Network Manager’s Meeting
April 5, 2001
2:00 PM

COMMITTEE ELECTIONS

Presented by Leonard McAbee

• Six nominees for Chair were presented. The nominees were:
• Joe Dance
• Michael Dollar
• Ann Smith
• Rick Jordan
• Troy Travis
• Ronni Wilkinson
• The ballot also included a "write in" line. It was decided that nominations from the floor would be accepted in lieu of a write in and added to the ballot. There were no nominations from the floor.
• Ballots were distributed and the group was instructed to vote for only one nominee. The nominee receiving the most votes would be elected as chair and the nominee receiving the next highest number of votes would be elected as co-chair.
• Marked ballots were collected in official ballot boxes (which looked suspiciously similar to trash cans) and counted by Leonard McAbee and Matt Eskins.
• RESULTS:
• Chairperson:Michael Dollar
• Co-Chair:Ronni Wilkerson

PORT SCAN OF ALL UNIVERSITY COMPUTERS (change to agenda)

Presented by Ronni Wilkinson

• A port scan of all USC computers will be conducted soon. This scan will include mail servers, web services, DNS servers, etc.
• Pat O’Keefe is providing lab machines for this purpose. Anyone wishing to know the IP address(es) of the machines doing the scan should email Ronni at ronni@CS.SC.EDU.
• Requests for additional services to be scanned included FTP, Telnet, and Napster.
• Ronni will send email via NetManag to notify everyone when the scan begins. The results will be posted to a web site.
• Ronni also indicated that another DDOS had occurred and as a result, incoming services to the dorms had been shut down. Because some dorms share subnets with administrative areas, Ronni requested that anyone experiencing problems notify her so administrative services can be restored if necessary.

AUTHENTICATION

Presented by Bill Crayton

• Bill displayed a graphic of containers supported by CTS. It was based on Monday’s (4/2/01) data and showed the progress of container clean-up.
• Bill clarified the following items concerning the Authentication project:
• Only preferred UserIDs for students, staff, and faculty will be inserted. These are the IDs used by Blackboard and GEM.
• For users with both student and employee IDs, only the employee ID will be inserted.
• We will not go into containers to insert accounts.
• Of associated IDs, only those that can be found by exact match will be maintained. Exact match IDs must be 8 characters in length or shorter.
• Verification sheets must be carefully verified. All information and all IDs must be checked.
• For userIDs in the "both" category (student and employee): If a student is hired for temporary work but is primarily a student, Bill suggested putting the ID in a filtered container. If the student will be primarily staff, the Authentication team should be notified since an ID will exist on the student side of the tree and will need to be deleted. If the ID of someone in the "both" category is not the user’s preferred ID, one will be created for that user.
• The "other" category includes unresolved or unresolvable IDs. These may include administrators, someone who is neither student nor staff, or may be the result of a miskeyed social security number.
• Bill responded to confusion expressed by many concerning the resetting/changing of passwords once the Authentication is turned on. The easiest to handle this is all users to reset/change passwords through VIP. Exclusions to this may be allowed if NDS is used to log in and the preferred username is used and the container is clean.
• It was noted that the VIP password reset/change feature is not yet active and will not be active until the Authentication system goes online in May.
• A smooth switch is anticipated but everyone is encouraged to let the Authentication team know of any problems, questions, or concerns.
• Bill commented on NetWare v 6. The release is anticipated in September 2001. The new version is not scheduled for use by the University until it is released and has been tested.

NOTIFICATION PROJECT

Presented by Dan Gallagher

• The general consensus of the last taskforce meeting was that everyone was happy with the notification system.
• The taskforce requested redundancy in the system, which is currently web based, in case a system outage prevented access to notification. There is a need for an automated response system and outages would need to be added to voice mail. Jim Curtis is working on this. The taskforce will meet again to decide the details of setting up the redundant system for notification.
• A challenge exists in how to get notification to students. The current system is design for use by administration and faculty. The taskforce will get input from students.

Dan spoke briefly on wireless data communication around campus. He noted that wireless communication is being deployed by various departments. He will provide a write up in the next couple of weeks via NetManag that outlines our deployment plan, including issues of controlling access. He assured the group that precautions have been taken to ensure no interference with existing wireless networks during Showcase 2001 on Saturday.

Dan also made Cisco product documentation available to the group.

MATRIX REPORT

Presented by Harry Catoe

• Harry Catoe and Dan Gallagher championed a project to have an independent contractor assess the current WAN and provide a detailed report of the current status as well as suggestions for improvements. Matrix was hired to do this.
• The results of their assessment can be found in a 135-page report. Harry has a copy of the report and will stay after the meeting to allow anyone who wants to an opportunity to review it.
• Some interesting highlights from the report included:
• A definite need for better communication between CSD and other departments.
• Napster represented 30% on average of the traffic out (average of regional campuses and the Columbia campus.) This represents approximately 1/3 of the bandwidth being used. Napster also peaked at 50% of all traffic around 6:00 PM.
• Regular Internet traffic averaged 39% and peaked at 44%.
• Everything else represented a small percentage of the Internet traffic. IPX was a very, very small percentage.

• The report is available on the web but is password protected due to the proprietary nature of it and the sensitive information included. Anyone requesting access to the document should contact Harry Catoe.
• Dan Gallagher noted that the Matrix recommendations were not in priority order.
• The major recommendations of the report involved configuration, malfunctioning equipment, and code revisions.

SACS Visit

Presented by Rick Jordan

• The SACS team completed their on-campus review on Thursday, April 5. Initial reports are that they were impressed with the wireless, impressed with the network speed, and impressed with being housed off campus and still being able to get a signal. All else is unknown at this point.
• Troy Travis stated that the team had conducted an exit interview with President Palms and others invited by the President to participate. The initial word appears to be that there were no major issues, no surprises. The SACS team has made recommendations.
• Troy offered a note of thanks and commendation for the impressive "breadth of input from IT, instruction, and administration" during the self-assessment and SACS review.

The new chair, Michael Dollar will be responsible for the next meeting that will be held on May 3, 2001.

The meeting adjourned at 3:05 PM.