🚀 go-pugleaf

Date:		December 1, 1999

* Please be aware that Corporate Time, the university standard
  for calendaring, is now available via open enrollment on the
  calendar web page. Please visit http://calendar.andrew.cmu.edu
  for more information, as well as a location to download the 
  software if you do not currently have a client for your MAC or
  PC. It is imperative that you use this method of calendaring as
  all important university dates are scheduled through this software.
  In addition, all conference rooms throughout the university 
  are scheduled with Corporate Time.
 
* We have completed another round of backup audits.  During this process we
  discovered several things.  First, users continue to either shutdown
  or turn off their machines at night or weekends.  This prevents us from
  backing up those machines.  This is especially important on weekends
  because we keep the backups made on Saturday longer than those made
  on week days so it is important that your machine is available
  on when those processes run.

  IF YOUR MACHINE ISN'T UP AND AVAILABLE ON THE NETWORK WE CAN'T BACK IT UP!

  The other issue that came up was additional disk drives or partitions
  that we did not know about.  Over time quite a few machines have had
  second, or third, disk drives installed, but ECE Facilites was not
  notified.  As a result these disk were not being backed up.  During
  the audit we spoke with the majority of the people using these machines.
  Please, if you add a disk to your machine, don't assume it will be
  automatically backed up, notify us.  If you need confirmation that
  a machine/disk is being backed up please send a message to gripe@ece.

* We recommend that all ECE student/staff/faculty have their e-mail
  moved to the ECE central mailer (ece.cmu.edu). There are a number
  of clients to remotely access your mail, including Eudora on
  the PCs and MACs. A number of UNIX clients are also now available,
  including Pine, tkrat and soon Microsoft Outlook.

* We have repeatedly been asked to provide a list of machines which
  we recommend for purchase. We have resisted doing this as the
  pace of change makes any such list obsolete within a few days.
  However, there are some general guidelines. In the UNIX area the
  only company we can consistently recommend is Sun. Their prices
  are excellent, as is support for this architecture and operating
  system. For PCs we recommend only equipment from DELL. We've looked
  at other vendors and none can meet the price/performance/reliability
  results we get from DELL. We do not, at this time, recommend 
  Apple purchases. The department on the whole, as well as significant
  other parts of the University, is decreasing its dependence on
  this platform, and the amount of support for this platform will
  thus also continue to decline. All of these recommendations
  are subject to change as the marketplace and department requirements
  change over time.

* ECE Facilities has now purchased a new Router (switch/router)
  which will allow the desired number of gigabit ports. Due to some
  special pricing on Cisco components for CMU, we were able to do
  this and keep our existing fully populated Router (switch/router),
  which will be migrated to Robert's Hall and begin to allow all
  the ports in that building to be connected at 10/100Mbs speeds.
  In addition, we were able to buy another Router (switch/router)
  to be used in HH D-level. This will allow all ports on that floor
  to be migrated to the higher quality Cisco 10/100 hardware.

* The above purchases will require some extensive re-cabling at the 
  top level of the ECE network. There will be an announcement soon
  regarding an extended network outage in December to allow this
  cabling to occur. The installation will be deferred until after
  finals, but could be several hours in length. We will attempt to
  keep this as short as possible. At this point we are looking
  tentatively at December 20.

* As part of the general network updating in ECE and on campus,
  ECE's IP (network) address space is being changed. Instead of
  having 9 widely separated subnet addresses, we are moving to
  16 contiguous subnet addresses. This will mean less routing
  information will have to be maintained both within and outside
  ECE. The less time packets spend being routed, the faster they
  get delivered. As such, this is good preparation for an all
  Gb (gigabit) backbone. Re-addressing the subnets has been going
  on for a few months now at a slow pace. At some point in December
  we will be changing addresses on our AFS database servers (the
  AFS file servers have already been re-addressed). This change
  will have an impact on networking within ECE. We will announce the
  actual date of this change closer to the implementation date.
  To help make this transparent we will be pushing out new AFS
  CellServDB files to UNIX and NT machines. Problems will undoubtedly
  occur during this transition, but please be patient as they are
  typically able to be fixed quite quickly.

* Please remember that on December 27, 1999 the power will be off
  in Cyert Hall from 6:00a.m. until 5:00p.m. During that time no
  campus services (including internet access) will be available.
  In addition, in ECE, our AFS cell, two of our DNS servers, and
  a large number of computer servers will be offline. The compute
  servers include all Alpha's (color and bones clusters), Elvis,
  Boole, Hardy, Belushi, Valens, etc.

The following section was lifted from a piece of e-mail to
one of our staff members. While the approach is a bit gruff,
the facts are correct:

"1. Big companies don't do business via chain letter. Bill Gates is not giving 
you $1000, and Disney is not giving you a free vacation. There is no baby 
food company issuing class-action checks. MTV will not give you backstage 
passes if you forward something to the most people. You can relax; there is 
no need to pass it on "just in case it's true". Furthermore, just because 
someone said in the message, four generations back, that "we checked it out 
and it's legit", does not actually make it true.

