SYSTEMS STAFF MONTHLY UPDATE - MARCH 2008

1. New Software packages installed in Translab this semester:

- Maya 8.5 with 50 users licenses.
- Visual Studio 2008 Professional edition.
- All security Updates, Windows Defender, etc.

2. Visualization Course CSE564

Two workstations have been reserved for this course in the Graduate Windows
Lab (#5 and #12). Student login information has been emailed. If you have
any questions, please send email to wreq@cs.sunysb.edu. We plan to install
new Nvidia Video cards to facilitate this course and additional workstations
will be added.

3. Security Alerts

- Adobe Acrobat (Reader or Professional) should be upgraded to v8.1.2
because of recent critical security issues with prior versions.

- Microsoft released critical security patches in February. Please ensure
your computer is upto date using either Microsoft Update or Windows
Update.

- Apple released security updates for Mac OS X 10.5.2. Please refer to
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307430 for further
information.

4. Faculty Software Upgrades

Adobe Acrobat Professional v8 and Office 2007 upgrades are available for
Faculty (Office workstations and laptops only). If you are part of the
Faculty backup system, this software will be automatically deployed this
month (a separate announcement will be sent out regarding this). If you are
not part of the faculty backup system, please send email to
wreq AT cs DOT sunysb DOT edu to schedule the upgrade.

5. Faculty backup system

A reminder that we have a department wide backup system for faculty desktops
and laptops. In order to be included in the backup system your desktop or
laptop must be a part of the secured backup domain. Being a part of this
domain, also gives you access to various software and updates. For example,
Microsoft Office Upgrades and patches, Windows security patches, Diskeeper
Professional (Defrag Software), Symantec Antivirus client updates, etc.
Please send mail to wreq if you are not currently participating in the
faculty backup system and would like to.

6. Faculty aliases

There is a new mailing list called <allfaculty AT cs DOT sunysb DOT edu> which includes
all faculty: current faculty, affiliated faculty, and emeritus faculty.
Please use <allfaculty AT cs DOT sunysb DOT edu> to reach this expanded list. You can
reach the affiliated faculty only using <afaculty AT cs DOT sunysb DOT edu>, and the
emeritus faculty using <emeritus AT cs DOT sunysb DOT edu>. However, for announcements
of general interest to the entire department (e.g., talks), please use
<all AT cs DOT sunysb DOT edu> as that reaches all graduate students, visitors, and
staff, as well as all faculty.

7. Network problem resolved

An HP Procurve ethernet switch had partially failed causing congestion on
the main department networks. Faculty Unix systems, DNS, fileservers, and
the compservs were affected, among others. There may be minor disruptions
while the network wiring in the machine room are cleaned up.

8. Web updates

A number of updates were made to the official department web pages: Fix
broken links in Admissions area, a Careers page and Scholarship Programs
page were added to the undergraduate and graduate areas, new associated
faculty were added to the faculty area, the DSL (Distinguished Lecture
Series) page has an introduction explaining the purpose of the series,
undergraduate requirements information, and Honors program pages were
updated. An ABET committee site has been created in the faculty area and
committee minutes posted.

The Stony Brook Modeling week conference pages (SPM08/SMI08) have had major
revisions made as deadines approach and agenda firm up.

9. Downloads area updated

Acroread 8.1.2 for WinXP, Vista and Mac OSX 10.4.4-10.5.1 will be available
on 03/06/2008 from the Downloads area of SSO.

ONGOING WORK

1. Faculty Printing facility

We are currently working on enabling Faculty office workstations and laptops
(part of the Faculty backup system) to be able to print directly and
securely to department printers. A separate notification will be sent to
faculty once the new system is in place.

2. Translab:

We are installing Class Monitoring software. Also we are working on getting
a newer version of the "Vision" working.

3. CEWIT

In the process of setting up a monitoring system called 'Nagios' for the
Rocks Cluster Frontend. Nagios is capable of sending email alerts and
monitoring Windows/Linux machines at various hardware and service levels.

4. Backup server

A new backup server is being setup to address backup needs including
research labs and CEWIT. We hope it becomes available during the Spring
2008 term.

5. Wireless

The staff is working to complete the upgrade of the current 802.11b network
to 802.11n for the whole production wireless network. Dead spots on the
second floor faculty office area have been eliminated. A number of dead-
spots in the first floor faculty office area are now being corrected.

6. User Provisioning and integrated file services

We are working on a project to integrate all the user logins and file
services in the department. The same login will work on UNIX, Windows and
other infrastructure services provided by the department. Also, the file
servers will be accessible from various systems.

7. New mail/dns/anti-spam servers.

We are continuing to setup and install a new set of Linux-based servers to
replace the aging Solaris servers. They are expected to be deployed during
the Spring 2008 term.

8. Production Grad DB Oracle database server

The staff and several faculty are installing a database server to help in
recording and tracking progress of graduate students.

FUTURE PLANS

1. Dynamic provisioning of CEWIT systems

The staff is working on mechanisms to dynamically allocate portions of the
CEWIT cluster. We're exploring some new software from CA.

2. Imap coming to town

The staff is working on installation of Dovecot Imap server due to numerous
request from faculty for Imap support.

3. Unified LDAP-based login

We have begun investigating the use of LDAP servers in our department. This
would help to consolidate the many user-ID domains we have into one;
currently there are different user-ID domains being managed on the Unix
systems, undergrad and grad teaching labs, database servers, and more. With
LDAP, we hope to be able to manage all user IDs more efficiently and
centrally.

REMINDERS

1. Staff hot-line

2-2772 (CSSB). It will ring all staff office phones and has voicemail.
Business hours are 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon-Fri except State and Federal holidays.

2. CEWIT

The CEWIT reporting website is: <http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~cewit>. There
are 110 compute nodes (Dell, Xeon cpu). There are two HP 32GB RAM 4-CPU
nodes available (compute-1-0, compute-1-1). There are 46 storage nodes
online with 50TB of scratch space via PVFS. A number of additional nodes
are assigned to "Planet Lab". If you are interested in projects for CEWIT,
Planet Lab or have specific requests for support (add software, problems,
questions) please use WREQ to send the request.

3. WREQ Problem Reporting Tool

Work requests and problem reports must be submitted to WREQ and not to
ntadmin/root or individual staff members. This helps us track the progress
of work requests better. We suggest using the Web interface to submit wreq
requests at the URL: <http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~wreq>. You can also email
wreq at cs.sunysb.edu but the Web interface is preferred. If you send
email, please send plain text (without MIME attachments) and send from your
CS department account.

4. SECWREQ Problem Reporting Tool

You are encouraged to use SECWREQ for requests such as requisitions, course
room changes, office supplies, grade changes, room reservations, payroll
issues, tuition issues, reimbursements and building management issues
(heat/cooling/ lights/leaking roof). The SECWREQ tool is located at:
<http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~secwreq>. You can send mail to secwreq at
cs.sunysb.edu; please do not send MIME mail or attachments there. Send
email from your CS department account.

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