INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES
June 2007
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Announcements from the Bulletin, Today, Notification-L
06/28/07, Network Changes Coming
This summer we are reconfiguring subnets on the campus network to
improve security and manageability. Most people will not see any changes
when this is done. The people who will be affected are those with static
IP addresses, and those who use Remote Desktop or run other remote
access services. We will be contacting people with static IP addresses
to coordinate changing the IP address to the new subnet. If you use
Remote Desktop to connect to your work computer from off campus, you
will have to connect to the VPN (Virtual Private Network) before opening
a Remote Desktop connection. The new subnets are better protected by the
firewall. Establishing a VPN connection opens an encrypted connection
through the firewall, so your connection is more secure. The VPN
software and documentation can be found at
www.macalester.edu/its/software/.
The subnet reconfiguration schedule for the summer is:
77 Mac - week of June 25
Weyerhaeuser - week of July 9
Library - week of July 16
Humanities - week of July 23
Janet Wallace - week of July 30
Olin/Rice - week of August 3
[Bulletin, also 6/14, below]
06/22/07, Admin Being Rebooted 12:30 6/22
It is necessary for us to reboot the Admin server - this is where
most administrative staff have their G: and H: drive storage.
The reboot will happen after business hours, at 12:30 PM today,
Friday June 22. We expect that the server will be down for
10 to 15 minutes and should be available again by approximately
1:00 PM. If you have any questions, please contact Gabe Stitzel at
x.6823 or Geri Olson at x.6171. [Notification-L]
06/21/07, ILLiad Login Change
On June 25 our Interlibrary Loan system, ILLiad, will begin using LDAP
authentication. This means you will be able to use your e-mail username
and password to login to ILLiad. If you already have an ILLiad account
your password will change to match your e-mail account password. If you
have an ILLiad account with a username different from your e-mail
account username, you will be unaffected by this change. However, you can
choose to create a new ILLiad account with your e-mail account username.
If you have any questions please contact Aaron Albertson, (651)
696-6530, albertson@macalester.edu. [Bulletin, also Notification-L 6/22]
06/14/07, Network Changes Coming
As part of our ongoing project to improve network security, we will be
restricting access from the residence halls and public computer labs to
Banner as of Friday, June 22. The 1600grand portal and the Banner
self-service components will continue to be accessible from anywhere on
or off campus. It is only the native Banner client, INB, that will not
be accessible. If you have any questions, please contact Geri Olson at
x6171 or Tim Friemann at x6879.
This summer we are reconfiguring subnets on the campus network to
improve security and manageability. Most people will not see any changes
when this is done. The people who will be affected are those with static
IP addresses, and those who use Remote Desktop or run other remote
access services. We will be contacting people with static IP addresses
to coordinate changing the IP address to the new subnet. If you use
Remote Desktop to connect to your work computer from off campus, you
will have to connect to the VPN (Virtual Private Network) before opening
a Remote Desktop connection. The new subnets are better protected by the
firewall. Establishing a VPN connection opens an encrypted connection
through the firewall, so your connection is more secure. The VPN
software and documentation can be found at
www.macalester.edu/its/software.
The subnet reconfiguration schedule for the summer is:
Old Main and Carnegie - week of June 11
Campus Center - week of June 18
77 Mac - week of June 25
Weyerhaeuser - week of July 9
Library - week of July 16
Humanities - week of July 23
Janet Wallace - week of July 30
Olin/Rice - week of August 3
[Bulletin]
06/14/07, New Username and Password Conventions
As part of our security improvements over the summer, Macalester's
electronic username convention will change. With the implementation of
Banner, we are restricted to using only eight (8) characters for all
usernames - we explored a number of alternatives, but none proved
feasible. The same naming convention will hold for students and
employees. The new convention is active now, as we create new accounts
for incoming staff, faculty and students. Existing Macalester accounts
will not change.
