Rob McNicholas

The [IRIS Device Activation form](https://iris.eecs.berkeley.edu/db/network/) allows IRIS account holders to register a network device for use on our networks. Previously all requests were processed by hand with a turnaround time of up to a day. Over the last few months we have been rolling out incremental improvements to automate some of the process, and most requests will now be automatically approved and inserted into our database. Our DHCP server now refreshes itself from our database at regular intervals, with the net result being most new systems will be supported on our networks within thirty minutes or less.

The following are the requirements for automatic approval:

* Host is a DHCP client with dynamic address
* Standard equipment (e.g. laptop, desktop, server, phone/pda)
* If wired host, must be using an active network port on an IRIS-supported network.

Please note that if your request is automatically approved, you will no longer receive a second email telling you when your request has been processed. Please read the on-screen messages and your email copies carefully, as they will indicate whether your request was automatically approved and is immediately ready for use.

Due to the Winter Holiday, Energy Curtailment, and New Year’s Holidays, the Berkeley campus is officially closed for the period Wednesday, December 23 to Wednesday, January 6, reopening on Thursday, January 7, 2010.

All departmental computing servers will remain on and should be available during the break, but there will be no staff on site to provide any computing support or handle any requests. Automatic monitoring systems will alert staff to critical infrastructure problems, and any such problems will be dealt with on a best-effort basis. IRIS staff will be taking advantage of the holiday to do maintenance on some systems which will result in scattered outages, but any such downtime will be separately announced and posted on the IRIS website.

The EECS Department’s Computing Helpdesk will be closed beginning December 23rd, and will reopen on January 7th. Problem reports can be left on the Helpdesk voice mail (2-7777) or emailed to help@eecs, but staff may not receive or reply to these messages until January 7th.

During the break, Instructional labs will be locked, but the main servers will remain online (imail.eecs, inst.eecs, cory.eecs, mamba.eecs and fileservice.eecs). Instructional support staff will occasionally monitor inst@eecs over the break. If you are unable to contact inst@eecs, you can leave a message at 643-6141. Please be aware, though, that staff may not be able to respond or reply to messages until January 7th.

We recommend that all desktop computers be shutdown during the Energy
Curtailment Period. If your Windows computer needs to stay on during the break,
we recommend that you check with your system administrator to ensure that
Automatic Updates are enabled with the option ‘Automatically download the
updates and install them on the schedule that I specify’, with a daily update
schedule.

Computing support staff will be monitoring their email when possible, so please
use standard email addresses to report any urgent problems. As a reminder:

– Instructional Computing Environment: inst@eecs
– Research / Staff Computing Environment: help@eecs

Enjoy your holiday break!