Unity

Unity Account Lifecycle Policy

Account Expiration

If a Unity user doesn’t log into the account portal for 180 days, said user’s account will be idle-locked.

  • Lock warning emails and notices upon login will happen for 5 weeks
  • Idle-Locked accounts cannot log into any part of Unity except the account portal

If a Unity account is idle-locked for a year, said user’s account will be disabled.

  • If said user is the owner of a PI group, their home directory is archived. Otherwise, their home directory is deleted within 24 hours.
  • If said user is the owner of a PI group, that group will also be disabled
    • The home institution’s designated representative will be contacted and given a chance to retrieve the relevant data or have a conversation about extenuating circumstances.
    • With the agreement of the home institution, all data in the PI’s /work and /home and /project directories will be deleted. This data cannot be recovered.
    • All accounts will be removed from the PI group
    • The PI’s slurm account will be deleted
  • Data created by that user that is in /work and /project directories will be untouched
  • The account will be removed from all PI groups
  • The PI will receive a notification that the account has been disabled

Disable warning emails will be sent for 9 weeks.

Expiration FAQ

If I am a PI and you deleted my /work or /project data because I left my account idle-locked for a year, can that data be recovered for any period of time?

Your home institution’s designated representative may have elected to transfer some or all of your data. Any data they did not elect to transfer cannot be recovered. Unity is not intended for long-term storage and doesn’t have backups.

If my PI account was disabled, can I apply for a PI account in the future?

Yes, absolutely. Just log into the portal and request one like you did the first time.

If my PI let their account get disabled and I had data in their /work or /project directories, can I get that data back?

It depends:

  • If the data is still intact, we can work with you to get it back.
  • If the data was transferred to another institution, we can put you in touch with their designated representative.
  • If the data was deleted, no.

Manual Action

  • If a user would like all their information removed from our system, they can email us at hpc@umass.edu and we will take all the above steps, and then remove all non-essential data associated with them from our system within 10 business days.
    • This does not include their username. Usernames cannot be removed from our system.
  • A user may disable their account at any time as long as they are not the owner of an enabled PI group.
  • A PI group owner may disable their group at any time as long as the group has no other members.
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