The default username is first initial followed by the first seven (7)
letters of the last name. If the last name is longer than seven
letters, it will be truncated. Examples:
David Sisk - dsisk
Bonnie Alexander - balexand
Only alphabetic characters from A-Z are recognized, so hyphens,
apostrophes or other non-alphabetic characters are dropped. Examples:
Ellen Holt-Werle - eholtwer
Maureen O'Hara - mohara
In the case of duplicates, the last character is dropped and replaced
with a numeric digit in ascending order:
Jerry Sanders - jsanders
Joseph Sanders - jsander1
John Sanders - jsander2
For duplicates where more than ten (10) users share the same
combination, the next-to-last character is dropped and replaced with a
numeric digit in ascending order:
Jeremiah Sanders - jsande15
The username is the first element of the new user's e-mail address:
Jerry Sanders - jsanders - jsanders@macalester.edu
Bonnie Alexander - balexand - balexand@macalester.edu
Default passwords for new accounts will be twelve (12) numeric
characters, six (6) randomly assigned by Banner and six assigned by time
stamp at account creation. All new passwords will be pre-expired,
meaning that you must change them immediately when you log in. (You
will have three (3) grace logins, that is, three opportunities to log
into the account without changing the default password.)
New users will be strongly encouraged to change their default passwords
to a unique "pass phrase," which is easier to remember than a single
long word. User-defined pass phrases must be at least twelve (12)
characters in length (up to 256), and must contain a mixture of numeric
and alpha characters. Pass phrases will be case-sensitive. Examples:
CallM3Ishma3l
RememberTheMai9e
5440orFight!
Wh1pInf1ationNow
D3arOldMaca1ester
Current passwords for current accounts will remain unchanged. However,
if existing account holders need to have passwords reset, the new
default format will be used. As with new accounts, the default password
will be pre-expired, but without grace logins.
What other improvements are coming? Wireless registration will
associate a computer's wireless network address with its human user's
name, so that we can contact you in the event of problems. A new
mailing-list server will make it easier for you to create and administer
mailing lists. And we'll be correcting some historic problems in our
network infrastructure, specifically how our network divides into
smaller networks, or 'subnets.' Watch this space and the ITS home page,
06/14/07, Microsoft Office 2007 Training
ITS and the Library are offering training sessions for Word, Excel and
PowerPoint. You do not need to sign up for the sessions.
1:30 PM Tuesday, June 19 (Word)
9:30 AM Wednesday, June 20 (Excel)
1:30 PM Thursday, June 21 (PowerPoint)
1:30 PM Tuesday, June 26 (Excel)
9:30 AM Wednesday, June 27 (PowerPoint)
1:30 PM Thursday, June 28 (Word)
All sessions will be 90 minutes and will be held in Humanities 302.
Scheduled sessions with Administrative departments are planned for the
weeks of July 9 and July 16 for those who cannot attend the June
sessions.
For further information, contact Bonnie Alexander at alexander@macalester.edu.
[Bulletin, also 6/21]
06/07/07, ITS Summer Improvements
ITS is working on some summer projects, and we wanted to share some
quick notes on these with you. All of our projects are aiming at the
same goal: increasing your electronic security and protecting your
privacy. More details will be forthcoming over the next few weeks -
this is an initial overview.
New Usernames. We will be rolling out a new username
convention for all new Macalester accounts. This will include all
faculty, staff and students joining our community for Fall 2007. The
naming convention comes directly from our new Banner system and is being
implemented so that we can have a campus standard that matches our new
ERP software. Existing usernames will not change.
New Passwords. Along with the new username convention we will
be implementing a new password policy. This policy takes into account
many new data standards as well as security concerns the community has
been reviewing for the last few years. Existing passwords will not be
changed or expired at this time. This new policy affects only new users
and any users that decide to change their passwords.
Speaking of security, the Networking department will also be working on
several infrastructure projects this summer. We will be requiring
registration of all computers that use our wireless network, both in the
residence halls and across campus. The registration process associates a
computer's network address with the name of its user, in the event that
we need to contact the user about problems. Also, we will be organizing
network addresses (IPs) by building and department. Once completed,
these projects will add more security to the Macalester network and make
administration much faster and easier.
And as a final announcement, ITS will be building a new mailing list
server for the campus. This new server will allow users to create and
maintain mailing lists using a much more convenient and
easy-to-administer interface.
Watch for more details and updates in the Bulletin, via
Notification-L, and on the ITS Web page (www.macalester.edu/its/). [Notification-L; also Bulletin 5/31/07]
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