Old Changes

Connection of phone equiment to new cabling system Kruislaan 403

Monday March 31st 2003, 08:00  -  Wednesday April 9th 2003, 17:00.   During one and a half week KPN will connect all phone equipment to the new network cabling system in the Kruislaan 403 building.

Users will experience a short disruption of the phone services, one phone at a time.

Monday March 31st 2003, 09:00  -  Tuesday April 1st 2003, 17:00.   An inventory of all used network connections is made for the migration to the new network cabling system.

The migration to the new cabling system takes place during the weekend of April 5 and 6.

In the latter halve of the week computers cannot be relocated (i.e. be connected to other outlets).

Thursday April 3rd 2003, 16:00  -  Thursday April 3rd 2003, 17:00.   Due to hardware problems the webmail service (https://webmail.science.uva.nl) will be inaccessible for about 1 hour on thursday the 3rd of april from 16:00 hrs to 17:00 hrs.

During this time the old server will be replaced by a brand new Supermicro SuperServer 6022L (Dual P4).

We hope this will fix the random outages of the webmail service that we have been experiencing of late.

We apologise for the inconvenience.

Friday April 4th 2003, 15:00  -  Friday April 4th 2003, 18:00.   In order to migrate to the new cabling system in Kruislaan 403 the fiber cabling connecting Kruislaan 403 to the outside world (and all the other faculty buildings) has te be relocated.

During this work all network connections are disrupted. Users in the Kruislaan 403 building can only work on local computers. Users in all other faculty buildings can not reach the central faculty servers.

Users on the even numbered side of the Kruislaan (biology, matrix-4) are encouraged to logout before 15:00 on friday.

Saturday April 5th 2003, 09:00  -  Sunday April 6th 2003, 18:00.   During the weekend all computers, workstations and servers alike, will be connected to the new network cabling system.

During the operation servers will not be available for a couple of hours. Workstations will not work for at least a day (during Saturday).

We expect to complete the migration on Saturday. In case of mishaps we may have to continue work on Sunday.

Wednesday May 14th 2003, 17:00  -  Wednesday May 14th 2003, 18:00.   Wednesday May 14th from 17:00 until 18:00 hours the Anti-SPAM system on the FNWI mailserver will be upgraded.

The upgrade will allow users to fine-tune the Anti-SPAM system using the webpage at https://webmail.science.uva.nl/filter/

During the upgrade the mailserver will remain available; only incoming mail will be delayed for an hour.

Wednesday June 18th 2003, 08:30  -  Wednesday June 18th 2003, 09:30.   The DECOS server will be moved to another location in the central computerroom to make room for other servers.

Monday June 23rd 2003, 18:00  -  Monday June 23rd 2003, 19:30.   Maintenance will take place on the MetroConnect connections on the Roeterseiland.

Users on the Roetereiland and on the following locations don't have conncection with SARA (UvA-diensten) and the internet.

Plantage Middenlaan Wibautstraat 2/3 Mauritskade

Saturday July 12th 2003, 05:00  -  Saturday July 12th 2003, 07:00.   KPN/MetroConnect maintenance.Movement of the KPN/MetroConnect Pop to SARA. No networkconnections between SARA (UvA services) and other locations will be possible.

Questions: NOC (telnr: 3366), or servicedesk (telnr: 2200) or servicedesk-ic@uva.nl

Monday September 8th 2003, 09:00  -  Wednesday October 8th 2003, 09:00.   During the introduction of the FNWI mailserver (February 2001) we promised that mail to the old bio-, chem-, frw-, astro-, beta- and wins-addresses would be forwarded to the corresponding science addresses for about a year. Because more than a year has passed, the old addresses will cease to be valid on September 8th, 2003.

If you still receive mail addressed to an old mail address you are advised to inform the senders of your correct science.uva.nl address (again). The removal of the old mail addresses will also result in less SPAM received.

Thursday September 11th 2003, 19:00  -  Friday September 12th 2003, 08:00.   Because of a serious security problem in Microsoft Windows the ICT group last night updated all PC's that were not in use.

Tonight (thursday to friday) all PC's that are being used will also be updated. Please log off before you leave tonight. Due to the seriousness of the problem PC's that are in use will also be updated.

The machines will be restarted.

This goes for Windows NT4, Windows 2000 and Windows XP systems.

Before leaving, logoff from your computer and leave the computer switched on.

Wednesday October 8th 2003, 10:00  -  Monday October 13th 2003, 00:00.   In the weekend of october 12'th new versions of maple en mathematica will be installed (MS-Windows only).