2. There is no kidney theft ring in New Orleans. No one is waking up in a 
bathtub full of ice, even if a friend of a friend swears it happened to their 
cousin. If you are hell-bent on believing the kidney-theft ring stories, 
please see: http://urbanlegends.tqn.com/library/weekly/aa062997.htm 
And I quote: "The 
National Kidney Foundation has repeatedly issued requests for actual victims 
of organ thieves to come forward and tell their stories. None have. That's 
"none" as in "zero". Not even your friend's cousin.

3. Neiman Marcus doesn't really sell a $200 cookie recipe. And even if they 
do, we all have it. And even if you don't, you can get a copy at: 
http://www.bl.net/forwards/cookie.html http://www.bl.net/forwards/cookie.html 
Then, if you make the recipe, decide the cookies are that awesome, feel free 
to pass the recipe on (without the fake story please).

4. If the latest NASA rocket disaster(s) DID contain plutonium that went to 
particulate over the eastern seaboard, do you REALLY think this information 
would reach the public via an AOL chain-letter?

5. There is no "Good Times" virus. In fact, you should never, ever, ever 
forward any email containing any virus warning unless you first confirm it 
through an actual site of an actual company that actually deals with viruses. 
Try: http://www.norton.com/  And even then, don't 
forward it. We don't care. And you cannot get a virus from a flashing IM or 
email, you have to download it....ya know, like, a FILE!

6. If your cc: list is regularly longer than the actual content of your 
message, you probably already have it stored in your old 8088, Franklin, or 
Adam computer.

7. If you're using Outlook, IE, or Netscape to write email, please turn off 
the "HTML encoding." Those of us on Unix shells can't read it, and don't care 
enough to save the attachment and then view it with a web browser, since 
you're probably forwarding us a copy of the Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe 
anyway.

8. If you still absolutely MUST forward that 10th-generation message from a 
friend, at least have the decency to trim the eight miles of headers showing 
everyone else who's received it over the last 6 months. It sure wouldn't hurt 
to get rid of all the " " or << that begin each line. Besides, if it has gone 
around that many times we've probably already seen it anyway.

9. Craig Shergold (or Sherwood, or Sherman, etc.) in England is not dying of 
cancer or anything else at this time and would like everyone to stop sending 
him their business cards. He apparently is also no longer a "little boy" 
either.

10. The "Make a Wish" foundation is a real organization doing fine work, but 
they have had to establish a special toll free hot line in response to the 
large number of Internet hoaxes using their good name and reputation. It is 
distracting them from the important work they do.

11. If you are one of those insufferable idiots who forwards anything that 
promises "something bad will happen if you don't", too late...you're a lost 
cause already!

12. Women really are suffering in Afghanistan, and PBS and NEA funding are 
still vulnerable to attack although not at the present time) but forwarding 
an e-mail won't help either cause in the least. If you want to help, contact 
your local legislative representative, or get in touch with Amnesty 
International or the Red Cross. As a general rule, e-mail "signatures" are 
easily faked and mean nothing to anyone with any power to do anything about 
whatever the competition is complaining about. (P. S. There is no bill 
pending before Congress that will allow long distance companies to charge you 
for long distance when using the Internet.)

13. The CEO Proctor & Gamble has NEVER been a guest on any of the TV talk 
shows to proclaim P&G's allegiance to Satan...even Sally Jesse's (see for 
yourself at: http://www.sallyjr.com/faq.html)  
All the disclaimers to this fact are posted on the various shows web 
sites. This is one of the longest running hoaxes anywhere...way before email 
was ever known by most people. (For a complete list of the info, ref: 
http://www.pg.com/rumor/)  P&G is NOT a satanic 
organization, although I'm sure Satan sure is smiling over all the prolific 
emails that says it is and probably says thanks to all the 'lost souls' who 
pass this garbage on!

Bottom Line... composing e-mail or posting something on the Net is as easy as 
writing on the walls of a public restroom. Don't automatically believe it 
until it's proven false...ASSUME it's false, unless there is proof that it's 
true. Got it? Good! Enjoy this wonderful 'tool' we have available to us and 
use it wisely, please think before clicking!"

* Following are the gripe system statistics:
  In November we processed approximately 630 gripes
             Gripe Status Report for 10/01/1999 to 10/31/1999

User              Closed Current  30-60d  60-90d   Older  (Open)       Total

afleming               2       2       1       0       0       3           5
alan                  25       6       0       0       0       6          31
allbery               84       5       0       0       0       5          89
cof                   37       9       0       0       0       9          46
dwilhelm              36       5       3       1       1      10          46
henson                59       8       1       0       0       9          68
jferro                33       1       1       0       0       2          35
jmck                 108      13       4       2       1      20         128
lou                  241       3       0       0       0       3         244
mmh                    7       0       1       0       0       1           8
rburgett              11       2       2       0       0       4          15
tardis                 8       3       2       1       0       6          14
zoog                  28      10       6       0       0      16          44

TOTAL                679      67      21       4       2      94         773

The oldest open gripe is 72.4 days old.  The median is 13 days.
The most idle gripe has been idle for 70.2 days.  The median is 9.5 days.
The oldest unacknowledged gripe is 70.4 days old.  The median is 9.9 days.

