INFORMATION SERVICES
February 2006
return to Information Services

Announcements from the Bulletin, Today, Notification-L

02/28/06, A Telecomm "Did You Know?"
Did you know that you can get the same information from our on-line directory as in your printed version? From the Macalester home page, click on Directory, then type in a department or person's name and click 'go.' Department information includes location, main phone number, FAX number and staff/faculty members.

You can set up the on-line directory as your home page in the Firefox Web browser - the steps are a bit different for PCs and Macs:

Firefox Windows: with the browser open, click on the Tools menu, then Options, then General, then in the Home Page location type in: http://www.macalester.edu/directory.html

Firefox Macintosh: with the browser open, click on the Firefox menu, then Preferences, then General, then in the Home Page location type in: http://www.macalester.edu/directory.html

Don't have Firefox? Get it here:

www.mozilla.com/firefox/

If you have any questions, please call Telecommunications at x6566. [Bulletin, also 3/3]

02/28/06, Library/ITS Spring Break Training Seminars
The Library and ITS will be sponsoring training seminars on a wide variety of software and research topics during Spring Break, March 14-16. Visit the Spring Break Seminar Web page at www.macalester.edu/infoservices/training/springbreak2006.html for a complete list of the sessions and to sign up! [Bulletin, also 3/3]

02/27/06, Academic Server Rebooted
The Academic Server was rebooted at 10:20 AM, Monday February 27, due to lack of communication to the Web server which affected faculty and student Web pages. Downtime was approximately 5 minutes.

We apologize for the inconvenience. [Notification-L]

02/24/06, Preventive Maintenance on UPS
To: The Macalester Community

The topic of this e-mail affects all community members.

We soon need to perform some preventative maintenance on our data room UPS, a critical device which provides battery backup power to all of the computers in the data room (e.g. the Web server, e-mail server, CARS, the Novell servers, etc.). The need for the maintenance was discovered just this morning, as part of the biannual UPS health checkup.

Unfortunately, the UPS needs to be shut down to perform the maintenance. This means that every single network server and service will be shut down while the maintenance is being performed. CARS, Banner, Novell servers, e-mail, Internet access, Web browsing, PowerFAIDS, the Advancement system, Odyssey PCS, Moodle, the HRC servers, CLICnet, and all other systems will all be shut down during the maintenance. The previous list is not comprehensive; the list items are just reminders of some of the systems in the data room. If your system is in the data room, it will be shut off during maintenance. If you're not sure, please e-mail me [fines@macalester.edu].

Campus telephone service is not affected by this and will continue to work. The campus network and Internet service will be down.

The maintenance should take 2.5 hours to complete. The least busy times for the campus as a whole are Fridays after 5:00 PM, all day Saturday and Sundays before 12:00 noon. So we would like to schedule the work to be done during one of the below dates/times:

If one of the above dates/times specifically does NOT work for you (e.g. an event scheduled during the time which requires Internet access), please e-mail me. For scheduling reasons, I need information about such times sent to me no later than Tuesday, February 28.

We apologize for the inconvenience this causes. On the positive side, finding a potential problem in advance and scheduling maintenance is always preferable to dealing with an abrupt system failure.

A couple questions we've had before about this:

Question: What happens to e-mail bound for Macalester when everything is off?

Answer: The sender's server should automatically detect the delivery failure, and re-queue the message for a later delivery attempt. No e-mail should be lost, but it is the sender's server that is responsible for that happening correctly.

Question: When was the last time this happened?

Answer: The last time the UPS had to be shut off for maintenance was in 2004, when we had to replace all of its batteries. The next scheduled battery replacement is in 2008. Other than routine battery replacement every four years, we have never had to shut down the UPS for maintenance. [Notification-L]

02/23/06, Internet Downtime on Sunday, Feb. 26
We will be making some changes to our Internet connection on Sunday, February 26 between 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM that will result in some downtime while the work is being done. The Internet connection will probably not be down for the entire scheduled time, but there will be several intermittent outages while the work is being done.

