The INQUIR Database

INQUIR is the central CSAIL user account database. It is currently implemented as a PostgreSQL database though its history dates back through many incarnations to at least the days of ITS on DEC PDP-6 and PDP-10 systems.

It is used to map people to user-names, UIDs and groups as well as being authoritative for email forwarding and homepage URL so that http://www.csail.mit.edu/~YourUserName will be directed to the website of your choosing which could be a CSAIL hosted personal page or any other website of your choosing.

You can view your inquir entry from a Unix system such as the CSAIL login server by typing whois -h inquir.csail.mit.edu <username> at the command prompt. You can also finger <username>@csail.mit.edu

See man 7 inquir on CSAIL Debian systems for additional info.

You can update your INQUIR entry using several mechanisms.