ISG News has posted a new item, 'General IT services downtime on Wed Sep 11
17:00'
In order to upgrade the operating system on several core infrastructure servers
of the Department, we schedule a general maintenance downtime on
Wednesday September 11, starting at 17:00, lasting for several hours.
Most services will be affected and unavailable during that time, as they require
an authentication with your D-PHYS account (email, file server, print server,
managed workstations). Note that, even though you will not be able to check your
emails or send new ones, all incoming mails will be received and safely
delivered to your inbox afterwards.
Please make sure to save all open documents before 17:00 on that day.
Since we will also change the way file server mounts are authenticated, users
who haven't updated their passwords in a very long time might not be able to
mount their home directories or group shares after the migration. If you run
into this problem on Thursday morning, please first change your password. If the
issue persists, contact us.
We will post an update when things are back to normal.
You may view the latest post at
https://nic.phys.ethz.ch/news/2013/09/03/general-it-services-downtime-on-we…
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Christian Herzog
daduke(a)phys.ethz.ch
ISG News has posted a new item, 'Glitch in Virus Filter Delayed some Mails'
Yesterday (August 21), between about 13:42 and 21:25, the virus filter on our
mail server flagged some legitimate mails as containing a virus. The reason was
a bad signature in the virus database that came in via the automatic updates.
This signature was automatically removed by a subsequent update.
Like all viruses these false positives were quarantined. Once we understood the
problem we could reinject them back into the regular processing of mails. If you
were affected by this, you should receive the mails shortly.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
You may view the latest post at
https://nic.phys.ethz.ch/news/2013/08/22/glitch-in-virus-filter-delayed-som…
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Elmar Heeb
heeb(a)phys.ethz.ch
ISG News has posted a new item, 'End of Life: Windows XP'
Microsoft will end the extended support cycle for Windows XP on April 8, 2014.
This means that after this date no more security patches or maintenance updates
will be released by Microsoft. For all practical purposes, Windows XP will be
dead after this date.
We at the Physics Department are going to face some problems when XP reaches its
end of life:
Our client computer network is directly exposed to the Internet, thus we depend
on a continuous availability of operating system patches. Furthermore we are
bound to ETH's Acceptable Use Policy for Telematics Resources (BOT), which
orders every system owner to install OS upgrades to avoid security issues. Since
for Windows XP no more security patches will be available after April 9, 2014,
from then on it is not possible to fulfill the BOT requirements and to ensure
overall system security. Running Windows XP connected to the ETH network will
become a security issue after the April 8, 2014 and will not be tolerated by
ETH's network security.
A network scan unveiled several dozen Windows XP machines still connected to our
client computer network. One reason may be that measurement instrument
controller software still depends on that version of Windows. Also old hardware
might be in use which does not run well with a newer operating system.
Regarding these facts, we would like to ask you to start analyzing your Windows
XP machines and the dependencies and reasons of the existence of this operating
system. The following points provide some steps and hints about the process to
eliminate or upgrade current Windows XP machines.
Check whether there are Windows XP machines still in use in your computer
ecosystem and analyze whether a software or hardware component really depends on
this version of Windows.
In case your Windows XP installation is needed to control specific lab equipment
and you are locked to this OS version, please check with the manufacturer of the
equipment whether new software or drivers are available or a hardware upgrade
allows to migrate this Windows XP computer to a newer version of Windows.
If an upgrade to a newer Windows release generates extra cost, now would be a
good time to spend this money to keep your systems and equipment up to date and
to have a stable environment without running into IT security concerns in the
near future.
Please draw up any possible cost to the 2014 budget so new hardware/software can
be ordered prior to the end of life date of Windows XP and the system can be
upgraded in advance.
If you face a situation in which it is not possible to upgrade to a higher
version of Windows for technical or financial reasons, please contact us. We can
help you analyze your specific situation and can try to find particular
solutions to isolate your Windows XP installation from the network or maybe find
a way to upgrade to a higher OS release.
You are welcome to contact us in any case of questions or concerns relating the
Windows XP end of life topic. We can provide help to migrate away from Windows
XP as swift as possible so you can keep your systems secure and stable.
Please note that after April 8, 2014, Windows XP will not be tolerated on the
ETH network and we will be required to enforce this rule.
You may view the latest post at
https://nic.phys.ethz.ch/news/2013/07/16/end-of-life-windows-xp/
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Thomas Berchtold
thomber(a)phys.ethz.ch
ISG News has posted a new item, 'New cloud storage service'
In the wake of Prism and Tempora I guess this comes exactly at the right time:
In collaboration with our colleagues at Informatikdienste we are proud to open
the beta test to a new ETH-wide cloud storage service: polybox.
If you've ever used dropbox et al., you've probably come to appreciate the
convenience of seamlessly sharing data from one computer or even mobile device
to another via a cloud storage service. Effortless though this might be, you
always have to keep in mind that your data will live ''somewhere out there'' in
the cloud, and as we've learned the hard way in the last few weeks, the audience
looking at your data is often larger than we think.
With polybox, this is fundamentally different: your data never leaves ETH's
servers unless you carry it away yourself. In contrast to basically all other
cloud storage services out there, polybox is therefore suited for storing data
you don't want everybody and their cousin to read.
The service is now open to beta testers and provides 5 GB of cloud storage to
every ETH student and employee. You can access your data via web frontend or
install the handy sync clients that come with it. Please note that the
documentation still lists some open issues (last two links in German) in the
beta version, so please be prepared to provide feedback if you encounter any
errors.
Please also note that polybox uses your n.ethz account and not your physics
account and hence has no relation to your data at D-PHYS.