The on-campus network will not be affected, so you will still be able to log on to e-mail, print, connect to the Admin and Academic servers, and log on to CARS. E-mail sent to off-campus addresses will be held on the e-mail server until the connection comes back up, so there will be some delay in delivery, but you will still be able to send messages. [Notification-L]

02/22/06, Two News Items
The Corporate Time server and the central print server were restarted today, 22 February 2006, at about 11:30 AM. The outage lasted about 5 minutes, and was necessary to resolve a login problem for Corporate Time Web users. For urgent outages, we sometimes need to restart a system immediately to quickly resolve a problem. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Gabe Stitzel started on Monday as a new Network Administrator. Please join me in welcoming Gabe to Macalester. You will be receiving these notification-l messages and other updates from Gabe now also. [Notification-L]

02/21/06, Quarantined Computer Explanation
We've sent out several announcements recently about registering student computers. The software package that we're using for that registration is called Campus Manager. As well as registering computers, Campus Manager also gives us the ability to put computers that are sending out viruses or causing other network problems into a quarantine network. Computers that have been quarantined can't connect to anything on the network. When the problem has been fixed, the computer is taken out of quarantine. Some time last Thursday evening [2/16], about 170 computers on campus were unintentially put into quarantine. We have been working with the Campus Manager vendor to determine what happened. While we were investigating what caused the problem on Monday afternoon [2/20], we accidentally recreated the problem, and again unintentionally quarantined a number of computers across campus. The good news is that we know what caused the problem, and we will be able to install a fix to Campus Manager to keep this from happening again. We apologize for the inconvenience. [Notification-L]

02/20/06, Brief Telephone Outage Earlier Today
Today, 20 February 2006, from approximately 1:10 PM to 1:30 PM, Macalester was unable to receive incoming calls. Outgoing calls were not affected. We contacted AT&T immediately when the issue was discovered, and the problem was fixed. If you have any questions, or still have concerns about your phone service, please notify the Telecomm office, at x6000. [Notification-L]

02/15/06, Student Computer Registration

Students -

Please take a few minutes to register your computer at www.macalester.edu/register. Beginning February 20, registration will be required to connect to the network in the residence halls, and computers that are not already registered will not be able to reach any network services or Web sites other than the registration Web page. If you live off-campus, you do not need to register your computer.

Preparing your computer for registration:

Campus Manager scans Windows computers for up-to-date antivirus software, and current Microsoft Windows security updates. Macintosh and Linux computers are not currently scanned, but they must still be registered.

If your computer runs Windows, make sure that it:

1. Has up-to-date virus protection software. Macalester College provides Symantec Antivirus free of charge to all students, staff and faculty. Download and install it from www.macalester.edu/its/software/#antivirus.

2. Has the latest Microsoft Windows Updates. Windows XP SP 2 can be downloaded and installed from www.macalester.edu/its/software/#microsoftsp.

If you have a hub or switch with multiple computers and/or other network devices connected to it, all of the devices must be registered. If any of them are not registered when required registration goes into effect, none of the connected devices will be able to reach the network. There are instructions on the registration page for registering networked gaming devices such as the XBOX or PS/2.

Registration will be required according to the following schedule:

Monday, February 20 - Turck
Wednesday, February 22 - Doty
Thursday, February 23 - Dupre
Friday, February 24 - Wallace, 30 Mac, Bigelow
Monday, February 27 - GDD, Kirk
Tuesday, February 28 - Language Houses, Stadium, Cottages, Cultural House and Grand Cambridge Apartments [Notification-L]

02/10/06, Wednesday E-mail, Thursday Internet
Wednesday's child is full of woe. So were we on Wednesday (2/8/06) when two runaway Java processes on the the e-mail server caused it to become non-responsive. Then it happened two more times that day. This is in contrast to the otherwise increased stability we have seen on the e-mail server since making some changes over winter break. Our push to move to the next revision of OCS is continuing.

Thursday's child has far to go. But he wasn't getting there on Thursday because our Internet connection was down from approximately 6:00 AM to 8:00 AM. Several infected machines on the network overloaded the Packetshaper, a device used to control how our Internet connection is utilized. The extraordinarily high traffic caused it to shut down, which shut down the Internet connection. The Campus Manager device which is now being rolled out, will allow us to respond to these and other problems more quickly.

Systems status:
http://intermapper.macalester.edu

E-mail server status:
www.macalester.edu/email/

Spam statistics:
http://www.macalester.edu/emailstats
[Notification-L]

02/10/06, A Telecomm Tip
You may have a key on your phone labeled "conference." If so, you can have a conference call with up to five other people. With one person on the line (whether you called them, or they called you), press "conference," then dial the 3rd person, then press "conference." Continue until you have all parties on the line. The conference call will stay intact as long as a Macalester extension stays on the call.

