August 2007 Archives

Internet services at UMR have been restored. Customers should now be able to access the Internet.

For more information, please contact the IT Help Desk at (573) 341-HELP or submit an online Help Request.

UMR's connection to the Internet appears to be experiencing technical difficulties at the moment. This issue apparently originates outside of the UMR domain. IT staff are working to identify the underlying cause and find a solution.

The Internet 2 connection is unaffected.

On campus network access is also unaffected by the Internet outage.

Stay tuned for updates! We will post a notice when Internet services are functioning again.

Update: MOREnet, which provides Internet access to UMR, experienced a major failure. Blackboard services are still available. There is currently no estimate on when Internet services will be restored.

For more information, contact the IT Help Desk at 573-341-HELP or submit an online Help Request

Blackboard services at UMR, UMKC, and UMSL have all recently experienced repeated interruptions of service.

Blackboard administrators are working toward a resolution with Blackboard, Inc. IT anticipates a scheduled interruption of Blackboard services in the near future (later this week) to implement a short-term solution while more permanent solutions are investigated by Blackboard administrators.

In the meantime, we appreciate the patience of all campus customers while these issues are resolved. Blackboard is a mission-critical service for the campus and we are doing everything possible to ensure that Blackboard is a stable, robust environment for campus learning.

Further updates on the Blackboard situation, including regularly scheduled maintenance, can be found in the Blackboard category of the IT Press web log (http://itpress.mst.edu/blackboard).

For more information, please contact the IT Help Desk at (573) 341-HELP or submit an online Help Request.

Blackboard will be undergoing routine maintenance from 5:30 - 6 p.m. on Friday, August 24, 2007. As a result, Blackboard will experience a 30-minute interruption of services during the maintenance window. IT will be fine-tuning the database.

For more information, please contact the IT Help Desk at (473) 341-HELP or submit an online Help Request.

Blackboard undergoes regular routine maintenance from 5:30-6 p.m., twice each month. On the second and fourth Fridays of each month, Blackboard services will experience a 30-minute interruption while system maintenance is performed.

For more information, contact the UMR IT Help Desk at 341-HELP or submit an online Help Request.

Good evening,

Welcome to the first ever IT Liveblog event.

6:58 PM -- The Open Forum on DMCA, P2P, Network Traffic and YOU! is about to begin. There are approximately 20 members (all students) of the UMR campus community in the audience. Karl is warmed up and ready to go. The presentation will begin shortly followed by a question and answer period.

7:02 PM -- Karl introduces himself, Tim Doty from IT Security, Barb Prewett from Student Affairs, and myself, your humble liveblogger, Malcolm Hays.

7:04 PM -- Karl discusses state of P2P for all four campuses. MU, UMSL, and UMKC ban P2P traffic completely. UMR allows limited use of P2P for business and academic research purposes.

7:05 PM -- Explanation of current technologies that are in place on campus to manage the network traffic, specifically some of the traffic shaping and P2P

7:07 PM -- Discussion of policies with regards to UM-System acceptable use of campus computing resources. NO ILLEGAL USE is permitted.

7:08 PM -- P2P protocols actually burned out two of the UMR routers because of such heavy traffic usage. As few as 10 computers can eat up a 1 GB connection to the Internet.

7:12 PM -- There is a legitimate need for P2P, but we have to regulate it so that the rest of the network will remain stable.

7:18 PM -- Question: You mentioned carrier class equipment. How much does it cost? Answer: Expensive, but necessary for further expansion and growth of the campus network.

7:20 PM -- Question: Who was the preferred vendor for the carrier equipment? A: Cisco Systems.

7:20 PM -- Q: Is the quiz really necessary? Some of the questions are awkwardly phrased A: Part of the reason for the quiz is to be a learning process. Questions are somewhat designed to force the reader to actually read the question. It is a work in progress and we may be able to update the questions in the future.

7:20 PM -- Q: What is our overall connection speed to the Internet? A: UMR has two connections. Mainly a couple of 45 MB connections handle the traffic

7:21 PM -- Q: Are there any additional limitations when using P2P? Is it slower than a web browser? A: No noticeable difference on the network when using other protocols. Web browsers are not impacted by using P2P. UMR IT is still tweaking the traffic shaping rules to account for students returning to campus.

7:23 PM -- Q: Does traffic shaping only affect students? A: Nope. It affects all of campus.

7:25 PM -- Karl begins Copyright Infringement section of the presentation. Copyright infringement is illegal and is not allowed at UMR

7:26 PM -- DMCA created to limit liability of Internet Service Providers. For all intents and purposes, UMR serves as an ISP for the campus community.

7:27 PM -- IT spends considerable time verifying claims of alleged copyright infringement when it is reported to UMR. Many claims are thrown out.

7:28 PM -- Description of the consequences (i.e. penalties) for having a verifiable DMCA violation. Three strikes revokes all network access for a semester, puts the offender on academic probation for 2 semesters and incurs a $200 processing fee. Results from negotiations between Provost, Student Affairs, and UM Campus

7:29 PM -- Free, legal online music available through Ruckus, Inc

7:30 PM -- Internet usage on campus is a privilege, not a right!

7:34 PM -- Q: What does having network access revoked mean? A: Your registered computers would be unable to access the network. However, you would still be able to login to campus systems (CLCs, Library, etc) in order to do your academic work.

7:35 PM -- Q: Is the traffic shaping responsible for all slowdowns of network activity? A: It depends. Traffic shaping can affect you if you have several machines accessing the Internet simultaneously.

7:37 PM -- Q: Will the network traffic protocol priority be publicly available? A: The general priority of network protocols can be made available, but specific priorities are difficult because it is all dynamic.

