NetID Assignments
The University NetID (also called the OIT NetID) is the name or user-id that identifies a person to a computer system or electronic service at Princeton. In addition, when one's OIT account is activated, one can send and receive email using the address, netid@princeton.edu. For more information, see the OIT KnowledgeBase: Getting Started: What is my netID? Do I have a Princeton email address?
The algorithm that OIT uses to generate NetIDs is described here: The Ink: Where Does Your NetID Come From? Note that OIT does not reuse issued NetIDs. Because NetIDs are limited to between 2 and 8 lowercase letters and numbers, there are fewer and fewer "good" NetIDs remaining with each passing year.
The CS Department systems also use NetIDs. We require that one's CS NetID and OIT NetID match.
OIT Personalized Email Address
In response to the dwindling pool of "good" NetIDs, OIT has introduced an optional "Personalized Princeton Email Address" service. If you use this service, you continue to use your NetID for accessing various systems and incoming email addressed to netid@princeton.edu will still be delivered to your OIT email account. However, your new email address will be the one listed in the campus directory, incoming email addressed to the new email address will (also) be delivered to your OIT email account, and any outgoing email sent by you from the OIT email system will have a From: header using your personalized email address.
An important consequence is that if you are already using your netid-based OIT email address for mailing lists, you may need to unsubscribe from all lists, then establish your personalized address, and, finally, resubscribe.
Additional details are in the OIT KnowledgeBase: Email: How can I get a personalized Princeton email address (aka alias address)?
CS Personalized Email Address
The CS Department now mirrors OIT personalized email addresses in the CS system. As a result, if you have established something like firstname_lastname@princeton.edu as a personalized email address in OIT, you will also have a matching CS email address alias firstname_lastname@cs.princeton.edu.
Your NetID will remain the same, but you can use the personalized address as your "From" address in emails or your contact address as appropriate. If your OIT email alias is deleted, the corresponding CS alias will also be deleted. If you wish to see which alias(es) are currently applied to your account, you can search LDAP using this command:
$ ldapsearch -x "(&(sendmailMTAAliasValue=${USER}@*) \
(description=CSVANITY*))" sendmailMTAKey