If you have any phone or voicemail questions that you'd like to see answered here, just call Telecommunications at x6566. [Bulletin, also 2/13]

02/09/06, Student Computer Registration
Several people have been getting to the registration Web page. I discovered this morning that the link in the initial message I sent [2/8] doesn't work correctly in OCS Web mail. If you've been getting an error when trying to register your computer, the URL http://rr.mgmt.macalester.edu should work.

Only computers connected to the network in the residence halls need to be registered. If you live off campus, we still recommend that you install Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Symantec Antivirus or subscribe to virus definition updates for your existing antivirus software, but you do not need to register and scan your computer. If you have a laptop that you bring to campus, please register it from on campus. [Notification-L]

02/09/06, Internet is Down
Our Internet connection went down at about 6:00 AM this morning. We are working with our ISP to solve the problem, and will post new information as we have it. [Notification-L]

02/08/06, Student Computer Registration Open
The number of viruses and other security problems on the network has increased significantly. Information Technology Services will begin a computer security scan and registration process to ensure that student computers connected to the Macalester College network have security patches and anti-virus software installed, and so that we can contact the owner of any computer causing problems on the network. Staff and faculty are not required to register their computers.

Student computer registration is now open, and only takes a few minutes. Register your computer at http://rr.mgmt.macalester.edu:8080/registration/index.html. Beginning February 20, registration will be required, and computers that are not already registered will not be able to reach any network services or Web sites other than the registration Web page.

Preparing your computer for registration:

Campus Manager scans Windows computers for up-to-date Symantec Antivirus software, and current Microsoft Windows security updates. Macintosh and Linux computers are not currently scanned.

If your computer runs Windows, make sure that it:

1. Has up-to-date virus protection software. Macalester College provides Symantec Antivirus free of charge to all students, staff and faculty. Download and install it from www.macalester.edu/its/software/#antivirus.

2. Has the latest Microsoft Windows Updates. Windows XP SP 2 can be downloaded and installed from www.macalester.edu/its/software/#microsoftsp.

If you have a hub or switch with multiple computers and/or other network devices connected to it, all of the devices must be registered. If any of them are not registered when required registration goes into effect, none of the connected devices will be able to reach the network. There are instructions on the registration page for registering networked gaming devices.

Please take the time to register your computer now. If your computer doesn't pass the security scan now, you'll still be able to get to the network while you work on installing the required updates. After required registration goes into effect, you will not be able to reach anything except the registration page and the update installers until you complete the registration process. [Notification-L]

02/03/06, Multiple Important Announcements
There are a number of important announcements in this message, relevant for all faculty, staff and students!

  1. CIT to ITS Name Change
  2. OCS Restart Today, Friday February 3 at 4:30 PM
  3. ITS Staffing Changes / Updates
  4. We Continue to Bare our Soul
  5. OCS, the Next Version?
  6. New Thunderbird is Available
  7. New Firewall / Internet Connection
1. CIT to ITS Name Change
CIT has changed its name to ITS. Yes, we are now ITS (Information Technology Services). We are in the process of updating our Web site and any other media on which 'CIT' appears. If you link to any part of our Web site, using http://www.macalester.edu/cit/ - or maybe just /cit/ - then you should update those links to http://www.macalester.edu/its/ - or /its/. Both now work, but at some point (months away, don't worry, and we'll announce it), the /cit/ ones will stop working.

Why the change? In part, it is to emphasize both to ourselves and our community that we are a service provider, as opposed to providers of technical equipment. Changing the department name to include 'Services' makes sense, with that in mind.

2. OCS Restart Today, Friday February 3 at 4:30 PM
We need to move some of the database tables which store e-mail to a different disk. The system needs to be down to do this. The system will be down for approximately two hours. If you have a critical project going at that time which requires that OCS remain up, please notify Ted Fines (x6781, or fines@macalester.edu) and we may be able to reschedule.

3. ITS Staffing Changes / Updates
We are currently reviewing applications for the Associate Vice President of ITS position, and for the PC Support Consultant position. The two replacement Network Administrator positions have been filled, and the new hires will start later this month and in early March.