7:40 PM -- Practically everyone in the room read Chancellor Carney's back-to-school letter regarding new policies and such

7:40 PM -- Q: (Barb) Does this policy seem unreasonable to you guys? A: (student) I understand some of the need for this policy, but some of the previous communication was a little unclear to me and some of the other students. I think this will be a learning experience for everybody.

7:43 PM -- Q: Is SSH something that is being blocked? A: No, because there is a definite business need for it.

7:45 PM -- Q: Is Ruckus compatible with Linux? And does it use Digital Rights Management? A: Yes to both questions. You may need to fiddle with Ruckus to get it to work properly under Linux. As far as DRM goes, when you download songs, you also download a license to play the music through the Ruckus player (also works in Windows Media Player). Periodically (every couple of weeks or so), you will be prompted to renew your licenses.

7:50 PM -- Wrap up of the presentation. We (IT) want to thank everyone who turned out. At least one person was assigned to attend in order to report on it. IT will make the PowerPoint presentation used in the event available for download. It contains a number of links for additional information and resources.

Update (8/24/2007): Here is the PowerPoint presentation used for this event.

IT will be "liveblogging" the DMCA, P2P, Network Traffic and YOU! Open Forum scheduled from 7-9 p.m. tonight, August 23, 2007 in Civil Engineering 125.

Stay tuned for updates! All students, faculty and staff are welcome to attend.

Blackboard services have been restored. UMR customers can now access Blackboard.

For more information, please contact the UMR IT Help Desk at (573) 341-HELP or submit an online Help Request.

Blackboard services are currently unavailable.

UMR IT is currently investigating the underlying cause for this issue.

Please stay tuned for further updates.

For more information, please contact the UMR IT Help Desk at (573) 341-HELP or submit an online Help Request.

UMR IT will be distributing critical security updates via the SUS servers on all IT-supported Macintosh OS X machines with a campus standard install on them on Tuesday, August 21, 2007. These updates will improve the security of the Apple Macintosh OS X operating system.

Customers who use IT-installed computers (faculty, staff, CLC computers, etc.) may be prompted to reboot their computers shortly after 3:15 p.m. on Tuesday, August 21. The affected computers will automatically reboot themselves if no one is logged in.

This is virtually identical to the process IT uses to install Windows XP and Vista updates.

For more information, please contact the UMR IT Help Desk at 341-HELP or submit an online Help Request at https://help.mst.edu.

UMR IT will be distributing critical security updates via the SUS servers on all IT-supported Windows XP machines with a campus standard install on them on Monday, August 20, 2007. These updates will improve the security of the Windows XP operating system and Microsoft Office 2002 & 2003.

Customers who use IT-installed computers (faculty, staff, CLC computers, etc.) may be prompted to reboot their computers starting 3 p.m. on Tuesday, August 21. Customers with administrative privileges may be prompted sooner than 3 p.m. The affected computers will automatically reboot themselves if no one is logged in.

Internet Explorer 7 (IE 7) will NOT be installed as a part of this update. IE 7 is not yet compatible with a number of Web applications commonly used on the UMR campus, including PeopleSoft and Documentum Web Publisher. IE 7 will not be installed on campus-standard machines until after UMR IT determines that IE 7 is compatible with current campus Web applications.

For more information, please contact the UMR IT Help Desk at 341-HELP or submit an online Help Request at https://help.mst.edu.

Blackboard will be upgraded to a new version on August 8 - 11, 2007.

Customers will be unable to login to Blackboard during the upgrading process.

This process will ensure that Blackboard will be available and ready for the upcoming semester for students, faculty and staff. Any course content or other materials that are already within the Blackboard system will be unaffected by the upgrading process.

For more information, please contact the UMR IT Help Desk at 573-341-HELP or submit an online Help Request at https://help.mst.edu.

UMR IT will be performing routine Network File Storage server maintenance on Thursday, August 9, 2007, from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., Friday.

Customers accessing network file storage (i.e. their S: drive) during the maintenance window may experience two 3-minute interruptions of network file storage service.

For more information, please contact the UMR IT Help Desk at (573) 341-HELP or submit an online Help Request.

On Tuesday, August 7, 2007, IT will begin implementing new controls which impact systems that are improperly registered on the campus network. In other words, any computer system or network-capable device that has not been properly registered with UMR IT will be affected.

Systems (or network-capable devices) that are not properly registered with UMR IT may experience connectivity issues when attempting to access the Internet. If the system is not using DCHP or was not configured in accordance with IT instructions, the machine may be actively blocked from the Internet by UMR IT. If this occurs, your web browser will be redirected to:

http://helpdesk.mst.edu/generalinfo/security/unknownnetwork.html

For more information, please contact the UMR IT Help Desk at (573) 341-HELP or submit an online Help Request.

UPDATE (mhays): For reference, network-capable devices include PCs (desktops and laptops), printers, routers, switches, PDAs and any other device that requires an IP address in order to connect to the campus network--or any network, for that matter.

Cell phones that can access campus e-mail are not affected, in general, because the owner of the cell phone uses cell traffic to obtain e-mail data. However, cell phones still need to be registered somewhere in order to be useful. Usually this is taken care of at the time you purchase the cell phone. Apple's iPhone is an exception to this rule because iPhones have an IP address.

Blackboard services have been restored. UMR customers can now access Blackboard.

For more information, please contact the UMR IT Help Desk at (573) 341-HELP or submit an online Help Request.

Blackboard services are currently unavailable. Customers have reported being unable to enter valid authentication credentials.

UMR IT is currently investigating the underlying cause for this issue.

Please stay tuned for further updates.

For more information, please contact the UMR IT Help Desk at (573) 341-HELP or submit an online Help Request.