Average gripe acknowledgment time: 2.5 days (median: 0)
For gripes older than 1 day, the average is 15.5 days (median: 5.2)
Average gripe resolution time: 6.5 days (median: 0.3)
For gripes older than 1 day, the average is 19.5 days (median: 7.9)

- Virtually all the news below this point is related to UNIX 
users. Please read on, but be aware that is more technical and
may not apply to all users.

* We are now down to 2 DECstations (electra & gremlin) within the department. 
  Please remember that these will not be supported 
  after December 31, 1999.

* During the power outage on 11/3 one of the disk drives used by the
  backup system failed.  Although it took 36 hours to recover, the
  first 24 we were waiting for a replacement disk, we did 
  not lose any data, and we were not forced to back up any of the
  data contained on that drive a second time.

* During November NT and Unix machines received new backup clients.
  The current version of the client software is very machine friendly
  and, while you may still notice it running, uses a much smaller
  percentage of memory and CPU cycles.

* Installed synopsys 1999.10 and released it to /usr/local/synopsys
  on supported Solaris and AIX machines.

* Received and installed an updated abaqus license.

* Worked on resolving several issues involving Solaris 2.6 and 
  AFS 3.5.  This is ongoing while the two parties involved continue
  to blame each other.  This is an issue with the way AFS and the
  operating system are interacting at a very low level so tracking
  it down and determining the cause is a very difficult and
  tedious task.

* Installed several patches to Cadence version 97A to allow it to function
  with the version 4.43 cdsNameServer

* Downloaded and installed the latest release of CFDRC.  Please note
  that AIX 4.1.x is no longer a supported OS so only machines running
  Solaris 2.x and  AIX 4.3.2 received the update.  Machines running
  AIX 4.1.x still have the previous version.

* Replaced a failed disk controller on one of our AFS servers with no
  down-time or data loss.

* gcc version 2.95.1 has been installed on DUX 4.0, AIX 4.3, RedHat
  Linux and Solaris systems.  This release has *NOT* been made the
  default--the default gcc continues to be 2.7.2.3.  The programs in this
  release can be accessed by adding "-2.95" to the name of the default
  program.  E.g., "gcc-2.95" and "g++-2.95" are the names of the C and C++
  compilers, respectively.

* Windowmaker version 0.61.1 (command name: "wmaker") has been installed
  on DUX 4.0, AIX 4.3, RedHat Linux and Solaris systems.

* Netscape has been upgraded to version 4.71 on DUX 4.0, AIX 4.3, RedHat
  Linux and Solaris systems.  We have applied patches to make this version
  compatible with 128-bit encryption and 1024-bit client certificates, for
  the maximum security currently available for web applications.  Of
  course this version is not without its glitches, so if you prefer the
  glitches that you have already gotten used to instead of the new ones,
  you can still use older versions by setting the environment variable
  NETSCAPE_VERSION to the specific version you want to use: "4.71",
  "4.61", "4.5", "4.05", or "3.04".  (Some versions are not available on
  some systypes.  Run "ls /usr/local/lib/netscape/" to get the exact
  versions available on your machine.)

* tcsh has been upgraded to version 6.09 on DUX 4.0, AIX 4.3, RedHat
  Linux and Solaris systems.

* bash has been upgraded to version 2.03 on DUX 4.0, AIX 4.3, RedHat
  Linux and Solaris systems.

* junkbuster version 2.0.2 has been installed on DUX 4.0, AIX 4.3,
  RedHat Linux and Solaris systems.  Facilities will *NOT* be running a
  junkbuster proxy for general departmental usage.  Instead, we recommend
  that users run their own proxies in conjunction with their browser
  sessions, so that they can control their own block lists and cookie
  policies.

* Released nmh (added sun4_56)

* Released procmail

* Cyrus mail server upgraded to 1.6.19

* Linux 2.2 support:  final testing begins soon.

* The Linux printing problem should now be solved; it was a change in required
  permissions for printer spool directories.

* The Devel::ptkdb GUI Perl debugger module is now available, try
  "perl -dDevel::ptkdb script.pl"

* The RC4 and SASL libraries were released.  (needed for Cyrus client upgrade)

* KDE 1.1.2 released for Suns and Linux.  This version has Kerberos password
  support and various other local patches.
  Linux:  startx /usr/local/bin/startkde
  Solaris 24-bit: env XINITRC=/usr/local/bin/startkde openwin -dev /dev/fb \
                      defclass TrueColor defdepth 24
  Solaris 8-bit (Cadence compatible):
        env XINITRC=/usr/local/bin/startkde openwin
  (we will be providing scripts for solaris...)

--
Lou Anschuetz, lou@ece.cmu.edu
Network Manager, ECE, Carnegie Mellon University