Account lifecycle
Users' accounts pass a few stages.
- pending (unconfirmed) accounts
- 'idle' accounts---confirmed (activated) accounts with no records of essential activity
- permanent (fully active) accounts
- removed accounts
Pending accounts
New accounts are created in the Web UI in the 'pending' state. Savannah sends an email with instructions about how to move to the next stage. Before activation, the user can't log in. See also: NewAccount.
Accounts that don't pass the activation procedure within 3 days are automatically removed. You can try to register again using the same name.
Newly confirmed (idle) accounts
When account is activated, it becomes 'idle'. The intended purpose of Savannah accounts is working on the packages hosted here. Therefore, if an account is activated, but no substantial activity follows for 2 weeks, it is automatically removed. 'Idle' accounts are absent on VCS and download machines, and authenticated access via SSH isn't enabled for them.
Permanent accounts
In order to prevent automatic removal, it's sufficient for the user to do anything from this list at least once.
- Post a new item in any tracker or comment on any item in any tracker. Note that the accounts whose first posts look like spam are likely to be removed manually. Posts from new accounts are monitored by Savannah admins for a few weeks.
- Actually join any group (mere requests for inclusion don't count).
These actions immediately make an account permanent, which implies:
- the account isn't subject to automatic removal any more;
- SSH access to all machines is enabled for the account.
For example, a user asked about SSH access on savannah-hackers@; it was suggested to file a support request on the tracker of Savannah administration; when the request was submitted, the SSH access was automatically enabled.
Examples of activity that doesn't make accounts permanent are:
- Changing profile settings like password, email, full name, registered SSH and GnuPG keys, timezone, Web UI theme. These actions don't make constructive contributions to the forge.
- Posting on mailing lists. In a sense, mailing lists (
lists.gnu.org) are out of scope of Savannah. Savannah doesn't attempt to link its accounts with posts on mailing lists. - Sending a message to a user through Web UI. These messages are not stored anywhere in Savannah database, and the users can't see them on Savannah.
The next kinds of activity don't affect the status of the account because they are only possible for permanent accounts:
- Checking out or cloning VCS repositories. Using anonymous protocols means using no account, and using authenticated procotols means that the account is already permanent.
- Pushing to VCS repositories. In order to do that, the user must be a member of the relevant group, and joining a group makes the account permanent.
- Updating settings of a group on Savannah, like public description, selected features, tracker configuration is also only possible for group members.
Removed accounts
An account may be deleted either by its owner or by a Savannah admin. Savannah admins typically delete accounts whose activity amounts to posting spam. In all cases, data like email address and full name are erased from the database. The login name is changed to the underscore character followed by the numeric user Id. Logging in such accounts isn't supported.
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