Minutes Waterloo Polaris Advisory Group May 17, 2000

Attendees:

Submitted items:

Q: (Ray) Time to elect a new chairman
A: (Bruce) Nominated Ray White, (Erick) seconded. (Ray) nominated Steph to Secretary, (Bruce) seconded.

Q: (Nevil) What is the status of the NetApp backup?
A: UWFile, AdminFile, and SciFile upgraded to 5.3.5 R2 P1.

(Jim) Na_Recover is suppose to recover any file which was backed up. If you do not know the name of the file, you will come down to a recover type of command interface. This type cannot see all of the files. NetApp says they can recover a whole server which was backed up, disaster recovery will work.
(Bruce) Will probably recommend Engineering buy a tape drive backup for EngFile if there is not a stable backup by June 1.
(Jim) If there is a problem installing the new Legato software, remove the 2 lines in the NetApp's RC file and then the software will install.

• options.cifs.symlinks.cycleguard=on
• options.service.networker.start=java netapp.cmds.jsh -classpath /etc/app/legato/networker.zip COM.legato.networker.daemons.nsrexecd -s hoover start

(Jim) Corrupted files (mundged) will get backed up. A work around is to move the whole directory up one level and then move all but the corrupt files down.

Q: (Nevil) Has anyone seen the scan disk in the start up folder trying to write to C and some people having it in thorough
     mode?
A: (Ray) There are two parts to the user registry, a default user and the custom settings for the user. A registry key under the default user is incorrect, resetting the account will fix this.

(Jim) Is there a way to remove just the registry keys?
(Ray) Yes, various tools depending upon whether you are currently running MS Windows 95. Under Windows 95 you can use regedit (interactively) or j:\UTL3\REG (or j:\utl3\reg2edit) to do it non-interactively. Under DOS you can use regedit non-interactively. a third party program to do in DOS mode (no real tool yet).

Q: (Nevil) Can the start up be moved to the end of the start up folder (changing to zzzscandisk?) to minimize it trying to run
     while other items are starting, thus minimizing the scandisk restarts.
A: (Ray) Yes, scandisk is there because of Windows startup errors. It seems that after the DOS version of scandisk, Windows can still corrupt the D: drive disk (seen with printing as it writes tmp files to disk) as it is still loading into the full GUI interface. This has been seen to be very hardware specific.

Q: (Nevil) Can a notice be set up to be sent to interested individuals (Duane) to indicate when the official minutes are up as
     they are no longer on the mailing list.
A: (Erick) We can report to UCIST as soon as the minutes are ready.

Q: (Daniel) Eudora Pro gives lots of problems and is very slow.  What are the possible solution?
A: (Ray) If you go back to the old style, the program speeds up. We are running the latest upgrades for this software.
 

(Daniel) We are using IMAP.
(Ray) IMAP is only available in sponsored mode.
(Hon) To move to the light mode, in Eudora go to Help, Payment & Registration. In the top box "Which Eudora is Right for You?" select the Light mode. These are some of the capabilities which you do give up in the mode.

• Access to award-winning Technical Support staff
• Spellchecking of your email messages
• Autocompletion of addresses as you type
• Multiple personalities for managing multiple mail accounts or identities
• Message stationery to help you respond to your mail more quickly
• Multiple signatures to help you personalize your mail
• Multiple address books to help organize your contact information
• Finding messages based on multiple search criteria
• Toolbar customization
• Advanced editing features like centering and indentation
• More powerful filtering:

•     Change the personality associated with messages
•     Play various sounds when mail arrives depending on your filters
•     Open a message or mailbox in response to a filter
•     Print mail directly from filters

Q: (Ray) Anyone know how to turn off the registration reminder in Eudora? Does someone have an account on which the
     message regularly occurs?
A: (Ray) Nevil has seen this twice. One of the files (ini, log, etc.) may have the setting or a time date stamp. If we can duplicate we can possibly fix. Let Ray know if you see this and can duplicate.

Information items:

(Nevil) Who uses a mail quota tool?

(Steph) AHS, Engineering, and Science currently use a mail quota tool which was first implemented by Paul McKone.
(Bruce) This script can be mailed out to all of us. There is also another one which Paul wrote for NetApp quota notification.
(Steph) Yes, Science has already implemented, although some users are confused with the Windows visual display of 2 Gigs of disk space and yet they get a mail notice of limited disk space (after >80% use).
(Bruce) The NetApp can display this properly, but needs to be told how to.

(Erick) Let us talk of Windows 2000 and where we are right now.

(Marko) ES is still waiting for our contact Mohammad to recieve some software.
(Hon) States that he can be contacted in place of Mohammad.
(Nevil) Arts is looking at 6-8 Windows 2000 workstations for September 1, 2000
(Erick) Engineering is estimating between 18-20 networked machines to be implemented for September 1. Ray and Hon have been looking into the Microsoft Software, while Erick has been filling in the gaps to what can be implemented off the shelf. This includes one login only, so a user cannot take out a whole row of computers. Everything from before put into Polaris is now built in by Microsoft (supposedly). There are problems with procedures, like installing software. Now need 2 instalations, one for development. A new list needs to be set up for Windows 2000. Please let Paul McKone know if there are any more to add (currently 14 subscribers). We are currently looking at stock installations, software and some things not done by Microsoft.

(Nevil) Duane Kennedy suggested that we have periodic meetings to facilitate discussions here (and to further develop)

(Ray) We could do these things on the mailing list set up by Paul McKone (see above).

(Marko) Is it possible for ES's NT mix to be folded in with the Windows 2000 type of Polaris? Since we use NT software, could we have Polaris 2000 as a possiblity?
(Ray) Yes this is possible, although not all things work which you may be using, like TSR's.
(Erick) there are 2 command shells with Windows 2000 and this will be a little bit awkward.
(Bruce) We do not have a complete Active Directory structure, this may happen at the current rate in 5 months. For September 1, 2000 we will have to do something. One of these things in naming the Domain. There has been some acceptance for Polaris.UWaterloo.ca with the group here.
(Erick) This has been registered at this time, not that it need be used. We do need something for September.
(Bruce) Can we live with the wrong name and the possibility to revisit those machines set up if the name is changed?
(Erick) Yes, and if so, changed by exam time.
(Nevil) Could we agree on setting an August 15th deadline for the new name? Could we have 2 Polaris names?
(Erick) Not good to have 2 names. It is best to have one and change by Christmas 2000, considering we will have approximately 18 days to work with then. There is a lot to do, and getting the name is just the easy stuff.
(Bruce) There is more to it than just a name.

(Marko) This will be the last meeting which I will attend, Trevor Bain (etbain@fes.uwaterloo.ca) will take over for me since he has more Windows95/WindowsNT support to offer this group.

(Nevil) The SCRATCH system... tends to make lots of double accounts, where it did not before.

(Bruce) The old scratch system would not make extra accounts if one exists. The new one makes an account at the server where it should be. The new account creation solves one problem - yet creates another. On the plus side, with 16K accounts there is no transfering of files, and the index will find the closest account in a faculty where duplicate accounts exist.

(Erick) There is code from Michael Hurst (Mike Herz?), which allows the viewing of users accounts off of the Netapp. This is a type of tweak to the $info passed to the Samba servers. Will put this out to everyone.

Created by: sempson@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca 2000/05/17
Revised by: sempson@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca 2000/05/18
Revised by: tim@ist.uwaterloo.ca 2000/05/25