Old UDB

The Old UDB is a user database originally written by Neil Brown. Beyond providing Linux account information to hosts and workstations, it also implements a hierarchical class-membership structure which both allows users' roles in the school to be established, and also controls user access to certain resources.

The New UDB loosely mimics this functionality to maintain compatibility across CSE's fleet of hosts.

The Old UDB is deprecated because it is:

1. Old and poorly documented,
2. It's a custom jobbie being almost all written in-house. Little expertise remains in its operation and maintenance
3. It can only talk to hosts and workstaions via NIS (Network Information Service), which is well-and-truly deprecated. Indeed, NIS is no longer available in newer Linux distribitions.

Its primary hosts are maestro and beethoven.