Abstract: Disclosed are a method of and system for defining user account validity in a cluster of computer systems. The method comprises the steps of providing a centralized management system for said cluster; and using said centralized management system to maintain a record indicating, for each user of the cluster, whether the user is valid on each of the computer systems in the cluster. Preferably, the step of using said centralized management system includes the step of using said centralized management system to create a user account validity definition, and to identify in said definition which ones of the users are valid on which ones of the computer systems.

Abstract: Disclosed are a method of and system for managing plural files registries, for use with a computer operating system having a user/group management operation. The method comprises the steps of creating a plurality of files registries, and providing an administrator with access to each of said plurality of files registries independent of all of the others of said plurality of file registries. Preferably, this is done by inserting, for each of said plurality of files registries, a respective one instruction into the user/group management operation specifying a base directory path to said each of said plurality of files registries.

Abstract: A system cluster, a method and a recording medium are provided in which an administering host system of a cluster maintains global information for globally managing the availability of services to users on a basis of the system cluster. Individual host systems also maintain local information, the local information being usable for locally managing the availability of services or resources to users of those host systems. Thus, the availability of services to users of the cluster is managed locally for some users via referring to the local information at the host system to which the user makes a request. For other users, the availability of services is managed via referring to the global information. A table is maintained at each of the host systems which indicates for each user defined to the cluster whether the services available to the particular user are managed globally or locally.