Which machines?
MS-Windows computers which are maintained by the ICT group will get the new maple9 release and the mathematica5.0 release if this software has already been installed.

People who want to get it installed on the pc please sent a e-mail to support.

Pc's for education.
These pc's will be upgraded during the Christmas period. So from the beginning of 2004 educational material have to be ported to maple9 en mathematica5.0.

The latest releases are already available for solaris and linux.

For home use of the software see: [3]http://www.science.uva.nl/ict/FAQs

Kindly regards,

Cees Bol.

Wednesday November 5th 2003, 08:00  -  Wednesday November 5th 2003, 08:45.   The server Carol will be given the capability to communicate with thenew RAID system (storage array) of the MIA project(http://www.science.uva.nl/~worring/mia/).

On Wednesday november 5th from 08:00 hrs to 08:45 hrs (at most), the server Carol will be equipped with a FCAL card (Fiber Channel ArbitratedLoop). This means that the server Carol needs to be brought down inorder for us to be able to place the card.

During the course of maintenance the following services will be unavailable:

• Access to homedirectories served by the server Carol
• Access to personal web pages served by the server Carol
• Access to Oracle databases running on the server Carol

Monday December 15th 2003, 18:00  -  Monday December 15th 2003, 23:00.   Soon the FNWI mailserver will be replaced by a much faster server. The new mailserver will be accompanied by a second server that will perform the anti-virus and anti-spam scanning. We estimate that these new servers will improve the mailserver performance by more than a factor of 10. The replacement is, by the way, in accordance with planning and after a depreciationperiod of 4 years.

The replacement of the mailserver will take place on:

mondaynight December 15th from 18:00 until 23:00.

As a user of the mailsystem you won't have to make any changes to the settings of your mailsoftware. Also, any mailboxes currently stored on the mailserver will automatically become available on the new mailserver.

During the operation the mailserver will be unavailable.

In case of problems with the new mailserver, please call: 7557. But please first check on the ICT News Page if any problems are already listed in order to prevent flooding the phonenumber.

Future maintenance operations on the mailservers will be carried out during the service window for Linux based services. For more information see the service window webpage

Project details

Currently the mailfacility is provided by two servers: the mailserver itself and the webmailserver. The webmailserver was introduced a year ago and is Linux based. The current mailserver is a Solaris based system is now being replaced with two Linux based systems. We expect this will reduce the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) by more than 50%.

The new servers were built using RedHat Linux 9 and the architecture is such that if the capacity falls short in the future, adding servers will again increase the capacity.

The new mailservers are connected to a so-called SAN (Storage Area Network) and the mailservers can claim a storage capacity eight times larger (2 terabytes) than the current capacity. Hence mailquota will be raised from 100 to 400 MB. Early next year students will also start using the new mailserver so as to reduce the number of mailservers that have to be maintained by the ICT group to just one.

The webmailserver which remains unchanged during the operation described above, will be upgraded to RedHat Linux 9 in January 2004. This will be announced separately.

Friday December 19th 2003, 08:00  -  Friday December 19th 2003, 09:00.   Fridaymorning December 19th between 08:00 and 09:00 the Informatics Insitute server "carol" will be rebooted and reconfigured to access a new raid system for the MIA project.

Saturday December 20th 2003, 00:00  -  Wednesday December 24th 2003, 23:59.   For details see UvA SAP website.

Friday January 9th 2004, 22:00  -  Saturday January 10th 2004, 00:00.   The informatiseringscentrum reports:

On fridaynight January 9th starting at 22:00 hours maintenance is planned for the UvA phone exchange. Phonetraffic to, from and within UvA and ACTA will be disrupted.

We expect that disruptions will last for at most 2 hours. This goes for all phonenumbers starting with 020-525 and 020-5188. During the maintenance period GSM phone traffic using the shorthand GRIP numbers will also be impossible.

If you experience any problems using the phone system, please send a e-mail message to servicedesk-ic@uva.nl

Please do no send phone problemreports to support@science.uva.nl.

Wednesday January 14th 2004, 17:30  -  Wednesday January 14th 2004, 18:30.   Dear colleagues,

To obtain new store space on the wtcw-server, new hardware needs to be installed.

Because of this the server will be shutdown today at 17:30 for approximately 1 hour.

Please make sure that you are logged out and do not have any aplications running at that time.

During this time it will not be possible to login to machines in the 'staff' domain. Also home directories and printing will not be available.

If you experience a problem which you think is related to this powerdown, please contact support@science.uva.nl with the subject-line: WTWC-SERVER SHUTDOWN. These messages will be given priority treatment by the support staff.

