Instructional & Research Information Systems
by IRIS Staff
The EECS Helpdesk in 313 Soda Hall will be operating on a reduced set of hours this week (01/23/2006–01/27/2006). During this period, the Soda desk will be open from 9:00am–1:00p, Monday–Friday.
The EECS Helpdesk in 395 Cory Hall will be open, as usual, 9:00a–5:00p, Monday–Friday.
We appreciate your patience as we continue to work out our staffing schedule.
Oracle has just released their January “Critical Patch Update.” IRIS staff will be applying this update to our Oracle database beginning at 6pm on Sunday, Jan 22. We estimate this process will take three to four hours, but could take up to six. During this time, applications which rely on the database will be unavailable. This includes the Network database query and request forms, and the Account request and query forms.
We regret any inconvenience this may cause.
Please send questions or comments to help@eecs.
[Read more…] about IRIS Web Site Downtime, Jan 22, 6pm-midnight
by IRIS Staff
On Friday, January 20 between 07:00-0:800, there will be a couple of brief outages to the Cory Hall wireless network. This will affect coverage on floors 1-3 only. All other wireless services will be unaffected. I regret any inconvenience this may cause.
by IRIS Staff
The EECS Helpdesk office in 313 Soda hall will be using a reduced schedule this week due to temporary staff shortages.
Specifically, the Soda Helpdesk will be open from 9:00a – 5:00p on Wednesday, Jan 18 and Friday, Jan 20 and closed on Tuesday, Jan 17 and Thursday, Jan 19.
The EECS Helpdesk office in 395 Cory hall will be open, as usual, 9:00a – 5:00p for the rest of the week.
We apologize for any inconvenience and hope to have both desks open full-time in the coming weeks.
by IRIS Staff
We had a problem receiving email for the CS.Berkeley.EDU domain last night and earlier today. All email for that domain should be automatically re-sent; however, the senders may have received a 4 hour notice (“Your message could not be delivered for 4 hours”). There is nothing you or the senders need to do. Most likely by the time you see this announcement, you will have received all the mail from last night. We apologize for the inconvenience.
by IRIS Staff
******************************************************************** Title: Microsoft Security Bulletin for January 2006 Issued: January 10, 2006 Version Number: 2.0 Bulletin: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=58872 ********************************************************************
Security patches defined by Microsoft as "critical" or "important" MUST be applied within 10 business days of notification. Should there be active exploits, the time will be adjusted and users will be informed appropriately. Hosts unpatched after the defined time are subject to scanning and removal from the EECS network as per campus IT security policies (http://socrates.berkeley.edu:2002/MinStds/).
Patching is sometimes dependent on the service pack level of the Microsoft OS, and installed applications, please read requirements carefully.
Critical Security Bulletins ===========================
MS06-001 - Vulnerability in Graphics Rendering Engine Could Allow Remote Code Execution (912919)
- Impact: Remote Code Execution
- Affected Software: - Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 - Windows XP Service Pack 1 - Windows XP Service Pack 2 - Windows XP Professional x64 Edition - Windows Server 2003 - Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 - Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition - Windows Server 2003 for Itanium-based Systems - Windows Server 2003 with SP1 for Itanium-based Systems
- Review the FAQ section of bulletin MS06-001 for information about these operating systems: - Windows 98 - Windows 98 Second Edition (SE) - Windows Millennium Edition (ME)
- Version Number: 1.0
MS06-002 - Vulnerability in Embedded Web Fonts Could Allow Remote Code Execution (908519)
- Impact: Remote Code Execution
- Affected Software: - Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 - Windows XP Service Pack 1 - Windows XP Service Pack 2 - Windows XP Professional x64 Edition - Windows Server 2003 - Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 - Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition - Windows Server 2003 for Itanium-based Systems - Windows Server 2003 with SP1 for Itanium-based Systems
- Review the FAQ section of bulletin MS06-002 for information about these operating systems: - Windows 98 - Windows 98 Second Edition (SE) - Windows Millennium Edition (ME)
- Version Number: 1.0
MS06-003 - Vulnerability in TNEF Decoding in Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange Could Allow Remote Code Execution (902412)
- Impact: Remote Code Execution
- Affected Software: - Microsoft Office 2000 Service Pack 3 - Windows Microsoft Office XP Service Pack 3 - Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 1 - Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 2 - Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0 Service Pack 2 - Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 Service Pack 4 - Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server Pack 3 with the Exchange 2000 Post-Service Pack 3 Update Rollup of August 2004
- Version Number: 1.0
by IRIS Staff
Tomorrow morning, January I will be upgrading to the most current code on the wireless infrastructure. This will occur between 06:00 and 08:00. During this window, there will be several short outages of all wireless networks within EECS and CITRIS, including AirBears service. The scope of this outage will be confined to Cory, Soda, BWRC, Brewed Awakening and part of HMB. I expect that the network will be stable by 08:00.
by IRIS Staff
For those that are concerned with our email being saturated by spam, IRIS is going to be deploying a new generation of anti-spam management on Tuesday, Jan. 10th, at 12pm. For details and how-to’s, please refer to this link.
We will replace our existing servers with a new set of redundant anti-spam appliances, and as such, some new headers will be added to each incoming email. Like before, a spam rating will be tagged to each message, and for those of you using our IMAP service, appropriate folder (“Spam” under your “EECS-Filtered” folder) will be created and be used to file those spam messages. The new spam appliances are bayesian based, and are updated more regularly by the vendor as well as our staff. Our testing indicates that it is capable of correctly identifying up to 90% of the spam without any special settings.
In addition, the new appliances will now offer individually configurable whitelists and blacklists.
EECS users will have the ability to opt out of the new service. For those of you that have opted out of the old service can now opt back in to take advantage of the new service.
To summarize:
1. If you are using our IMAP service, starting 1/10/06, please go to “EECS-Filtered\Spam” to verify and remove your spam. You can opt in/out of this service. You can also set up your own personal whitelists and blacklists.
2. If you are not using our IMAP service, you can use the special headers to set up your own filters.
3. For details on our new spam service, faq, and instructions, please see the this announcement.
Please send your concerns and suggestions to help@eecs. Thank you for your patience and cooperation.
by IRIS Staff
With Microsoft’s early release of a patch fixing the Windows Metafile (WMF) vulnerability, IDSG will be patching the terminal server, HERMES, as well as the Windows Domain Controllers today, Thursday, January 05, 2006.
HERMES will be down briefly at 3:30p to apply the patch. So if you’re using HERMES, please save your work and log-off before then. The downtime shouldn’t last more than a few minutes.
The Domain Controllers will be rebooted between 3:00p and 3:30p, however, this should not disrupt normal operation.
by IRIS Staff
UNIX SWW will be moving to a new location on project.eecs. There are a couple of other minor changes in the layout.
The new layout is available at
https://iris.eecs.berkeley.edu/idsg/sww/announcement/SWW-layout
Aside from the obvious change to project, the following changes should be noted:
On Monday, January 9th 2006 I will change the automaps to point to the new SWW location. If you’re using the automaps to mount SWW, you won’t need to make any changes on your side (but you might have to remount/reboot at some point after Monday).
The old SWW locations will continue to work ’till January 31st 2006, at which point the old system will be taken down.
You are welcome to use the new SWW on project as of now. Please contact IDSG if you experience problems.