11-Jan-2021

CHESS Filesystem Maintenance: Tuesday, 12-Jan-2021 @ Noon

Starting at Noon on Tuesday, 12-Jan-2021, the CHESS Aux and CHESS Scratch filesystems will be unavailable for up to one hour as we expand their capacity. Please save and close your work before noon on the following filesystems:

• CHESS Aux (/nfs/chess/aux, \\chesssamba\aux)
• CHESS Scratch (/nfs/chess/scratch, \\chesssamba\scratch)

At this time, we will also be completing the DAQ rotation. 2020-2 will be removed from disk, and the filesystems will be setup for the 2021-1 run.

[CIT] Two-Step Login for Cornell Email: Tuesday, 12-Jan-2021

Starting on Tuesday, January 12, 2021, Two-Step Login for Office 365 will be required for all Cornell administrative staff. For more information, please see the full announcement from CIT. Based on our testing, CLASSE users may need to take the following actions:

• Windows users: After logging in initially with Duo, you should see no further changes.
• Mac users: If and when your email stops working, delete and recreate your Exchange accounts.
• Linux users: Use Outlook on the Web, or submit a ServiceRequest to have an Outlook plugin for Thunderbird installed.

Users might also encounter problems with email alises. Please report any email or Duo issues to the CIT Service Desk. You may use Outlook on the Web while your problem is being resolved.

[CIT] Campus Network Outage: Sunday, 17-Jan-2021

Please see this CIT announcement for details on Managed Firewall upgrades in January 2021 that will disrupt network connectivity between CLASSE and off-campus locations, as well as internally between the CHESS Public and CLASSE Public networks. Brief outages will occur during these windows:

• Sunday, 10-Jan-2021, between 5:00 AM and 12:00 noon
• Sunday, 17-Jan-2021, between 5:00 AM and 12:00 noon

New Mac VPN with Two-Step Login

For Mac users who have upgraded their personal computers to macOS Big Sur, we are offering a trial version of our new Big-Sur-compatible VPN service, known as Pritunl (pronounced Pre-Tunnel). For enhanced security, our Pritunl deployment will include two-step login via Duo, which should be familiar to Cornell users (although a separate CLASSE registration will be required). To get started with this trial version, please submit a ServiceRequest.

Pritunl will be deployed to CLASSE-managed Macs when they are upgraded to Big Sur (planned for 2021). For Windows and Linux users, there are no immediate plans to disable the current VPN server (OpenVPN).

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General network and server maintenance will occur every Tuesday from 12:00 noon to 2:00 PM. The CLASSE-IT group will always announce any expected disruptions in our NewsLetter and via CLASSE-IT-NEWS-L, but with the size and complexity of our network there is always the potential for something to go wrong. We will do our best to contain all network maintenance and planned outages to Tuesdays from 12:00 noon to 2:00 PM.

Unless other arrangements have been made, CLASSE-managed Windows systems may be updated and rebooted on Tuesday morning at 2:00 AM, so please avoid critical or lengthy operations at that time. For more details, please see SystemExpectations.

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Questions or problems? Submit a service request.

Other resources:

• CLASSE-IT Home Page
• Previous newsletters

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