Upgraded the Oracle Client tools to 9i and removed the 8i Client files.
Category Archives: Reconfiguration
8/24 Securing Database on Crystal
Limited sysdba login , Secured Other Oracle Executables, Configured Oracle binary permissions.
Changed the category 4 passwords on Cascade (schemas)
Changed the category 4 passwords on Cascade (schemas), bjp, and their dependents throughopout the system.
11/18 SAN Upgrades for Camano
Camano was upgraded to add new SAN disks
Change in authentication for the VPN and Dialin Services
Effective noon on Monday, December 5th, 2005, you will need your Windows password instead of your email password to access the campus Virtual Private Network (VPN) service and the campus dialup modem service. You will still use your email name. If you are connected to one of these services around this time, please log out before this time and date. This change is part of the larger effort to reduce the number of usernames and passwords we now use, culminating with the replacement of the current email system with Microsoft Exchange.
Those users of the dialup modem service who have pre-saved their passwords will need to change them. To do so, double click on the UPS dialup icon you have created on your desktop. In the User name field enter your e-mail username (your e-mail address without “@ups.edu”). In the Password field, enter your Windows password and check Save password if you want Windows to remember your password for future connections.
PureMessage not accepting messages
PureMessage stopped accepting messages this morning when the disk volume was filled by log files. Corrections have been made to the logrotate.conf file in an attempt to prevent this from occurring in the future.
Stray Entry Hit with Comment SPAM
One of our Maintenance Blog entries was accidentally left open to comments, and was filled with “Comment SPAM”. The offending entry was reconfigured, and the SPAM was deleted.
E-mail problem: 5550 5.3.0 Can’t create output
Some user reported this morning the inability to send messages to users. They received a common error,
Final-Recipient: RFC822; username@ups.edu
X-Actual-Recipient: RFC822; username@ups.edu
Action: failed
Status: 5.3.0
(reason: Can’t create output)
This error was the result of poor deactivation of the quotaing system. The quota system had been turned off, but not removed from the fstab file. When the system was rebooted yesterday, the quota system was re-enabled and locked account in excess of their time limit. This issue has been corrected.
Network upgrade
The planned OS upgrade of core network equipment on Sunday was not as smooth as planned. Two systems had difficulty with the upgrade and required a reboot: the mail server, and the Oracle development server. Otherwise, the upgrade was a success.
As a result of the problem, we have a better understanding of the upgrade process for future upgrades.
Dial-in Failures
The radius daemon and portmaster were reset to address several reported issues with dial-in access. The core reason for users not being authenticated is not completely clear, but there are indications that the portmaster or the radius daemon became confused about the appropriate share secret. Once all entryies were reset authentication started to be validated correctly.
During the process, four modems were identified as failing to respond properly and were removed from service.
RADIUS server moved
The RADIUS server has been moved to a new server with the same IP address as before, so no changes to services using RADIUS should be required. The client file was copied and test to ensure proper functioning of the server.
Web Server emergency maintenance
The University web server will be down during the morning of August 31, 2004 for some emergency maintenance related to a hard disk failure.
MX record change
The MX record on DNS zones was changed to mx00.ups.edu and mx01.ups.edu in an effort to normalize the naming convention for our mail exchange servers. This change resulted in some mail delivery problems since not also external mail servers picked up the change in a timely manner. A workaround was implemented to allow mail delivery to continue. Mail messages sent between 10:00am and 11:45am (-8:00 PST) seem to have been effected.
Interruption in WebMail Service
WebMail service will be interrupted for approximately 15 minutes from 9:00am to 9:15 am on Wednesday, April 28, 2004. This interruption is needed to reconfigure WebMail and give it a dedicated network interface on the University’s email server for WebMail’s imap sessions.
Possible WebMail problem identified
In our efforts to identify the cause of recent problems with the WebMail server, we have been at a loss for information. We have tried to discover what has been causing the delays and unresponsiveness in WebMail as of late. We have looked at possible memory leaks in daemons, possible attacks, possible miss configurations. All of these have not lead to a clear answer.
It is believed at this point in time that if Ockham’s Razor holds true we may have found the source of the problem. It was discovered late yesterday that the available disk space of the WebMail server was extremely low. Since WebMail serves as an imap gateway temporarily caching and displaying mail messages via a http server, disk space for temporary files is necessary. This has been the best possible explanation for the problems we have seen thus far.
We have increased available disk space on the server. We have also contacted server individuals who reported problems to determine if the issue still persists.