be expired soon - <b><i>WarnExpire</i></b>.</li>
<li>Booting users who have been idle too long - <b><i>IdleBoot</i></b>.</li>
<li>Enforcement of accounting-period time limits (i.e. time per day, time per month).</li>
<li>Enforcement of session time limits.</li>
<li>Distinct time limits that apply only to certain weekdays and times - <b><i>TimeClass</i></b>.</li>
<li>Optionally, time can be deducted only when the system is busy - <b><i>SmartTime</i></b>.</li>
<li>Optionally, time limits can be enforced only when the system is busy - <b><i>SmartBoot</i></b>.</li>
<li>Optionally, at most <b>n</b> users may be kicked off the system per minute - <b><i>MaxKick</i></b>.</li>
<li>User priorities.</li>
<ul>
<li>User priorities may be mapped to CPU priorities (i.e. <b><i>niceness</i></b>).</li>
<li>Lower-priority users are kicked off instead of higher-priority users.</li>
<li>Priority 0 users can be kicked off even when they have time left!</li>
</ul>
<li>Enforcing data transfer limits.</li>
<ul>
<li>Accounting period and per-session limits.</li>
<li>Separate limits can be placed on:</li>
<ul>
<li>Total bytes transferred</li>
<li>Bytes uploaded</li>
<li>Bytes downloaded</li>
</ul>
</ul>
</ul>
<br>
<h2>User Administration</h2>
<hr>
<ul>
<li>Automatic deletion of accounts.
<ul>
<li>Based on preset expiration date.</li>
<li>Based on the time since last login.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Subscriptions (temporarily increased access) - <a href="acua_subscribe.html">acua subscribe</a>, <a href="acua_unSubscribe.html">acua unSubscribe</a>.</li>
<li>User-created accounts with call-back verification - <a href="acua_verify.html">acua_verify</a>.</li>
<li>Specific users can be banned from the system temporarily or indefinitely - <a href="acua_ban.html">acua ban</a>.</li>
</ul>
<br>
<h2>Information Reporting</h2>
<hr>
<ul>
<li>Account status information is available to users - <a href="acua_timeLeft.html">acua timeLeft</a>, <a href="acua_daysLeft.html">acua daysleft</a>, <a href="acua_viewRec.html">acua viewRec</a></li>
<li>Usage statistics - <a href="acua_stats.html">acua_stats</a></li>
<li>Easy report generation - <a href="acua_dump.html">acua dump</a> + bash/Perl scripts.</li>
</ul>
<br>
<h2>Miscellaneous Utility Programs</h2>
<hr>
<ul>
<li>Kicking a user off the system - <a href="acua_kickUser.html">acua kickUser</a>.</li>
<li>Removing files left behind by users - <a href="clean_tmp.html">clean_tmp</a>.</li>
<li>Killing processes left behind by users - <a href="clean_proc.html">clean_proc</a>.</li>
</ul>
<br>
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<address><a href="mailto:acua@acua.ebbs.com.au">Robert Davidson</a></address>
<!-- Created: Tue Mar 11 14:47:17 CST 1997 -->
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Last modified: Thu Mar 5 21:53:03 CST 1998
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