Frank's Activity Log

Admin

• Saturn at OK prompt. boot command determined it was unable to see hard disks. After powering it off and reseating the hard drives, it booted up just fine. Nothing of any value in the system logs. Solaris has some deficiencies. Monitoring closely, just in case it is a security problem. Working with the system owner to schedule testing and upgrades
• LDAP feed into Active Directory failed. One of the files had a single comment, which the ldif diff program fails to accept. Re-running by hand.
• Oracle Calendar: Retrieve information about BlackBerry and Palm TREO for a customer
• Group maintenance for batch system on new SIS machine
• more module/schema tweaking for 2.3.19.... found out that slurpd and syncprov do coexist (Whew)
• rack2h filled up... student doing home work

Posted by at 7:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Admin

• Start process of announcing OpenLDAP upgrade to general populace
• Send a note concerning space usage to a ugrad account that is using 29GB of space
• Calendar SR 5093119.992: Update SR to indicate unidbfix worked and ask if they want to close this one or start the upgrade to 10g discussion using this SR
• Replace a footprints group html file for ResLife
• Work on FP Issue=18057 Prog=4 for Account Services
• plan OpenLDAP upgrade

Posted by at 8:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Admin

• Calendar SR 5093119.992: server successfully shutdown and unidbfix run to completion in about four hours
• On Call for the night

Posted by at 11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Admin

• Verify that students in EDLP-295 were reactivated with the updated Banner feed
• Calendar DB_VISTA 10 ERROR:
  • SR 5093119.992 created for this error
  • dbv.log and excerpt from eng.log related to the TID of the dbv.log entry
  • Previous Service Requests (SR's) with this error have required running dbfix with calendar shutdown
  • Sending announcement to IT-ANNOUNCE...
  • Oracle wants the server upgraded to 9.0.4.2.11 (no thanks) and a dbfix run, already scheduled
• Add CIO's account to the quota exception users list.
• DHCP1 crash with memory error
• Prepare for and attend PeopleSoft-LDAP feed meeting

Posted by at 7:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Admin

• Start tracking down who is in charge of walk-in help so I can work to provide training to them to prevent locking more student's accounts due to CIT internal problems
• LDAP: two student employee errors from the HR feed -- seems to always be graduate students this year
• LDAP: OpenLDAP 2.3.19 released... rebuild the 2.3 RPMs... more testing...
• DNS update for Geoff
• Reactivate the AD account for a Temporary employee that left over 21 days ago to allow the departmental data that was stored in the personal "My Documents" folder to be copied out to the S: drive.
• Work on problem with Banner feed... course was tied to fall semester but runs into the spring and students enrolled in the course got dropped from the feed. Emergency fix going in today, permanent recoding fix to be scheduled
• Meet with Info-Ed rep about feeding info from LDAP
• rack2b filesystem full -- staff member backing up their laptop

Posted by at 8:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Admin

• New version of AdiumX downloaded and installed on PowerBook
• Test daily update LDAP job on 2.3.18-9.uvm with delta-syncrepl replication
• LDAP: "Student Employee Error" -- another non-US student who doesn't have a valid US ID Number so have to resort to alternative means of matching the HR and SIS information... (Sigh)
• File ITS 4372 to patch support for building the auditlog overlay into OpenLDAP
• FP Issue=17949 Proj=4: IKON made a config change on the Canon 2870 and now it works! Updating the wiki for Xi-Text to reflect this case.
• rack2d filled up. Moved several people to get enough room to let it grow while I tracked down who was filling it. Emailed the student who was uploading 5GB of music files.
• rack2d filled up a second time... same student... up to 8GB of music files...
• rack2d ... it was the walk-in help technicians... we didn't train them to use /backup (sigh)
• echovermont.org DNS changes
• DNS changes for COM

Development

• Look over white paper on Identity Management and Service-Oriented Architectures... from Oracle... http://www.webbuyersguide.com/bguide/Whitepaper/brief.asp?wpId=MTYzNQ&sitename=webbuyersguide&kc=5090
  • It has a little general overview and then in the last two pages (of the eight) it launches into marketing hype about how Oracle's IdM products are the only ones that really work... sure NOT!

