Completed
Projects
iPad
"Other" Space
Space labled as being used by "other" growing for no apparent
reason. Turns out to be a bug that showed up in iOS5. There is
currently no fix for the bug. To reclaim the space, the iPad needs
to
be reset to default settings and everything can then be reloaded
from
backup. Its time consuming, but "other" space shrinks back down to
reasonable amounts.
OS X Files with No File
Extensions
OS X files with no file extensions being treated as executable
by
default, need to figure out a way to get OS X to open them as text
files. Normally OS X handles this using meta data associated with
the
files, but Samba has been configured not to store meta data since it
caused problems for some operating systems.
I've tried everything I can think of and asked others for help.
There is no good way around this.
PDF Reader
Allan is having ongoing problems with acroread opening pdf
documents.
Sometimes it shows up as a blank page and nothing more. There are
also
often defunced acroread processes left behind. Trying alternate pdf
viewers, xpdf first. Trying alternate browser.
Using chrome instead of firefox helps quit a bit. After two weeks of
problem free computing I'm calling this done for now.
Desktops
Deploying desktops to additional people. I'm also working on
different
mounting options and getting some offices set up with new networking
in
preparation for the desktops.
Equipment
Looking into new monitor for Allan
WebDav on iPad
Looking into webdav applications on the iPad. So far I've
tested:
WebDav Nav, OverTheAir, SuperFiles, and DS file. Non of them seem to
work with our samba server. But webdav on safari works, so I don't
think the problem is on the samba server.
New Machine
with Audio
Toni is starting a new project and she needs a machine that can do
audio. I'm setting her up with a Windows 7 machine.
After using it for a while Toni decided she would rather go back to
using the thin client.
OS X Lion
Upgrade
The department may purchase a number of os x lion upgrade liceses,
if
we buy more than twenty we get them half off. I need to get in touch
with Mac users to see who is running snow leopard and if they would
like to upgrade to lion.
Abandoned: There was enough interest within the department, but
Apple Rep was non-responsive
Equipment
Purchase
Comps4
Booking Comps Server
Comps server booked for Joel
iPad: How To Delete Data
Provided instructions for Allan
Software
installation: gnuplot
Gnuplot now installed on comps servers. Requested by Siavosh
and Oles
iPad: Email
looking into alternatives and testing available apps for
Faith.
Backups
Failing
/h/90 getting full (96% full). Setup <oles> with space in work
directory.
Theory Home
Directory above 90% full
Troubleshooting backup failure. eventually tracked it down to
<a4miller>, someting in his .adobe/ foder. The foder is
automatically generated if its not already present, so removing it
was
the simplest fix.
Troubleshooting
wifi
Users complained of getting disconnected. Looked into user settings
that may be causing the problem. Core tracked it to a problem with
the
wifi server
Equipment
Purchase
Printer and MacBook
Network
Outage
The network switch connecting many of the machines on the
second
foor in SF failed. Its been replaced and connectivity has been
restored.
New Student
Robert Robere has been set up with an account, an ltsp and
given
the highlights of John's cslab comuting talk.
Postdocs
Showed Wah-Ming how Elizabeth organized in in the past and
took
over for Wah-Ming while he was on vacation.
Fourth
Floor
Networking Problem
Intermittent networking problems where users would be
disconnected for a couple of minutes and then reconnected. Problem
wasn't always noticed by users, had to be trying to load a page at
the
time of the problem for it to be noticable. Eventually tracked the
problem to a switch in the fourth floor wiring closet, which as then
replaced.
Win 7 Home
to
Win 7 Pro Upgrad
We currently
have an upgrade license, but they keys we have are for the regular
installation discs. Win 7 insists on using Windows Anytime Upgrade.
There is a resgistry hack that will allow someone with Win 7 Home to
trick it into thinking its Win 7 Pro, afterwhich upgrading from the
disc is possible.
Theory Webpage Updating
A few links didn't work properly and Vinod needed to be added
to
the list of faculty
Theory Sandbox
After talking to core and other pocs, we decided that Theory
shouls get its own subnetwork, the theory sandbox. This is where the
desktops will go.
New Mac
Mini
Setup and installed new Mac Mini. Only real problem was
getting
symantec antivirus to stop rechecking mail folders each time the
mail
app was run.
Theory
Webpage
The theory website was broken after a software upgrade.
Tracked
down
the most likelt cause of the problem and got in touch with Tassos
iPad Mail
Alternatives
Looking into iPad Mail alternatives. It looks like the only ones
available are either designed to work with Microsoft Outlook on the
home machine, or with specific email providers such as hotmail,
gmail
etc.
Latex on
iPad
Looking into applications to run latex on the iPad. So far found
MathBot, TexTouch, TeXEquations and Formula. Non of them actually
let
you typset a latex document on the iPad.
LTSP Upgrades:
All the black and gray ltsps have been upgraded with extra RAM.
New Machine
Room
The construction for the new machine room has finished and some
machines have been moved in there. There were a few downtimes,
including network downtimes, while things were switched over.
New
Monitors
Sourcing new monitors, went with two 23" dell's. UShop site was
having
problems, ended up puting things through via email and phone.
Allan's
Laptop
Laptop being slow, found problem on the disk. Backed up everything
but
the iPictures library which is probably where the problem is,
stopped
backup after 5 hours, it was estimating another 60 (and increasing)
for
the 18 GB. I can fix the disk, but it may involve data loss. Allan
bought replacement laptop.