With kind regards, Ruud Veldhuis

FNWI ICT Group

Wednesday February 25th 2004, 16:00  -  Thursday February 26th 2004, 17:00.   De nieuwe versie van de DECOS archivering software bevat een aantal verbeteringen op beveiligingsgebied. Hierdoor wordt het mogelijk ook vertrouwelijke stukken met DECOS te archiveren.

Planning

Op woensdag 25 februari 's avonds wordt de client software op de pc's van decos gebruikers vervangen door de ICT groep.

Op donderdag 26 februari wordt 's morgens een complete backup gemaakt van de twee servers waarop DECOS draait. Daarna wordt één van de twee servers voorzien van Windows Server 2003 (is nu Windows 2000 Server).

Op donderdag 26 februari 's middags wordt de DECOS software op de server geinstalleerd door de firma DECOS.

Vanaf vrijdagmorgen 27 februari zijn alle archieven weer beschikbaar.

Wat moet u doen?

Om de vervanging van de software op uw pc mogelijk te maken moet u op woensdag 25 februari voor 17:30 van uw pc zijn uitgelogd, en dient u de pc aan te laten staan.

Geen archieven beschikbaar

Uiteraard zijn de archieven op donderdag 26 februari niet beschikbaar tijdens de werkzaamheden. Vanaf het moment dat op uw pc de nieuwe client-software is geinstalleerd (woensdag avond) kunt u feitelijk al geen toegang meer krijgen (op de oude server).

Ingeval van problemen

Als de software op uw pc niet door ons kon worden vervangen (omdat de pc uitstond) kunt u vanaf donderdag 26 februari geen archieven meer benaderen. In dat geval moet u een mail sturen aan support met subject "DECOS UPGRADE" zodat de upgrade van uw pc alsnog kan gebeuren.

Thursday February 26th 2004, 17:00  -  Thursday February 26th 2004, 18:00.   Today february 19'th, at 17.00 the mathematica license manager will be restarted due to the replacement of a new server. Mathematica cannot run during that time. Longrunning jobs will be interrupted. We expect this will take a very short time but maybe I will take approx. some hours.

The system- and networkmanagement.

Thursday February 26th 2004, 20:00  -  Friday February 27th 2004, 15:00.   The education fileserver "gene.science.uva.nl" will loose its function as a mailserver. This service will be taken over by the central FNWI mailserver. As a consequence students can use the same functionality as FNWI staff members:

• webmail
• anti-spam software
• anti-virus protection
• IMAP, IMAP/SSL, POP protocols
• web interface for forwarding, filtering and vacation services

What will the ICT group do?

On thursday February 26th all students who currently have an account for the education systems will be given an additional account on the central mailserver (with the same username and password).

As soon as these accounts have been created all new mail will arrive and remain on the central mailserver.

Next, the mail configuration on the education server will be changed so as to automatically send all mail to the central mailserver.

On friday February 27th all mail currently held in the inbox on the education fileserver will be transferred to the central mailserver.

Next, forwards that exist on the education server will be transferred to the mailserver if the forward is a simple forward sending mail on to one or more mailadresses. Forwards that send mail on to address such as \username or process mail through pipes will not be transferred.

What must students do themselves?

Firstly, everyone should change the name of the mailserver in the mail client software being used. Manuals for configuration of mutt, eudora, mozilla mail and pine can be found on the ICT website at http://www.science.uva.nl/ict/email/ The name of the mailserver is "mail.science.uva.nl".

Secondly, everyone should check if pre-existing forwards have been corretly transferred to the mailserver. You can do this using the web-interface for mailfiltering (forwarding is essentially filtering) at URL https://webmail.science.uva.nl/filter/ The capabilities of the filtering system are documented on http://www.science.uva.nl/ict/email/filter/

And afterwards?

On the mailserver you can configure your personal anti-spam measures. This is also incorporated in the filtering system. By selecting "Enable Anti-SPAM" and subsequently editing the anti-spam filter you can set the options.

To access your mail using a browser only, use the URL https://webmail.science.uva.nl/webmail.

The IMAP service on "gene.science.uva.nl"

For students who access their old mail using the IMAP service on gene we will retain the IMAP service on gene until April 1st. New mail will only be accessible at "mail.science.uva.nl".

No filesystem access on the mailserver

In contrast with the education fileserver "gene.science.uva.nl" the mailserver does not provide filesystem access to mailboxes. Mail can only be accessed using the IMAP protocol, or be sent through the SMTP protocol. Old unix mailtools such as /bin/mail and /bin/mailx cannot be used anymore once the migration is completed.

