Technical Note - Requesting a Different Username

Summary

This technote details the ECS policy and other considerations associated with requests from students to change their ECS login name from that assigned by default.

Details

Default Username

By default ECS creates student login accounts with the same username as used by the university's central computing systems (MyVUW/Canvas/etc). The format they use is up to six characters of the student's family name followed by up to four characters of their given name. If the resulting login name already exists a digit will have been added to distinguish it from the existing one.

However ECS/SMS thesis students can choose a different login name than this default if they wish. Also, other students who have had their central VUW username changed by Digital Solutions can request that their ECS username be changed to match.

Thesis Students Requesting a Login Name Change During Account Registration

Before using an ECS account a person has to go through the ECS account registration process. This process is described in more detail in the account registration technote. If the registration system determines that the student is a thesis student it will give them the opportunity to choose a different login name.

If this option is chosen the student will not be able to complete the registration procedure at that time. Instead, the registration system sends the change request to the ECS IT support staff who then have to manually make the required changes to the student's account.

When making the request its a good idea to include a non-ECS email address which we can use to notify the student when the change has been made.

We are unable to make any guarantees as to when the change will be done by. Depending on how busy we are, it may only take a few hours but it could take longer. We will make every effort to ensure that it is done by the end of the next working day though. See the section What Happens Next for more information on the process.

Requesting a Login Name Change After Registration

Some students become entitled to choosing a different username after they have registered their account (eg: if they were an undergraduate student who goes on to enrol in a PhD or Masters thesis, or an undergraduate whose central VUW username has been changed). If this applies to you you can send an email to jobs@ecs.vuw.ac.nz telling us what you'd like your login name changed to and we'll let you know whether your request can be granted. Please be aware of the potential consequences of changing your username outlined below.

When making the change we need to ensure that you aren't logged on to any ECS systems so we'll have to agree on a mutually convenient period during which when the change can be made. At the agreed time we will disable your login access and make the change. All going well, you should be able to use your account again within a couple of hours, but we are unable to guarantee this. Unforeseen circumstances may delay the process, but we will do our best to restore your account access as soon as possible. If we have a non-ECS email address for you we will let you know when the change has been made.

What Happens Next?

Regardless of whether you requested a name change during account registration or via an email to jobs@ecs.vuw.ac.nz, the process from here on is identical. If we don't have a non-ECS email address we can use to tell you when you can use your account again you will have to periodically attempt to re-register your account to see what the system thinks your login name is. If the change has not yet been done try again a bit later, repeating as often as necessary! If at any point you decide not to change your username just complete the registration with your old username, effectively canceling the change request.

Once the name change has been made, complete the registration process and then you should be able to log on to our systems using your new login name.

Consequences of Changing Your Login Name

Unfortunately changing your login name is not without some potential negative side effects if you have already been using your ECS account (if you have never previously logged on to your ECS account you don't need to worry about these).

The main problem arises because many modern applications embed login names into various configuration files that they use. A login name change means these configuration files may no longer be valid which can cause the corresponding application to fail.

One of the biggest culprits here is the KDE desktop system that we use as our default login environment. Unfortunately failure of certain key KDE applications may mean you are unable to log in to our system. The easiest way for us to fix this is to reinitialise all your KDE application configuration files to initial default settings. This will result in any KDE customisations you have made (personalised desktop backgrounds, customised menus, font selections, colours, etc) being lost.

If you have changed your default desktop environment to something other than KDE (ie: GNOME) we will not reinitialise its settings and so your login may fail. If you don't have some idea of how to fix this yourself you shouldn't have changed your desktop environment and/or shouldn't request a login name change!

It is also impossible for us to fix the configurations of the many non-KDE applications that you might have used, so you will have to deal with them yourself. Your ability to log in probably won't be affected by these but you may not be able to get an application working until you have fixed its configuration. In some cases you may have to simply wipe your existing configuration and start with a new clean one.

Another potential problem is that any links to personal ECS web pages (https://homepages.ecs.vuw.ac.nz/~/) will be broken. We are not able to configure our web server to support both your old and new login names so you will be responsible for changing those links to your new personal web address.

The Next Step

If after reading the above you still wish to request a different login name, make the request during the registration process or by sending an email to jobs@ecs.vuw.ac.nz to get the process underway.