December 10,2012

Today's topics:

CLASSE userid and password needed for Lab. IT Changes

As the Lab. makes a transition from autonomous LEPP and CHESS IT environments to a more integrated CLASSE IT environment, functions will increasingly require a CLASSE userid and password. Many of you are using these now, but those not yet assigned a CLASSE userid and password will receive email instructions in the next couple of days. Two functional changes, first with SAMBA shared disk authentication, and then with the transition to RedRover wireless network in Wilson Lab. are examples in the near future and are outlined below. Tutorial sessions regarding these will be arranged with Lab. work groups in the next two weeks plus an open session on Friday Dec. 21, at 11:00 in W301.

Use your CLASSE userid and password for SAMBA starting January 3rd

Currently, access to the SAMBA shared disks from Windows uses your LNSNTCAD userid and password

• Windows computers in the CLASSE domain (now more than 200) require you to provide LNSNTCAD login information
• Windows XP Computers in the LNSNTCAD domain (now fewer than 50) do not have to ask for that information.

Starting on January 3rd, the situation will be reversed:

• Windows computers in the CLASSE domain will no longer require you to provide login information.
• Windows XP computers in the LNSNTCAD domain will ask for your CLASSE userid and password.

Due to the way Mapped Drives and connections work in Windows, we recommend deleting any mapped drives you have before the change takes place, or you may experience slowdowns when browsing your filesystems when using the file manager or save dialog boxes in programs. We recommend staying away from mapped drives for many reasons, this is one of them. Standard shortcuts do not have these issues, and can work much like mapped drives for accessing network shares.

Windows XP computers on LNSNTCAD may have mapped drives pushed to your user account. If you notice such slowdowns, the resolution will be to migrate to CLASSE authentication to get rid of mapped drives. All XP computers need to be moved eventually to CLASSE or replaced by Windows 7 computers.

CLASSE userids are all based on Cornell NetIDs. Your CLASSE userid might not be the same as your LNSNTCAD userid. CLASSE accounts have been created for those 64 people who did not previously have one. "Welcome" and "Greetings" messages will be sent to all of those people on Tuesday, December 11.. If you have not received both of those notices by Wednesday morning and don't know your CLASSE userid and password, please notify the LEPP computer group at service-lepp@cornell.edu

Use your CLASSE userid and password for VPN with RedRover

RedRover wireless access will replace "LNS Protected" wireless access in Wilson Lab in early January. RedRover will not be replacing "LNS Protected" wireless in the trailers modular facilities or in Newman Lab.. If you need to print on Lab printers or access Inventor's Vault while connected to the RedRover wireless network, you'll have to connect to the CLASSE VPN. Many people already make use of the CLASSE VPN when they work from home or elsewhere outside the Lab. Information about the CLASSE VPN is available at https://wiki.lepp.cornell.edu/lepp/bin/view/Computing/CmpGrp/Obsolete/OpenVPN

Wired access to the "LNS Protected" network will not be going away. There is no need to use the VPN if your laptop computer is connected to the wired "LNS Protected" network. With Windows 7, it is important to make sure you go into network and sharing center, change adapter settings, and right click and disable the wireless network to actually connect to the wired "LNS Protected" network. Just plugging in a cable will not cause this change. If you want to use the wired "LNS Protected" network instead of wireless RedRover and currently do not have wired access, please contact the LEPP computer group immediately by sending email to service-lepp@cornell.edu

Home disk quotas

In the near future, quotas will be enabled on the LEPP Unix home disks (/home/username). Up until January of this year, /home disks have had a quota of 512MB. After a system failure and an emergency move to a temporary backup server, quotas were disabled. When we move our /home disks to their final location (hopefully during the January down), a quota of 1GB will be implemented.

Because home disks are widely used by everyone (login scripts, desktop profiles (gnome, kde, etc.), firefox profiles), it is important that we minimize their usage. An outage or saturation of the home disk has wide implications and adversely effects all Unix users. In general, any personal, group, or project data should be stored in user, project, or group file systems instead of the home filesystem. Please see NewHomeDisk (https://wiki.lepp.cornell.edu/lepp/bin/view/Computing/NewHomeDisk) for more information.

We are in the process of contacting users with over 1GB in their home disks and assisting in moving their files to an appropriate location.

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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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