Latest sys-admin news

New Ubuntu MTA now in use by new slogin server

19 May 2018

The new slogin server will not send non-ASCII MH emails to the main Lab CentOS 5 MTAs, as they do not advertise that they support 8BITMIME. A Ubuntu 16.04 MTA which was being used for development has been brought into service, and slogin-new has been configured to use it. It is believed that the system works, but do...

New Ubuntu 18.04 LTS slogin-new test server

28 April 2018

A new Ubuntu 18.04 LTS server is now available, available via the service name slogin-new and slogin. To ensure that the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS server is used, connect to slogin. Comments to sys-admin please.

Start of change of default domain on Linux systems

9 March 2018

The department is moving from the 'AD' domain to the 'DC' domain. Linux systems use the DNS to decide which the default should be if none is given. We shall be moving certyain test hosts over to DC in the vulnereable period on Tues 20th Feb, and depending how things go, at later vulnereable or non-vulnerable...

Server Room Cooling Failure

28 February 2018

Overnight between the 27th and 28th of February the building cooling failed. This was due to the pipes on the roof freezing due to very low temperatures. Emergency actions was taken at in the middle of the night to shut down enough machines to prevent a total outage of core services. The cooler has now been...

New Remote Desktop Service

26 February 2018

The previous remote access Windows machines ts01 and ts02 have now been retired. In their place is a newer version running on Windows Server 2016. The local unix command cl-rdesktop has been updated to point to this service. To login you must authenticate against the DC domain either by quoting your identifier...

Problem with new VPN certificate corrected

22 February 2018

Some people using the VPN service at vpn.cl.cam.ac.uk may have been experiencing difficulties since the server certficate was updated on 2018-02-13. We issued a warning applicable to Windows users, but we forgot to point out that some Linux and Android clients require a local copy of the server certificate to...

SE18 due to be cleared by 1 June 2018

15 February 2018

The deadline for moving equipment out of SE18 has been set to the 1st June 2018. The removal of the air-conditioning has been arranged to start them.

Anyone with any equipment remaining in that room will need to ensure that it is relocated ahead of that date.

ely reboot in vulnerable period 28th Feb

15 February 2018

This reboot is necessary to complete the installation of some security updates. Apologies for missing the reboot on the earlier advertised date.

CL VPN certificate replacement

6 February 2018

The SSL certificate used to authenticate the CL-specific instance of the UIS VPN service at vpn.cl.cam.ac.uk is scheduled for routine replacement on Tuesday 13th February at about 08:00. The purpose of this certificate is to give the VPN client the assurance that it is communicating securely with the correct...

Filer software update Tuesday 9th Jan 2018

4 January 2018

The next scheduled vulnerable period (2018-01-09 0700-1000) will be used to perform a software update on the NetApp filers elmer and eldo. Elmer is the main filer directly visible to users and eldo provides the backing store for virtual machines.

This is a fairly minor update intended to get the filers...

New Ubuntu MTA now in use by new slogin server

New Ubuntu 18.04 LTS slogin-new test server

Start of change of default domain on Linux systems

Server Room Cooling Failure

New Remote Desktop Service

Problem with new VPN certificate corrected

SE18 due to be cleared by 1 June 2018

ely reboot in vulnerable period 28th Feb

CL VPN certificate replacement

Filer software update Tuesday 9th Jan 2018

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