Archived computing news and announcements

OS upgrade on Sesfs improves compatibility with Mac OS X 10.5
The March 31 operating system upgrade of the School of Earth Sciences file server, sesfs.stanford.edu, fixed problems of compatibility among files created by different versions of Mac OS X, and problems saving files from Mac OS X 10.5 connections. An essential part of this fix is the presence of the special file com.apple.smb.streams.off file at the top level of every file share. Do not remove this file, or you will create problems for Mac OS X 10.5 connections.

School servers and network will be down on Mon, Dec 22, 2008
School computer network and server outages are planned for Monday, December 22, 2008 (during the university winter closure) to perform needed upgrades.

No IT support in Earth Sciences Dec 20, 2008 to Jan 4, 2009
The School of Earth Sciences will be observing the university winter closure from December 20, 2008 through January 4, 2009. In general, there will be no information technology services or support available in Earth Sciences during this period.

Upgraded G.R.I.D. lab computers ready for use
Computers in the School's G.R.I.D. lab in Mitchell A59 have been upgraded and are ready for use. See full information about the new computers, available software, login procedures, data storage, known problems, etc., on the lab website:

http://pangea.stanford.edu/facilities/grid/

Pangea logins end Sept 10; files transfer to new server sesfs
User logins to the pangea.stanford.edu server will permanently end at 5 pm on September 10, 2008. All files on pangea will be migrated that evening to our new high performance, high capacity School of Earth Sciences file server, named sesfs.stanford.edu.

Beginning September 11, 2008, logins to pangea will be rejected. You must connect directly to the new sesfs.stanford.edu file server to access directories as network file shares. You may also connect via the sftp protocol to the new sestransfer.stanford.edu server to perform file transfers.

AppleTalk and pangea service terminations completed
The advertised termination of AppleTalk support on the Earth Sciences network and elimination of obsolete services on pangea has been completed.

AppleTalk support on Earth Sciences network ends April 7
The obsolete AppleTalk protocol will no longer be supported on the Earth Sciences network beginning April 7. Existing Macintosh printer setups that use AppleTalk will break, and must be recreated to use TCP/IP instead, according to the instructions in the news article.

Obsolete pangea services end on April 7
Rarely used and obsolete services provided by pangea will be terminated on April 7, 2008. See the news item for details on whether you are affected by the termination of:

• The pangea "msgs" electronic bulletin board.
• Print spooling for Windows and Unix/Linux workstations.
• AppleShare file sharing for "Classic" Mac OS (the pangea Aufs server).
• PC/NFS access to pangea files for Windows workstations.
• Time-sharing computing cycles for teaching or research.

Pangea and IT service outages during winter break
Stanford University will be closed December 22, 2007 through January 2, 2008. In general, there will be no information technology services or support available in Earth Sciences during that period. The pangea server will be down all day on Friday, December 28, 2007, for annual hardware and software maintenance. There will be no electrical power (or computer network) in Mitchell Building on Thursday, December 27, 2007.

Email service on pangea terminated on November 1, 2007
As promised in news items and numerous email announcements, email service on pangea was terminated on November 1, 2007. Pangea is forwarding email that it receives, or returning it to sender if there is no forwarding address. Forwarding service will end on June 30, 2008.

**Act Now** Pangea email services END November 1, 2007!
In order to save limited staff time and finances for more important IT services, we are phasing out local email service on pangea. Local email service for existing pangea accounts ends on November 1, 2007. New accounts created since July, 2007, do not have any local email service at all. Everyone using a pangea email address must switch to another email account by November 1.

Plain telnet and ftp service on pangea ends July 16, 2007
The insecure, plain text versions of the network connection services telnet and ftp will be disabled on the School of Earth Sciences server, pangea, on July 16, 2007. The secure alternatives ssh and scp or sftp must be used instead, starting on July 16. Although ftp logins with normal pangea accounts will end, the anonymous ftp service will continue on pangea.

Earth Sciences network firewall tightened on June 25, 2007
A final change to the Earth Sciences network firewall rules at 9:00 a.m. on June 25, 2007, blocks all incoming connections to random TCP ports. Only the connections listed in the Earth Sciences firewall ruleset will be allowed. This change will increase security, but may block many peer-to-peer file sharing programs.

Improved anonymous ftp service on pangea
"Anonymous ftp" is a method for allowing anyone on the Internet to access files in a special directory on pangea's disks. It can be used to distribute files to colleagues or collect files from them. This service has been recently improved so it can be used without any special setup.

Computer network firewall coming on May 30!
A "firewall" will be enabled on May 30 to protect the Earth Sciences computer network from hacker probes of insecure services and self-propagating virus and worm attacks. Incoming connections will be filtered; outgoing connections will not. Average computer users will see no change; power users and research groups may find some services on their Earth Sciences computers are now blocked.