Archive for July, 2004
July 16th, 2004 by Dana Roode
NACS is upgrading both its infrastructure and its clients’ Red Hat servers to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 3.
This operating system is available in two flavors, Advanced Server (AS) and Workstation (WS). The key difference between the two versions is that WS is not designed for use in server environments; therefore, it does not support more than 2 processors, nor does it include various server packages.
For an annual subscription fee of $50 (AS) or $25 (WS), users are provided with access to the Red Hat Network, including patches and updates. For a small additional fee, departments can subscribe to this service through NACS and receive these benefits:
- Patch and update services provided by our on-campus server, resulting in much faster performance.
- License and release tracking, saving you paperwork and bureaucratic headaches.
- Automatic patches and updates installed as they become available.
Systems administered by NACS also receive these benefits. Please contact dcs@uci.edu for pricing and additional information.
Any DCSLIB subscriber upgrading to RHEL should install the Legacy Software Development package to maintain binary compatibility with the current Red Hat archive.
More information about RHEL can be found at: http://www.redhat.com/software/rhel/
Redhat also publishes a commodity version of Linux called Fedora. Fedora is available for free, but has much more limited support. A comparison may be found athttp://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.html
Support for the current version of Red Hat Linux ended on April 30, 2004.
July 16th, 2004 by Dana Roode
Brush up on your office skills this summer. NACS offers Office XP hands-on training beginning July 30th. NACS’s Mobile Computer Lab, comprising 16 notebook computers with wireless network connections will be set up in Social Science Tower, SST 122. For course outlines and registration, see http://www.nacs.uci.edu/training. Classes are $75 for a half day workshop and a departmental recharge number is required to register.
July 2nd, 2004 by Dana Roode
UCI’s outgoing e-mail server, smtp.uci.edu, has been configured to implement the TLS and SMTP AUTH options. (For the rest of this article, “server” and “outgoing e-mail server” refer to smtp.uci.edu).
This protects UCI from certain types of attacks. The TLS feature provides a secure, encrypted SMTP session between the your e-mail program and UCI’s outgoing e-mail server. The SMTP AUTH feature identifies you to the server, allowing only authorized UCI users to send e-mail.
Users in Residential Housing are now required to use secure SMTP. Others who choose to send e-mail using UCI’s outgoing e-mail server now have the option of doing so securely.
If your e-mail client software is already configured to use authenticated SMTP, you may be asked for a password when sending e-mail. Your usual UCInetID password will work.
More information on configuring your e-mail program to take advantage of these new features can be found at:
http://www.nacs.uci.edu/email/authsmtp.html
Please direct your questions, and report any problems, to the NACS Response Center at nacs@uci.edu or (949) 824-2222.
July 2nd, 2004 by Dana Roode
NACS continues to work hard to identify unwelcome, unsolicited commercial e-mail. No filtering technique is 100% effective, however, and it is therefore worthwhile to highlight a common threat that a seemingly legitimate message may pose.
One of the most disturbing trends in online crime today is known as “phishing” — fraudulent messages that appear to be from legitimate vendors but are actually well-disguised attempts to steal your passwords, account numbers, social security numbers, and other private information. Frequently, such messages appear to be from well-known companies such as eBay, Citibank, Amazon, and the like.
Often the sender will ask you to log into the company’s web site via a link provided in the body of the message to “confirm” your password or credit card information. These links actually direct your browser to the sender’s web site — well disguised as that of the legitimate vendor — which captures your private information as you type it.
If you are uncertain about a particular message, you may wish to contact the vendor in question by calling them, or going directly to their web site without using any links provided in the body of the message in question. Of course, you can also always contact NACS at nacs@uci.edu or (949) 824-2222 and we’ll help you figure it out.
July 2nd, 2004 by Dana Roode
NACS sponsored two days of hands-on training on communications cable installation on March 31 and April 1.
This free, training opportunity included:
- A “Layer One” standards update by Steve Fritz of WestCal Technologies,
- An Outside Plant demonstration by Charles Ball of Preformed Line Products,
- Fire Stop training by Michael Zanotelli of Specified Technologies, Inc.
- Power/Surge Protection presentation by John Cleary of WestCal Technologies,
- Hands-on fiber optic cable termination by Mark Travers of Molex,
- Hands-on Cat 5E/Cat 6 cable termination by Wayne Brushett of Data Cabling Solutions.
Class participants included fifteen NACS staff, seven Inspectors from Design & Construction Services, Brice Kikuchi of the Student Center, and nine installers from Cable Inc., a NACS cabling contractor.