Posted by at 7:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Admin

• Create a blog
• Assist a client services representative on a Eudora to Thunderbird conversion that didn't go so well
• Backport fix for ITS4365 into OpenLDAP 2.3.18 and patch to enable the auditlog overlay
• build and test the -9.uvm version of the 2.3.18 rpm
• Meet the new WrightLine salesman for the area
• Call ServerTech to get pricing for new PDU's in Mann
• More work on FP Issue=17949 Proj=4 -- the Canon 2870 works as an LPR printer with a print queue named "lp". Unfortunately, I'm still unable to get it to print anything. This is very frustrating to have new equipment just appear with no prior notice/testing and then jumping through the hoops to figure out how to support it for the customer. Always makes it look like we don't know our job. Harumpf!... It's still not working!
• Meeting with the CIO

Of Interest

• Discovered that eWeek publishes a weekly podcast... at http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1871476,00.asp?kc=ewnws012306dtx1k0000599

  I have downloaded two weeks worth and will listen to them.. no judgement about whether they are worth anything or not yet.

Posted by at 7:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Admin

• Forward barcode duplications to catcard office
• Verify DOS with delta-syncrepl in OpenLDAP 2.3.18
• FP ISSUE=17940 PROJ=4: confirm that README* is ignored when generating the index from a directory by the configuration file.
• File ITS #4364 concerning the DOS possible with delta-syncrepl in OL 2.3.18
• Update email virtuser for echovermont per request
• Update samba config on sis machine for new employee
• Download and burn the RHEL4-U2-i386-AS iso's
• CATalyst consultant account magic done
• FP Issue=17949 Proj=4: Added a new printer to Xi-Text and changed the address of another one
• rack1b filesystem full -- moved two accounts that hadn't been accessed in 6 months
• ITS #4364 was fixed in HEAD. Download changes and apply to 2.3.18 code. testing shows that the master server no longer segment faults with the scenario, but there's no indication on the consumer that anything is wrong, other than no updates happen

Posted by at 8:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Admin

• Two "Student Employee" errors in the nightly LDAP directory update. Found their graduate student info from the Banner feed and added the employee information to it
• Removed the special coding for PeopleSoft since the schema loading is complete

Posted by at 7:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Admin

• LDAP -- implement delta-syncrepl... but how do I limit what gets copied???
• CATalyst -- configure ldap servers as requested...twice
• Meetings.... move the datacenter planning project and cabling the myranet on the VACC
• Create three blogs

Posted by at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Admin

• LDAP ... more tweaking on the 2.3.18 code to support calendar's use of the uid attribute as well as the main UVM servers changes that need to happen to it.
• S.C. spotted in cafe and chatted with
• Follow-up with SOS about datacenter temperature problem last night
• LDAP - testing slurpd vs syncrepl in 2.3.18...
• Monitoring the number of httpd connections to webct... see the average...
• Generate the first list of zoo.uvm.edu accounts to be removed in June

Posted by at 8:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Admin

• Update Oracle TAR 4947672.993 -- We have not found another system with the install problem. However, I did agree to allow Oracle to "soft close" the issue.
• OpenLDAP release 2.3.18... rebuild the RPMs....
• Walked a customer through finding the spam folder for yesterday's problem
• Created a blog
• Reset a blog password
• OpenLDAP 2.3.18 ...
  • test the syncrepl update... it seems slow...
    1. 25 minutes to make all the changes on the master and another 36 minutes before the replica was caught up.

Problems

• WebCT logins hung for about 5 minutes... server hit max clients... No clues in access/error logs other than time stamp order is shot starting at 10:54... no clues in system logs either...

Posted by at 8:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Admin

• Forward barcode problems (multiple barcodes for a single person) to the catcard office
• Munge the webct CE 6.0 SP1 install code to again ignore the OS of the Oracle Server... isn't Oracle Oracle?
• Paging system confused again -- it really doesn't like it when the paging company modem doesn't provide the correct input
• Telephone meeting with InfoEd vendor about external authentication
• More work assisting with the WebCT 6.0 SP1 upgrade
• More work on OpenLDAP 2.3.17 (the new STABLE release) for RHEL3 and 4

Problems

• SPAM filters:
  • We lowered the threshold for SPAM headers to be added to emails from 20% to 1% last Thursday. Today we discovered that 175 people had actually set their spam filter to 0% -- we manually increased their filters to 50% and sent them an email informing them of the issue.
• Account aliases:
  • It was discoverd (because one was created) that if the Account first.last alias differs from the actual NetID in case only, that the code was attempting to add values to the local address attribute that LDAP considered to be identical. Code was modified to not do that anymore!