Monday March 8th 2004, 00:00  -  Friday March 12th 2004, 23:59.   

The FNWI fileserver "flux" will be phased out. Users of "flux", mainly members of WZI, have been informed by e-mail about this project.

Wednesday evening March 10 all computers using "flux" should be logged off.

On the morning of Thursday March 11 the data of the users will be transferred from the old fileserver (flux) to the new file-server (rec-server). Starting Thursday afternoon March 11 and continuing on Friday March 12 the configuration of the FNWI maintained computers will be adapted.

The progress of this project will be reported on the News page of the ICT website http://www.science.uva.nl/ict/news/index_en.html

Monday April 5th 2004, 18:00  -  Monday April 5th 2004, 20:00.   During the regularly slotted maintenance service-window of monday April 5th, starting at 18:00 hrs, there will be some extensive maintenance to the server-infrastructure of the FNWI.

In the course of this maintenance it is possible that there will be longer or shorter outages of e-mail and file services.

Ofcourse the FNWI ICT-Group will do its best to minimise any inconvenience to the best of its abilities. It is expected that work will be finished before the end of the maintenance window at 20:00 hrs.

Monday June 21st 2004, 12:00  -  Tuesday June 29th 2004, 18:00.   L.S.

Update message concerning the movement to the Valckenierstraat.

Notebooks Users with a notebook have to make a service call by an email to support@science.uva.nl to get a new network connection for their notebook. For some notebooks minor changes have to be made.

Public_html Homepages will automatically be linked to the correct place when soliton is out of order. But it is still important to change references from soliton to the correct place in your html pages. Please change references from: soliton.wins.uva.nl, soliton.science.uva.nl, flux.wins.uva.nl, turing.wins.uva.nl to www.science.uva.nl Your homepage can be found via: http://www.science.uva.nl/~loginname

Profiles Pc users and users with more accounts on different filservers will probably loos their profile. Things can be repaired manually.

Monday June 21st 2004, 17:30  -  Monday June 21st 2004, 20:00.   Dear colleagues,

Monday June 21th, starting at 17:30 hrs, there will be some maintenance to the server-infrastructure of the FNWI. This because of the movement of the ITF insitute to the Valckenierstraat building.

In the course of this maintenance it is possible that there will be longer or shorter outages of file services. Sevices for soliton users will interrupted for sure.

Please logoff before we start to prevent data loss.

Of course the FNWI ICT-Group will do its best to minimise any inconvenience to the best of its abilities. It is expected that work will be finished before the end of the maintenance window at 20:00 hrs.

With kind regards,

Cees Bol.

FNWI ICT Group

Thursday June 24th 2004, 12:00  -  Friday June 25th 2004, 18:00.   L.S.

A messagage from the ICT group to inform you about the movement to the Valckenierstraat.

The ICT group has planned the movement as follows.

monday 21'st - user data from soliton will be moved to a server in the WCW. No fileservices for a couple of hours. Normal use in the evening. Start: 17.30 Users: please logoff before 17.30 (absolute neccesary, don't switch off machines).

thursday 24'th - from 12.15 linux and solaris workstations have to be configured for the movement. From that time machines are nog available anymore. Users: logoff before 12.15 (absolute neccesary, please don't switch off machines) ICT group: configuration and powerdown of the systems.

friday 25'th - at 12.00 soliton will brought down. Pc's of the itf cannot be used from that time. - from 12.15 the itf ipnet will be moved by the IC. - newly installed linux machines are placed in the new rooms in the J/K building.

monday 28'th and tuesday 29'th - ict group will install the machines in the new rooms.

Pleas note, you can always read your mail by webmail.science.uva.nl at any place, anywhere.

Saturday July 17th 2004, 00:00  -  Monday July 19th 2004, 00:00.   During the regular update for Windows computers during the weekend there will be a major update of the Webbrowsers.

Recently Microsoft Internet Explorer has reached the news because of a number of security issues that have not yet been resolved by Microsoft, although the problems themselves are not new.

In a recent advisory from the US-CERT (Computer emergency response team) US-CERT advises to switch to the Mozilla browser and remove Internet Explorer altogether. The FNWI ICT group won't go that far. Instead we strongly advise everyone to switch to Mozilla and not to use Internet Explorer.

