Attendees:
Nevil Bromley Arts
Stephen Sempson Applied Health Science (AHS)
Dave Walsh Engineering
Bill Ince Mathematics
Hon Tam Science
Erick Engelke Engineering Computing
Tim Farrell Information System and Technology (IST)
Ray White IST
Absent
Marko Dumancic Environmental Studies
Bruce Campbell Engineering Computing
Group Housekeeping Items - topics/questions from previous meeting (Tim,Nevil)
- Will the control panel applets (Screen saver, keyboard, mouse, fonts) work under gui boot or be fixed under pboot?
All the control panel applets appear to work even the Dvorak keyboard. One minor caveat found is that the password under the screen saver is not changeable since the Waterloo Polaris password is used and of course the returned error by the Microsoft code is erroneous.
- Will the roaming profile problem of deleted desktop/recent files reappearing from N: be fixed with guiboot?
No this is a separate issue. Possibly a check can be done at login time giving the user the choice to remove the files but any changes were to be delayed until the NetApps were in (so recovery of accidentally deleted files was simpler).
Engineering Computing Information
Network Appliances (Nevil, Stephen, Hon, Erick)
The Network Appliances are all in but not yet installed and running in most faculties. It was hoped that all users’ N: disk space will be migrated to appropriate Network Appliances by the beginning of September, 1999 however this deadline seems to be too optimistic. Moving users to the NetApp requires two steps to happen, GUIBOOT needs to running and the CIFS network performance problems need to be resolved. The only stated goal for moving students to the NetApp are from Engineering Computing in which 1st year students will by default get their N: drive being the NetApp. The final go ahead from Engineering Computing will likely happen mid August when testing is complete.
Network Testing
We would like to be farther along with the testing however with vacations testing has not been completed. Ray posted some web instructions on network card settings to change network settings for individual machines. Please make sure all network testing is done since users are already suffering from slow performance problems with any TCP/IP connection. The attaching of user's N: drives from the NetApp will be delayed until performance problems are solved.
GUIBOOT (Erick)
One lab (GAFF lab - CPH 2367) is now setup running GUIBOOT for testing purposes. Since GUIBOOT will be required to get the N: drive from the NetApps, Engineering Computing is planning to roll out GUIBOOT starting early August to all Engineering Labs. It would be advantageous for all Lab machines to be converted to GUIBOOT before the Fall school term. GUIBOOT is currently running with the regular Watstar server supplied N: drives. Using Microsoft's WINSET program was reported as a problem since it seems to take an abnormally long time to set environment variables when using WINSET.
- Will the no default user problem be fixed with GUI Boot? (Nevil)
Erick will look into the default user problem and will have a workaround/solution to the problem. A simple solution will work with or without GUIBOOT however a more elegant solution of getting the backup from the snapshots on the NetApp will take time.
NetApps Backups
Not much was reported within the meeting however as I was leaving the meeting Ron informed me that their first test of using an NT server to back up the CIFS data was going well. Backing up other Domains (if the NetApp is using an NT PDC) and non domain backing up has yet to be tested. NFS backup we know works since Math has been using this type of backup for quite a while if a fallback position is needed.
Y2K
Very quick topic, all MS applications have been patched for Y2K compliance on Polaris. Most programs do not have any Y2K issues unless the user is using 2 digits dates in any date calculation. Y2K information for Waterloo Polaris can be found on the Engineering Computer Web page.
Twinkle1 Issue:
Tim reported that Twinkle1 will be shutdown during construction of the second floor of the old red room. Tim had no firm dates or answers to questions such as would the room be re-opened with the existing hardware? It was felt by all that both in the short and long term this would cause problems especially with increased enrollment of the Fall term. Tim will be writing a proposal for UCIST to look into the loss of this resource and clarification of what IST plans are for this resource.
CAS
It was reported that IST is going to support CAS without any hesitation, everyone liked the idea of using CAS for a common printer accounting. Work will need to be done to support CAS using the current printing scheme as well as through Samba and general Unix access. Implementation outside of Math and IST will probably wait until SysAdmins involved have time to deal with the issues likely sometime in the Fall term.
General questions and answers
Q: Is there a solution to auto-negotication for the SMC9432?
A: No real answer, Martin has been moving away from the 9432 in favour of the less expensive D-Link 530TX card.
Q: What happens with testing accounts for SysAdmins since all identically named accounts on Watstar servers will be mapped to only one NetApp userid?
A: Erick will disable the stripping of numbers at the end of a userid so multiple account will be one digit away.
Q: Various Licensing questions
A: http://polaris.uwaterloo.ca/system/software/license.html
Next meeting: August 18, 1999. MC-1058 9:30-11:00 a.m.
Notes reported by Ray White