Posted by at 7:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Although it was a holiday, someone had my home phone number and so I got to:

Crisis Management

• CATalyst FootPrints project was utterly destroyed
  • It was discovered at about noon that the project files were destroyed at 2:01PM Friday afternoon.
  • Since the vendor was also taking the day off as a holiday (Martin Luther King Day here in the states), an issue seeking assistance was opened but no response was expected until Tuesday
  • However, one kind soul was apparently watching the queues and responded with some suggestions.
  • We extrapolated based on the removal of fields from the FootPrints web forms and the corresponding fact that the same fields were also missing from the MySQL tables and did a full restore of the FootPrints database on disk and in MySQL from the Friday morning backup.
  • Three hours of hair pulling and IMing and it was back to Friday morning.

Posted by at 5:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Admin

• Assist Mike debugging an LDAP update failure at 4:15am
  • A student with a hyphenated last name was entered with spaces around the hyphen which caused the code to generate things that were not valid (like spaces in an sn attribute)
  • added code to cope
• Assist library worker with mail client configuration on their office machine to match their home machine (hint: both have to specify the mail/ directory for the folders)
• Create a few blogs
• Assist a new blogger
• Attend a three hour meeting about Tech Park
• Give up on WebCT upgrade.... :(

Posted by at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Admin

• Heated discussion with a member of Client Services about the importance of following the vendor's (namely Oracle) directions to resolve problems when expecting the vendor to support the resulting mess
• create blogs...
• Modify the errpt.ksh on the new AIX fileserver to ignore errorid 573790AA
• Add MX/CNAME entries for wildquest.net to allow godaddy's mail redirection to work

Projects

• LDAP
  • More work on getting 2.3 built with 2.0 libraries for RHEL3
  • New release 2.3.17... should fix 2.3.14 performance problems....

Posted by at 8:27 AM | Permalink

Admin

• Userid/Group ownership issue on Banner system
• LDAP: correct Reactivation/Creation error from Saturday morning
• LDAP: code a fix for the bug that caused the Reactivation/Creation error.
• create several blogs as requested
• Assist with debugging a macintosh lab login problem.
• links and password change on new banner system
• Assist with debugging a windows/samba problem

Projects

• LDAP
  • fix up mini-httpd so it actually detaches itself from the terminal
  • Install new package complete with logrotate script on ldap.uvm.edu machines
  • Update the skipit and ldap_check scripts to check for mini-httpd
  • Notify team and update the LDAP wiki entry.
  • Work on getting openldap-2.3.14/2.0.27 rpm built for RHEL3

Posted by at 7:39 AM | Permalink

Admin

• Install new group file on footprint server
• Calendar -- Outlook connector questions
• LDAP -- provide secondary loadbalancer check (mini-httpd)
• UPS monitoring software on new banner machine
• Calendar -- web conference with Oracle Support and Development to track down problem. Unfortunately, this computer had the version where re-installing version 9 and then upgrading to version 10 fixes the problem.
• Calendar -- running the cal_win_xxx.exe file with flags allows a detailed log file to be created...:
  • /v"/l NameOfFile"

Posted by at 9:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Admin

• Partner with ACS to convert the remaining scripts from scripts.uvm.edu before the machine dies
• Determine impact to WebCT 6 rollout by delay of Oracle db server replacement
• Fix firewall on Oracle Application Service test server
• Talk with SOS about the Liebert UPS failure
• Connect Windows Laptop to AD and duplicate ERROR 1714 Oracle Calendar problem... but not quite :(
• More work on OpenLDAP 2.3.x
• research fastest scp cipher to speed up copying data from old Oracle system to new one

Administrative

• All hands meeting with new CIO

Posted by at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Admin

• Convert HRS jobcode of "N" to "New Hire"
• Oracle TAR 4947672.993 -- Now Oracle is willing to work with any Windows machine that is having the Error 1714 problem...
  • Searching...
  • Found one... limited availability... having laptop re-imaged too
  • Oracle webconference scheduled for Monday 2pm
• Samba problem on oracle development machine -- user password issue
• echovermont.org mail tables updated
• Prep for TSG team meeting
• OpenLDAP 2.3 testing

Posted by at 9:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Admin

• Back from being sick...
• Deal with Cavrak's problem of the day: http://trunks.secondfoundation.org/files/psychic.swf
  • With Kent's aid we figured out it is a math trick
• Continue working on OpenLDAP 2.3 testing
• sendpage got wedged again... used kermit to verify the modem was working and then restarted sendpage... all pages cleared
• Oracle TAR 4947672.993: Oracle now wants a web conference after we've reimaged the problem machine... Grrr!

Posted by at 8:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)