In the coming weekend (17 and 18/7) the following updates will be applied:

1. Netscape Communicator will be removed as this browser is not being developed anymore.

2. Mozilla will be upgraded to version 1.7.1

3. Moziila will be made the default browser on all Windows systems.

Users of the old Netscape browser can switch without problems to the Mozilla browser. Even the look of the Mozilla browser can be configured to look similar if you perform the following steps:

start mozilla menu: Edit -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Themes choose: Classic or Modern Confirm the dialogs with "OK" and restart mozilla.

Thursday July 22nd 2004, 17:45  -  Thursday August 26th 2004, 17:45.   After years of service, at the end of the academic year, time has come to upgrade education server to a more powerful system.

To be able to connect the new server to the FNWI SAN (Storage Area Network), it will be located at the faculty serverroom at the Kruislaan 403.

Ofcourse the upgrade will result in many improvements. The machine will be more powerful, the operatingsystem will be more modern and the connection to the FNWI SAN will provide more flexiblility in alloting storage space. To create a more clear situation, the new education server will be set up in a similar manner as the staff server. This has the following consequences:

- students who want to access FNWI EDU-machines from an outside network, 
  will do so through an intermediary connection with the machine
  sremote.science.uva.nl
- Student webpages will be served from the machine 
  student.science.uva.nl
- The student quota will be enlarged from 87MB to 200MB

Unfortunately it will no longer be possible to support the Appletalk protocol in the new situation. Gladly, the new Apple operatingsystem has sufficient possibilities to use the same services even without using this protocol.

Plans and actions FNWI ICT-Group

As you may understand, this involves a complicated operation that will span several days. In order to prevent inconveniencies as much as possible, we have chosen to execute the migration over a weekend. However, it can't be prevented that during possibly two days it will not be possible to access the educational cluster.

The ICT-Group has planned the migration from thursday, july 22nd 2004 to monday, july 26th 2004. De planning is as follows:

thursday, july 22nd: .In the evening, preparations
friday, july 23rd  : .The current education server gene will be shut
                      down.
                     .The new server will be set-up and user-data
                      will be migrated.
                     .Client systems will be adapted and surely cannot
                      be used.
saturday, july 24th
sunday, july 25th  : .Possibly the new education server is operational
                      and you can access your data through via 
                      sremote.science.uva.nl.
                     .Client systems will be adapted.
monday, july 26th  : .Reserved for unforeseen issues.
                     .Possibly the new education server is operational
                      and you can access your data through via 
                      sremote.science.uva.nl.
                     .Possibly you can use client systems in a normal
                      manner.
tuesday, july 27th : .All systems work as intended. 

If you are using an EDU-computer system on thursday, july 22nd 2004, we kindly request that you log out of the system before 17:45 hrs.

In case you feel that you want to contact the FNWI ICT-Group regarding the migration, please contact us through email to support@science.uva.nl with subject [GENE Migration]. These emails will be given priority treatment.

Monday August 9th 2004, 18:00  -  Tuesday August 10th 2004, 12:00.   Due to Raid problems the Mailserver and the Staff Fileservers are down.

Tomorrow morning 10 Aug there will be maintenance on them.

Regards, Systems Manangement

Sunday August 22nd 2004, 20:00  -  Monday August 23rd 2004, 07:00.   This sunday, august 22nd, Service Pack 2 will be installed on all FNWI maintained Windows XP machines. This patch has been marked as "critical" by Microsoft.

To prevent users being logged in during this update all Windows XP machines will be rebooted, starting sunday at 20.00 hours. On friday, before leaving the office, save all your work, log off and turn off the monitor. Do not shut down the system!

Users with a FNWI maintained laptop running Windows XP can have the ICT group update the system by sending a request to support@science.uva.nl.

The most important changes after installing Service Pack 2:

The Service Pack fixes lots of known bugs and network security leaks and adds some new versions of integrated Microsoft applications like "Internet Explorer", "Outlook Express", "Windows Media Player", "Windows Movie Maker". Most of the network security fixes are already installed on FNWI maintained systems.

Service Pack 2 adds new firewall software which by default blocks all incoming traffic, thereby making the system less vulnerable to hackers, worms and viruses. For all standard FNWI applications to work properly the ICT group installs the firewall software with a relaxed set of rules. Please note that software written by yourself may require further relaxation of the firewall rules.

Older versions of Nero Burning Rom do not work properly with Service Pack 2 and will therefor be replaced with the latest version.

Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 page with links to detailed informations about this update: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/winxpsp2.mspx

Thursday September 16th 2004, 19:30  -  Friday September 17th 2004, 09:00.   Due to stability problems with the (RAID) storage equipment that houses the homedirectories of the (former Soliton) ITF users, it is necessary that we move these directories to a different storage unit.

