September 2006 -- Volume 3 -- Number 3
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* Password Security Breach
OIT has requested that we ask all users to change their OIT
passwords using the P-synch program at:
https://www.princeton.edu/psynch
Please do *not* use the same password for OIT that you use
for your CS accounts.
Please do it now.... We'll wait.... Done? Great!
The background: OIT found evidence of a malicious program on
one of their central servers that was capable of downloading
encrypted passwords. Because passwords could then be cracked
offline, they are asking that everyone change their passwords.
We specifically ask that your CS password be different from
any password you use *anywhere* else for precisely this kind
of situation.
* More on OIT Passwords
Princeton is moving to make additional (sensitive) information
available online. This information is protected by your OIT
password *and* the security of the computer and network you
are using. Specifically, HR recently announced the eBenefits
system where "you can use any computer that has Internet
access, such as those located at work, home, or a local
library" (!) to view and "update your beneficiary
designations and/or the personal information for your
dependents." This information includes names, social
security numbers, and birth dates. In the future, HR plans
to roll out ePay where you will be able to access and update
direct deposit information. As a result of these changes,
it is more important than ever to protect your passwords and
not share them.
* New Status Page
Today, we have a new status page: http://www.csstaff.org
This is hosted off-site and so it can be consulted if you
are having trouble accessing the department from the outside.
Note that the faculty DSL lines are considered "inside" the
department; we'll address this in the future.
* Cluster
We are pleased to announce the availability of a new departmental
computing cluster. This cluster contains 20 compute nodes and
one head node all of which are Sun X4100 servers with dual, dual-core
2.2GHz Opteron 275 processors (four 64-bit processing cores)
with 8GB RAM running the CentOS distribution of Linux.
Collectively, it is known as "c2" and can be reached via
ssh to c2.cs.princeton.edu. Contact csstaff@cs if you are
interested in being one of the first users.
This cluster is configured to have direct access to home
directories and project file space. As a result, it is restricted
to departmental users. If you are interested in using a
cluster that can be used collaboratively with users outside
the department, OIT has several clusters available. Contact
csstaff@cs for details.
* General Purpose Computing
Please remember that the cycles machines are a shared
resource. They only :-) have 16GB of memory and when
multiple users are running jobs that allocate multi-gigabyte
memory blocks, bad things can happen. In particular, in an
effort to keep the machine running, Linux will randomly
kill processes when it is under severe memory pressure.
If you are running jobs that require lots of memory, be
sure to checkpoint your work. In addition, the cluster
(mentioned above) is scheduled so that users get exclusive
use of their nodes while their job is running.
* Database Upgrade
On August 23, 2006, we upgraded the hardware and software on
the public database server (publicdb). The new server is a
Sun X4100 (dual, dual core 2.2GHz Opteron processors with 8GB
RAM) running MySQL v5.0.24. The previous machine was a Sun
Netra T1 (500MHz UltraSparc-IIe with 1GB RAM) running MySQL
v4.1.12.
* Moodle
The open-source course management system (CMS), Moodle, is now
available to CS instructors as an alternative/extension to
Blackboard. This replaces our previous, home-grown system called
Whiteboard. Our local page is at http://moodle.cs.princeton.edu/
and is supporting COS126 and COS226.
CS instructors wishing to use Moodle for their courses should
contact csstaff@cs. CS Staff will maintain the overall system
and also deploy feature requests as our schedule allows.
* 50,000 Tickets
Fun fact: On May 8, 2006, our request tracking system logged
ticket number 50,000. The current incarnation of the system
was deployed on February 22, 1999, with a starting ticket number
of 11063. Doing the math, one finds that this is a tad over
100 tickets per week.
* Projector 105
This summer, we replaced the aging 1500-lumen projector in
room 105 with a new and improved 4000-lumen projector. In
addition to being much brighter, we are using a lens which
projects a bigger image. We integrated it with the existing
switching equipment so the user instructions remain the same.