SYSTEMS STAFF MONTHLY UPDATE - November 2006

Mail Disruption
The mail disruption of October 27-28 was the result of an inadvertent mistake while trying to improve the configuration of our spam filtering system. The spam system was placed into a "forward spam" mode instead of quarantine spam mode. Since we get over 2000 spams per hour it had an unpleasant effect on everyones mailbox. Our apologies.

Printers Repairs for Grad PC Room
The Publaser printers were refurbished the week of 10/23/2006. This should increase their uptime.

New fax/scanner/ color printer added to second floor faculty area
 A PC plus multifunction fax/scanner/color printer was added to the printer room (2440) in the second floor faculty office area (2400 wing). The phone number is 631-632-2303 (There's a label on the HP printer/scanner). The access code for outbound traffic will be the same as the fax in the QMS room on the first floor.

Symantec Anti-Virus upgrades
 The PC version of Symantec Anti-Virus has been upgraded to 10.1.5. The current release of Symantec Anti-Virus for OSX 10.3-10.4 is also available in the downloads area of SSO. We strongly advise everyone to upgrade their anti-virus as soon as possible and especially if you are running pre-version 10.

MS Defender
 The final release version of Microsoft Defender anti-spyware has been posted to the SSO downloads area. Users are strongly encouraged to use MS Defender in conjunction with Symantec Anti-Virus version 10.1.5 for enhanced the protection of their PCs.

Webroot SpySweeper
The department has purchased 50 licenses of SpySweeper anti-spyware for faculty PCs. We are exploring options to purchase a campus site license. Faculty should download spysweeper and refer to the faculty info pages for the license key.

MS Internet Explorer V7 available
 Internet Explorer version 7 is available on the SSO download area. IE7 claims many new security features. We have also tested viewing our department website using IE7 and have found no issues.

Web updates
 The BS/MS and graduate admissions pages have been updated. See:http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/admissions/graduate/applyTObsms.html and http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/admissions/graduate/howToApply.html, respectively

ONGOING WORK

Staff inspecting anti-virus/anti-spyware and patch status of systems.
 The staff has started inspections of the patch level and anti-virus status of PCs connected to the department networks. This is to help prevent a single infected PC from overloading the departmental network or becoming a potential liability. Such infected PCs are a common way to harvest internal email addresses, which in turn are used by spammers world-wide. Systems out of current revisions must be updated to current revisions of OS and anti-virus software revs. We will work with individual users to help them secure their workstations better.

We ask for all of you for you help in being vigilant and keeping your individual systems as secure as possible.

Department Network extended
 Fiber is being installed to add network options in the undergraduate wing of the CS building.

[FUTURE PLANS]

Patch/Anti-virus monitoring
Plans are underway to centralize monitoring of patches and anti-spyware software for all PCs connected to the CS department network. The goal is to rapidly deploy patches, anti-virus definitions and obtain the status of MS Windows systems throughout the department.

Systems to be added to NYS-Grid
 Five CEWIT systems will be added to the NYS-Grid. The initial goal of the grid is to produce 5TF of computers available to researchers in New York state.

Email address cleanup
 The Web admin will be cleaning email addresses from pages on the department Web server. Users will be requested to convert instances of email addresses from forms that crawlers can harvest for spamming to variations which cannot be easily collected. More information will be emailed in the near future.

Departmental server updates
 Our aging servers and the software they run are unable to keep up with the ever-increasing loads. For example, we currently process over 2500 spams per hour!

We are planning a major update of the main departmental servers: faster hardware and newer software. Some of the upgrades will take place over the coming winter break. First servers to be updated affect email (and anti-spam, anti-virus, etc.), and Web services. The upgrades will not just increase the capacity, but also provide new services (e.g., Web-backend application servers). The plans also include provisioning for increased redundancy and reliability (e.g., fail-over servers that can take over automatically).

REMINDERS

CEWIT
 The CEWIT reporting website is: <http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~cewit>. There are now 16 32-bit compute nodes (Dell, Xeon cpu) named compute-0-0 thru compute-0-15. There are two HP 32GB RAM 4-CPU nodes available (compute-1-0, compute-1-1). A number of additional nodes are assigned to "Planet Lab". If you are interested in projects for CEWIT or Planet Lab contact Dr. Mohr (amohr) or Dr. Ajay Gupta (ajay).

Specific requests for support (add software, problems, questions) should be submitted using WREQ.

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 dot sunysb dot edu but the Web interface is preferred. If you use this email, please send plaintext emails (without MIME attachments).

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 dot sunysb dot edu however do not send attachments or mime mail.

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