To prevent dataloss the ICT-Group wants to do this as soon as possible, without causing too much hindrance.

This is why it has been chosen to perform the migration tonight thursday september 16th 2004.

What does it mean?

We kindly request the users involved to log out of their computer before they leave work this evening (or at the latest before 19:30 hrs)

During the evening the migration will take place and it will not be possible for then to use their homedirectory on the WTCW-server/ITF directory.

Tomorrow morning they should be able to log-in normally.

We hope that we can perform this operation without causing inconvenience, we thank you for understanding,

With kind regards,

Jeroen Roodhart
FNWI ICT Group

Wednesday September 22nd 2004, 00:00  -  Monday November 1st 2004, 00:00.   

On 22nd of September 2004 the Science faculty introduces simplified access to computer systems and services using a single password for each user. In the past you could have had different passwords for different services, e.g. for windows login, e-mail or unix access. Starting from September 22nd all services can be accessed using a single password.

IMPORTANT: What you have to do yourself

You will have to set a new password once (as soon as possible), using the webpage at:

https://www.science.uva.nl/ict/password/

Here you enter your FNWI username and your old password (your e-mail, windows logon or unix password). See below for an explanation. Note: the FNWI username is not the same as your UvAnetID.

You must set a new password before November 1st 2004. If you don't, your account will be inaccessible from November 1st.

The reason you have to set your password once is because the ICT Group does not know your current password (it is stored encrypted). Hence it is impossible for the ICT Group to preset the password for you.

You may use your existing password as your new password if the old password is sufficiently secure. A secure (strong) password consists of a mix of upper case and lower case characters, digits and punctuation marks. The sign-on webpage checks this and makes sure that your password does not contain words from a dictionary.

Extra information for users of Linux, Solaris and other unices

Unix users will also have a single login-shell starting September 22nd. We have tried to deduct which shell you prefer, but may have guessed wrong. If we set the wrong login-shell for you, you may change the login-shell at

https://www.science.uva.nl/ict/password/

Old password changing mechanisms

From September 22nd the old password changing mechanisms will be disabled:

• The 'Change password' button in the Windows logon screen
• Old FNWI change password web pages
• The passwd en yppasswd utilities on Linux, Solaris and other unices.

Wednesday September 22nd 2004, 00:00  -  Monday October 4th 2004, 00:00.   

During the coming two weekends (25/26 september and 1/2 october) networkcabling in the network hub in Anna's Hoeve building I will be disconnected and reconnected to a new hub. The new hub is located some 10 meters from the old one, and actually not in the AH1 D-wing which will be demolished shortly.

Building AH4 is connected to building AH1 by fibre cable. So it is possible that some networkdisruptions occur during the weekends.

If you experience network problems on any of the mondays following the operation, please report the problems to phonenumber 7634. Before calling, take a note of the number on the network wallssocket to which your computer is connected. This makes tracking down the problem easier.

Monday September 27th 2004, 16:00  -  Monday November 1st 2004, 00:00.   In a previous message the ICT group requested that you re-register your username and password at https://www.science.uva.nl/password/.

When you direct your browser there and fill in the required fields, your webbrowser may present a dialog-window we did not mention. The dialog-window that pops up only appears if your have allowed your browser to remember passwords for you in the past. In that case select "imap://username@mail.science.uva.nl" and click OK. Doing so ensures that the browser will know your changed password as well.

Monday November 8th 2004, 00:00  -  Friday November 12th 2004, 23:59.   

The home-directories of the users on the FNWI/II fileserver "carol" will be moved to the general FNWI fileserver "wtcw-server".

Monday evening November 8 all computers using "carol" should be logged off before 17:30 to allow for the first stage of the migration lasting till tuesday morning 08:00

Wednesday evening November 10 all computers using "carol" (CSYS domain) should be logged off again before 17:30 to allow for the final stage of the migration.

Thursday November 11 and friday November 12 the configuration of the FNWI maintained computers will be adapted by ICT personel.
After this reconfiguration the computers will login to the STAFF domain and will be available again.

The progress of this migration-project will be reported on the News page of the ICT website http://www.science.uva.nl/ict/news/index_en.html

Friday November 19th 2004, 17:00  -  Tuesday November 23rd 2004, 15:00.   As a result of the breakdown of the airconditioner in the computerroom in the Euclid building (Plantage Muidergracht 24) where the REC server is located we are forced to take a number of emergency measures in quick succession.

Since the ambient temperature in the REC computerroom is too high we deem it unresponsible to keep the REC server running in that room.

