Keeping Track of Names
You need to know two things about other users to communicate with
them:
- Their user ID (user identification)
- Their node (computer identification).
The node of a computer is similar to an area code. A user ID is similar to a phone number.
To find out a person's user ID, just ask. (A user ID is sometimes
called a logon id.) If you are enrolled in the Shared File System,
you can find out the user IDs that are enrolled in your file pool
by typing:
query enroll user for all
If a person shares your computer system, their node is the same as yours. If a person uses a computer that is connected to yours, their node is different from yours.
You are probably thinking that is a lot of information to keep track of. But you can keep all this data in a special file, called a names file.