Toni's Laptop
Its being very slow. Already tried installing new os (Windows
vista). This time I checked the hardware, (disk, ram etc) All
checked
out as ok. Set up additioanl monitoring for both ram and hard disk,
to
try to track where/if there is a bottle neck. Tweaked the os as best
I
could to speed things up and it does seem to be faster.
Mac
Tutorial
Demonstrated how to use ssh with windows forwarding to Arkadev.
Showed
him how to ssh from laptop such that it behaves as if he were using
a
his terminal in his office.
OldApps End
of
Life
Tracked down last of the oldapps users and got them migrated to the
new
apps machines.
Mail
Forwarding
Yuval messed up his .forward such that he wasn't getting any email,
now
fixed.
VPN Problem
I got several reports that people couldn't connect to cslab's VPN,
turns out server went down over the weekend.
Mail Server
Upgrade
The mail server was upgraded June 22, which resulted in some
fallout.
The most noticable being that bogofilter stopped working. Updated
Bogofilter in /p/theory/pkgs/bin to work on upgraded mail server
Bookable
Compute Server
Booked compsbk2 for Joel June 22 - July 4.
Wapps 2003
Its having problems because disk is full, many users are storing
files
on the wapps disk instead of in their home directory. This is not a
good idea, wapps disk is not backed up the way home directories are.
Contacted effected users about storing files in their home
directory,
which can be accessed on the wapps machines.
LaTeX
Editors
Looking at alternate latex editors for Mike, he isn't liking
Winefish,
Kile or Lyx.
Web Server Upgrade:
The web server is being upgraded to ubuntu 10.04 on April 19.
This
will likekly cause some user run web servers to stop working
properly.
Disc Migration: As part of the
ongoing updating sytem updates taking place, CSLab is moving to a
new
file storeage system. The move is taking place in several stages. In
stage one, discs with only one or a few users are moved at a time
when
the users don't need to access it during the day. The second stage,
for
disks with many users, the users are conntacted and arrangements are
made to move each home directory individually at a time that is
convenient for that user.
Theory Lab PC: The
Windows
machine in the Theory lab seems to have had a bug that
caused some users passwords to expire in a very short amount of time
(a
week or tow) and they would be asked to reset their password. This
is
especially strange since the machine was set up to only expire the
original password that was first mailed out to people and never to
expire subsequent passwords. This seems to
now be fixed, at least its been over a month and no one's
passwords
have expired to my knowledge.
Printers: The old
print server has been
taken down, and everyone is now using the new print server. A few
Mac
users have found they can now only print duplex or simplex and no
longer switch between then as they did in the past. I'm working on
tracking down the problem. If you are experiencing this, or any
other
printer problem that started on Monday July 14, please contact me. The problem
was
fixed with a slight modification in the print server
configuration.
SVN: This is already installed on
the apps machines, but some
users would like to collaborate with people outside the
department. I
think the best way to do this will the by setting it up on the new
web
server (colony.cs), people outside the department would then be
able to
access it via the web. I think I have this working and would like
to do
some testing with users, before announcing it to the group at
large. Documentation
on how to set this up is now available, users can set ip up for
themselves.
Simics: Requested by a student
wishing to
use the GEMS simulator. Virtutech (the company that provides
Simics)
has rather strict requirements for providing a license. I'm
currently
working on meeting all these requirements so that I can start
trying to
install it. Its been
installed on comps4.cs.
DVP.cs: CSLab
is planing on taking down DVP.cs (the last of the user
accessible old
world server). As a first step, dvp.cs has been made inaccessible to
users, unless they requested continued access for a specific reason.
Switch to new mail system:
Like many servers at CSLab, the
mail servers are being migrated from solaris to linux. If your files
need no modifications and will work on the new system you will not
hear
from me. Everyone else has been sent an email, but some people have
yet
to respond or carry out the instructions in the email. The switch
will
take place at the end of the month, May 30. This includes the people
who have yet to switch to the new version of Bogofilter. Everyone is
now
using the new mail system.
Switch to
new
web server:
The old web server (christie.cs a Solaris 8 system running on SPARC)
is
being replaced by a new web server (colony.cs with Ubuntu
Linux
6.06 running on Intel hardware). This might cause currently existing
CGIs
to work improperly or to stop working completely.
Users with running CGIs have been contacted and offered assistance
in
migrating to the new environment. The web server
has been migrated on schedule (May 12), a few glitches with CGIs
have
come up, but overall I'd say things went smoothly.
SSH timeout
problem:
A handful of people have reported ongoing problems with their ssh
sessions timing out when left idle for a short time. The problem
seems
to be independent of platform, service provider, and apps machine.
After having eliminated these possibilities I'm looking at the
account
settings and client setup of these individuals. The
solution
seems to be a combination of turning off power save options and
setting
up ssh-keepalive. Bell sympatico seems to be particularly
aggressive
about disconnecting "timedout connections", but the keepalive
option
seems to resolve this as well.
New Theory
Partition: The purchase of a new theory partition has been
approved and is being set up by core. Some users from partition
/h/152/
and /h/153 will then be moved onto the new partition. The goal is to
distribute users such that there is an equal amount of free space on
each partition. The new
partition is /h/181
GAP:
Software
for abstract algebra. Has been
installed on the comps machines.
Last Update: June 7 2013