All functions of the REC server will be taken over by the WTCW server. Firstly, we will replace the WTCW server with a server that has a 10 times higher capacity.

The scenario is as follows:

1. On friday 19 November starting 17:00 the WTCW server will be replaced.

2. On monday 22 November starting 17:00 all userdata on the REC server will be migrated to the WTCW server.

3. On tuesday 23 November starting 08:00 am(!) all Linux, Solaris and Windows systems connected to the REC server will be reconnected to the WTCW server.

4. On thursday 25 November the REC server will be decommisioned.

Since we have to follow this emergency scenario service disruptions cannot be avoided. The implications are listed below.

Friday 19 november from 17:00

All users both on the WTCW and on the REC campus MUST be logged off *1)

Monday 22 november from 17:00

All users on the REC campus must be logged off. *1) All computers on the REC campus must remain TURNED ON *2)

Tuesday 23 november from 08:00

All Linux computers will be connected to the WTCW server before 11:00. This requires a reboot.

All Solaris computers will be connected to the WTCW server before 11:00. This requires a reboot.

All Windows computers will be connected to the WTCW server before 15:00. This requires a reboot. Reconnecting a Windows system may result in problems with the userprofile/settings, although this has not occurred in tests. Contact the servicedesk at number 6622 if you lost settings after the migration.

Note *1) otherwise you risk losing data from running applications and under Windows you risk corrupting your profile/settings.
Note *2) otherwise you will experience additional delays on tuesday 23/11 because the ICT group cannot reconfigure your computer over the network.

Duration

The duration of the operations on friday and monday are determined by the two times 500 Gigabyte userdata that must be transferred.

The duration of the operations on tuesday is determined by the manual domain migration of 488 windows systems. This operation is performed by 10 ICT staffmembers.

Specific usergroups

ITFA

Except for fridaynight (downtime WTCW server) ITFA is not affected any further by the operations since ITFA is already using the WTCW server.

Selfadministered computers

Users of selfadministered computers must reconfigure their computers themselves. All shares and directories currently available on the REC server will be available on the WTCW server from tuesday 23/11 under the same name.

Student systems

Student system are not affected at all by the operation.

Staff on WTCW campus

Will onlt be affected by the downtime of the WTCW server on friday night.

Thursday February 10th 2005, 09:00  -  Friday June 10th 2005, 09:00.   Our (earlier) FNWI CA certificate expired in february 2005. You can get the renewed FNWI CA Certificate here.

FNWI certificates are signed by the FNWI Certification Authority. Sometimes you may need it's the public key as well as the public key of the FNWI service certificate to make use of certain secure services. You then should add this public key to your (OpenSSL?) CA-certificate store [and probably run c_rehash afterwards].

Thursday February 24th 2005, 15:30  -  Monday February 28th 2005, 18:00.   This weekend (27-02-2005) the webbrowser "Mozilla Firefox" and the mailcient "Mozilla Thunderbird" will be installed next to the current Mozilla 1.7 on ICT managed systems.

Because of the extra functionality for the browser as well as the mailclient and because we expect Firefox and Thunderbird to develop with higher priority then the current Mozilla, we advise you to use both Firefox and Thunderbird.

Firefox and will inherit some settings from the current Mozilla. So local mail, bookmarks and other settings will deviate over time between the old and the new packages. The use of IMAP mail makes no difference.

In principal the new packages and the old Mozilla 1.7 and can both be used intermixed but use different profiles. Mozilla 1.7 uses n:\netscape6 Firefox and Thunderbird use n:\mozilla

Custom installed Firefox/Thunderbird installations will also use the new profiles stored in n:\mozilla Old settings will not be inherited.

Both Firefox and Thunderbird will become the default browser and mail client for Windows systems.

------------

Firefox details:

During the login process the bookmarks.html file will be copied once from n:\netscape6 to the Firefox profile directory. The default settings will be generated once. Homepage: www.science.uva.nl During the installation, plugins will be inherited once from the current Mozilla.

Thunderbird details:

During the login process some files will be copied once from n:\netscape6 to the Thunderbird profile directory. - abook.mab (personal address book) - history.mab (collected address book) - training.dat (junk settings) - localstore.rdf (view settings) - compreg.dat (spell control) The locally stored mail will NOT automatically be imported from n:\netscape6. The user can do this manually by copying the folder "n:\netscape6\mail" to the folder "n:\mozilla\thunderbird\" The Default settings will be generated once. Sent mail will by default be stored in the folder "Sent Items". Personal settings and signatures will not be inherited from the current Mozilla.