You may view the latest post at
https://nic.phys.ethz.ch/news/2013/06/28/new-cloud-storage-service/
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Christian Herzog
daduke(a)phys.ethz.ch
ISG News has posted a new item, 'HIT Building: Electric Power Interruption on
Monday, 15th of July'
Due to a test relating the electric power supply of the HIT building there will
be a planed interruption from 6:30am to 9:30am on Monday the 15th of July.
Please note that the whole HIT building will be without electric power during
this time (The server room HIT D 13 is excluded from this interruption).
Shutdown your computer and switch off (use main switch if available or unplug)
your electrical devices in advance to avoid local data loss and help prevent
start-up peaks when electric power is switched back on.
You may view the latest post at
https://nic.phys.ethz.ch/news/2013/06/24/hit-building-electric-power-interr…
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Thomas Berchtold
thomber(a)phys.ethz.ch
ISG News has posted a new item, 'Hostname change for D-PHYS print server'
Historically the D-PHYS print server has been accessible under the host name
printer.ethz.ch. As it turns out, this name violates ID's DNS rules and they
have requested we change it. We therefore have modified all references pointing
to printer.ethz.ch to now address printer.phys.ethz.ch. We have incorporated
some technical solutions that redirect many connections automatically, and also
our managed workstations have been migrated, but there might be individual
configurations that need manual intervention. So if printing stops working after
Wednesday evening, you might have to change the print server address -- see our
printing documentation.
If you are used to typing just printer instead of the now longer full host name,
you may want to change to domain search list on your computer, too. For details
about how to do this, see our documentation in the wiki for Windows and for
Linux.
You may view the latest post at
https://nic.phys.ethz.ch/news/2013/05/28/hostname-change-for-d-phys-print-s…
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Axel Beckert
beckert(a)phys.ethz.ch
ISG News has posted a new item, 'Short Mail, License and Condor Server Downtime
on Thursday Evening'
We will perform a maintenance reboot of several infrastructure servers on
Thursday, 16th of May 2013, starting around 5pm. This will cause a downtime of
all e-mail related services (receiving + sending mail, accessing webmail and
non-cached mails) as well as the license server for IDL, the control server for
Condor grid computing, and most hosted virtual machines.
We expect the downtimes to be short and sequential.
You may view the latest post at
https://nic.phys.ethz.ch/news/2013/05/15/short-mail-license-and-condor-serv…
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Axel Beckert
beckert(a)phys.ethz.ch
ISG News has posted a new item, 'ISG Field Trip'
On Monday, March 25, ISG will be on an all-day field trip to CERN. No mails,
tickets or phone calls will be answered on that day. We'll catch up with your
requests on Tuesday.
You may view the latest post at
https://nic.phys.ethz.ch/news/2013/03/19/isg-field-trip/
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Christian Herzog
daduke(a)phys.ethz.ch
ISG News has posted a new item, 'Network Outage of Ubuntu Workstations'
Last night the regular daily software update on the managed Ubuntu workstations
removed the network-manager package. This left most of the workstations
unusable. We are working to restore the network connectivity.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
You may view the latest post at
https://nic.phys.ethz.ch/news/2013/03/08/network-outage-of-ubuntu-workstati…
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Elmar Heeb
heeb(a)phys.ethz.ch
ISG News has posted a new item, 'Notes on warranty (Garantie vs.
Gewährleistung)'
This post might help to clarify some questions related to the warranty
conditions of new hardware. It is the result of internal inquiries we performed
in reply to customer requests. Skip if you're not interested.
Switzerland, like other European countries, knows two forms of liability a
vendor has to/can offer to clients of its hardware products: Gewährleistung and
Garantie.
Gewährleistung is mandated by law and covers basic liability if a piece of
hardware fails. In Switzerland, Gewährleistung was just extended from 12 to 24
months on Jan 1st, 2013. This means that for the first two years, any defect
whose cause was already present at the time of purchase has to be covered by the
vendor. As you can probably guess, the part in italic can be the crucial one.
Garantie is a voluntary service offered by most, but not all vendors. Its
conditions can be pretty freely chosen by the vendor, unlike Gewährleistung
where the terms are given by law. Garantie can cover a wider range of defects
and it can also be a service you have to pay for.
Now how does this matter to you? Let's take a current real life example: you'd
like to buy a new Apple MacBook Pro 13". Right now, you have a number of
interesting options:
Neptun: CHF 1305.-, 2 years of Gewährleistung (by law), 3 years of Apple
Garantie (price of Apple Care included)
Dataquest: CHF 1240.-, 2 years of Gewährleistung (by law), 2 years of
Dataquest Garantie. Additionally, you can pay CHF 99.- for a third year of
Dataquest Garantie.
Apple EDU Store: CHF 1268.-, 2 years of Gewährleistung (by law), 1 year of
Apple Garantie. Additionally, you can pay CHF 210.- for another 2 years of Apple
Garantie. IDES offers the same to ETH employees for CHF 195.-
It's hard to tell if the conditions of the additional Garantie are really more
accommodating than those of the mandatory Gewährleistung. Wear parts like the
battery for example are typically covered by neither. Harddisks on the other
hand (most common failing part in a laptop) should be covered by both. In the
end the best option will also depend on your usage pattern and the expected life
time of your device. Regardless of the type of warranty you have, you should
always report any problem you'd like to get fixed as soon as possible.
Sources:
Apple warranty conditions
Computer World article
You may view the latest post at
https://nic.phys.ethz.ch/news/2013/02/19/notes-on-warranty-garantie-vs-gewa…
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Christian Herzog
daduke(a)phys.ethz.ch