4. We Continue to Bare our Soul
In our continuing effort to be more open to the community, ITS has some Web pages to share information about some of our systems:

www.macalester.edu/emailstats - This page shows the number of messages we receive every day, and the breakdown of how many are spam, virus, legitimate, etc. For instance, on a given day we receive around 150,000 e-mail messages, and of that only about 10,000 messages are legitimate. There is also an hourly graph, which may help answer the question, "Do spammers sleep?"

www.macalester.edu/email - The stoplight on this page in the upper-left corner is what you should check to see the status of the OCS system. If the light is yellow or red, there is a problem and we're working on it. A small note will be there if this is the case, with some additional information. If the light is green, then the system is up and OK. This page is manually updated by us.

intermapper.macalester.edu - This page shows the current status of about a dozen systems. It also contains information about what some of them do - we recognize that it's not obvious to everyone what each of the many acronyms means! Also, some historical data is there, so we can all see the uptime of a system over a period of time.

5. OCS, the Next Version?
We had hoped to roll out OCS 10g before the start of the spring semester. Events worked against us, so that hasn't happened. We now plan to move to OCS 10g sometime during the spring semester. I don't have a lot of detail about that to share right now, but minimizing interruption to everyone is a top priority, and more information will be shared when it is available.

6. New Thunderbird is Available
Thunderbird 1.5 for Windows and Mac OSX has been released. All users are encouraged to upgrade to it. There are a few new features, like spell-as-you-type, and many security enhancements. Upgrading is easy, really! Just go to the Mozilla Thunderbird site, and download and run the installer. All of your current settings will be preserved, and you won't have to answer any technical or configuration questions. Easy as pie!

7. New Firewall / Internet Connection
We are aware of some intermittent Internet performance problems since installation of the new firewall. The firewall seems to be related to the problem, but we're still working on that. (When the firewall was installed, a major reconfiguration of our connection was done, so the problem could lie elsewhere.) Some users have reported occasional loss of Internet access, which lasts a few seconds. Others have reported 'sluggish' performance. We do know it is a problem and since it affects all users, this is a high priority. [Notification-L]

02/03/06, Update on Changes in the Library, Media and Web Services
Previously, Computing and Information Technology (now Information Technology Services), Media Services and the Library were all under the umbrella of the "Information Services" division. Although Information Services will no longer exist as a division, this heading will continue to be the place on the campus Web site to find links to the departmental Web sites for ITS, Library and Media Services as well as Web Services. Media Services has joined the Library and Web Services. Campus Web support has resided in the Library since 1997, but is now becoming a more visible unit. The three units - Library, Media Services and Web Services, now all report through the Library to the Provost.

Web Services
In addition to forming a more distinct Web Services unit, a recent change has been to change Sara Suelflow's title. Sara's new title is Director of Web Services, effective immediately. Sara has been the campus Web coordinator for seven years and her responsibilities include site management, user support and system administration, as well as ongoing development and enhancements for the campus Web site and other Web-based services. In the past seven years, the Macalester Web site has not only expanded in terms of content and departments with Web sites, but also the number of Web-based applications and services that are maintained. These include the LESTER campus portal, e-commerce applications such as online giving and a growing number of interactive database applications. At the same time, the number of requests for assistance has increased dramatically.

To address the increasing demand in the area of Web services, we are transferring a library staff member to the Web Services unit. Leslie Mollner, electronic resources librarian, will report to Sara and provide support for faculty as well as campus offices that are seeking technical support and assistance with their Web sites. In addition to providing daily support as needed, Leslie will be working with Sara to develop an on-campus Web support group to assist academic and administrative departments with their ongoing Web page needs. Leslie's new responsibilities are effective immediately as well. In addition to Leslie Mollner, Sara will continue to work closely with Julie Hogan, College Relations, on development and design of the campus Web site.

Web Services is also supported through training and instruction provided by the Library in our computer classes. In addition to one-on-one assistance in the Imaging Annex, we provide courses and training sessions, as well as self-paced learning through ElementK. More information will be found at www.macalester.edu/infoservices/training/class_calendar.html.

If you are considering updating your Web site, or have questions about your Web pages, please contact Sara Suelflow and she will work with you to determine the type of support and assistance you need. [Bulletin]

02/03/06, Hosting an Event?
If you are hosting an event on campus that will involve outside guests, please notify Colleen Nelson, our switchboard operator, with details. Helpful information includes: what, where, when, who (contact info) and any ticket info. Please call x6000 or e-mail nelsoncm@macalester.edu. This would be a great help to her, your participants and you! [Bulletin, also 1/31]

[return to Information Services ] [CIT homepage] [Library homepage] [Media Services homepage]