Minutes Waterloo Polaris Advisory Group March 15, 2000

Attendees:

Terry Stewart Applied Health Science (AHS) Tim Farrell Information System and Technology
Daniel Delattre AHS Ray White IST
Nevil Bromley Arts Bruce Campbell Engineering Computing
Marko Dumancic ES Erick Engelke Engineering Computing
Jim Johnston Mathematics Hon Tam Engineering Computing
Scott Nicoll Science  

Submitted items:

Q: (Nevil) Add HTML Help system so I (we) can use the help files that come with all modern programmes. HTML Help files have the extension .CHM i.e. MediaPlayer_sdk.chm.
A: (Ray) I assume it will be installed as part of IE, once I announce the availability of IE as a test install someone who needs this feature should test it.

Q: (Nevil) We need a simple way to rebuild the user's N: drive. Does anyone have one, or is there any way that the student/user can do it themselves.
A: We know Stephen Carr has a procedure that currently works, contact him for details. The simple way of resetting via a web form is still needed.

Q: (Nevil) What is the reason for converting ALL file names on the AppFiler to lower case?
A: Possibly Samba is misconfigured on Engshare.

Q: (Nevil) When will Waterloo Polaris save the desktop settings?
A: If you are talking about icon locations then we don't know the reason and therefore we have no solution currently. If there are any other settings not being saved please tell us.

Q: (Jim) Adding user authentication to problem report page.
A: Can be done with a Radius server if really needed. Currently Nevil has a perl script to look through the logs to get a partial answer. A proposed solution is to put in a required userid field.

Q: (Daniel) 'My briefcase' problem.
A: (Ray) Since it appears that no one is using the feature we can delete it off the desktop and this will get scheduled into a sysctl.

Q: (Bruce) We discussed dept mad disk to appfiler transition, but haven't set a deadline yet. I'd like to propose: Sept 1, 2000 - deadline for conversion of dept k: disk to appfiler.
A: Arts and Science have started. AHS and Math have not started. There is still a problem with NetApp password share problems.

Q: (Bruce) Bulk NetApp account moves. was delayed. I'm almost finished the system now, and I am going to start moving Engineering
     accounts this week. I will later need /home on ahsfile, scifile, and artsfile exported to "engine.uwaterloo.ca" as well as an account
     named "bruce95" created on the above netapps, in order to do the account moves. Alternatives:
     - faculties can wait until May, and use attrition, and renaming existing accounts to $acctname
     - faculties can do the bulk moves themselves, using the system I am developing
A: Bruce will get started soon in Science. Extend my account no longer necessary in Scratch logon.

Q: July 1, 2000 - deadline for netapp account hosting of accounts. ie. after that, all accounts used for normal login under 95 (ie. not installs, daemons, etc) will be hosted on the netapps.
A: Essentially a GUIBoot conversion deadline. Jim is already GUIBoot however he will only have the disk space available to move user's over at the end of August.

Q: (Bruce) FreeBSD/Solaris. Eng/Arts/AHS moved/moving to Solaris for e-mail/auth. Eng/AHS also use Solaris for print accounting. New developments will not likely be tested on FreeBSD, but source code will be made available. comments ? plans in science ? EC is continuing to use FreeBSD for appfilers.
A: Science is looking into deploying a Sun for this function.

Q: Pretty Park virus seen on Campus.
A: (Ray) Will send out a sysctl to update the virus definitions.

Information items:

(Bruce) non accounting printing deadline is Sept 1, 2000, as discussed. Definition: printing through serial/parallel ports on watstar servers, and PC print daemons, and lpr servers no longer supported after the deadline, except for the "laserman" system. - notes: samba print server setup in progress in Engineering Computing. will use same accounting system as "laserman". EC has installed a Sun Ultra 10 for the Engineering print server, and has bought jetdirect cards for all of our HP printers. New HP printers (4050) don't work with the existing PC laserman system. Must wait for above.

(Erick) MS Course for the week of March 20, 2000.