Wednesday May 4th 2005, 22:30  -  Sunday June 5th 2005, 22:30.   As of now the faculty MySQL server has been upgraded to use MySQL 4.1.11 (with preparations for openssl support).

This should be an inconspicuous change but for the following aspects:

• Functions that return a DATE, DATETIME or TIME result is now fixed up when returned to the client.

  mysql> SELECT cast("2001-1-1" as DATE)
      -> '2001-01-01'
  

• TIMESTAMP is now returned as string with the format 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:DD'. If you want to have this as a number you should add +0 to the timestamp column. Different timestamp lengths are not supported. See section 2.5.1.1 Preparing to Upgrade From Version 4.0 to 4.1.
• Binary items (0xFFDF) are now assumed to be strings instead of numbers. See section 2.5.1.1 Preparing to Upgrade From Version 4.0 to 4.1.

For more information please see ftp.mysql.com/doc/en/Upgrading-from-4.0.html

The FNWI ICT Group (ad interim)

Wednesday December 14th 2005, 12:00  -  Thursday December 15th 2005, 00:00.   On wednesday december 14th central systems for decos, planon, menukaart, Officenet-Gateway and ABN-AMRO will not be available from 12:00 hours.

During afteroffice hours on the same day other central systems (a.o. for digitale bibliotheek, sap, citrix, smaa) will be serviced.

Tuesday April 11th 2006, 17:00  -  Sunday April 23rd 2006, 23:59.   

As of April 12 2006 Crossover version 2.0.1 (Windows2000 en Office2000) will be replaced by 3.0.1 (WindowsXP en Office 2002 SP3).

Before using the new version any old crossover-settings need to be removed:
Rename or remove the old ~/.cxoffice directory.
As a result the Office-settings will be lost!

Office-documents that are saved on the "Y: (Home)" drive will remain available, but documents on "C:" will no longer be available !

The passphrase needed to access the software will remain unchanged.

In order to keep using the old version, the "cxclient" entry in ~/.pkgrc needs to be replaced by "cxclient210".

N.B. The new version 3.0.1 also contains InternetExplorer6 (iexplore) which can be used to access PNIA-zelfbediening ( https://zelfbediening.uva.nl/irj/portal )

Thursday October 23rd 2008, 19:00  -  Saturday October 25th 2008, 09:00.   

Today Microsoft issued a securitybulletin that talks of a highly critical vulnerability in several Microsoft systems.

The exact nature of the vulnerability isn't precisely clear at this point in time. However CERT-UvA has directed to deploy the update as soon as possible.

This means that, as far as technically possible, all IC-managed Microsoft systems have been updated and consequently received a reboot.

This action is taken to ensure safety and integrity of the university networks and your workspace.

We apologise for possible inconvenience, but trust to have your understanding.

With kind regards,

Jeroen Roodhart
CERT-UvA
--
CERT-UvA is the Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT) of the Universiteit van Amsterdam. CERT-UvA is dealing with all cases of computer security incidents in which an UvA Employee, student or computer is involved as a victim, intermediate or a suspect. (http://www.ic.uva.nl/cert/)

Thursday July 30th 2009, 18:00  -  Friday July 31st 2009, 16:00.   

Change 13604

Dear colleagues and students,

From thursday july 30th, starting at 18:00 hrs until friday july 31st 16:00 hrs there will be maintenance to the student fileserver-infrastructure of the FNWI.

In the course of this maintenance you will not be able to access machines in the FNWI educational cluster. Please logoff any studentcluster machines before we start in order to prevent data loss.

Of course the Informatiseringscentrum will do its best to minimise any inconvenience to the best of its abilities.

See also http://www.ic.uva.nl/actueel/onderhoud.cfm/switch=3

With kind regards,

Jeroen Roodhart
Informatiseringscentrum, TS/ATG

Monday June 21st 2010, 20:00  -  Monday June 21st 2010, 22:00.   During the regularly slotted maintenance service-window of monday June 21st, starting at 20:00 hrs, there will be some maintenance to the FNWI student fileserver "Gene".

In the course of this maintenance it is possible that there will be longer or shorter outages of file services to student clientmachines. Also it may not be possible to access student files through the remote access host "sremote".

Of course the Informatiseringscentrum will do its best to minimise any inconvenience. It is expected that work will be finished before the end of the maintenance window at 22:00 hrs.

See also: http://www.ic.uva.nl/actueel/onderhoud.cfm/453CC8B7-BC26-4097-84354E257C159509

For ICT news take a look at the News page.