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NRAO-NM Computing News

 

 

Sep. 1, 2016 - Retiring some machines

The machines cv-post-a, cv-post-b, cv-pipe-a, cfa-pipe-1 and cfa-pipe-2 will be retired by the end of September, 2016.

Aug. 9, 2016 - Reboot of ssh/login server

Our login server suffered an unexpected error this afternoon and had to be rebooted. We appologize for the inconvenience.

Feb. 2, 2016 - Router Replacement

Our connection to the Internet will be down Today, Feb. 2, from Noon to 1pm (MST) as we replace our main router in the DSOC. This will affect all network traffic in and out of the NRAO in NM. Networking between the DSOC and the VLA should remain up but the VLA telephones will be unavailable. Networking to the CV, GB and VLBA sites will also be unavailable during this time.

August 16, 2014 - Computing Down for UPS work

The DSOC computer room will be without power on Saturday August 16, 2014 starting at 8:00 am and ending at 5:00 pm. During this time, no access to webservers, fileservers or networking will be provided in the DSOC.

November 7, 2013 - Upgrade of Java for all Linux machines

On November 13, 2013 at 10am, all Linux machines will be upgraded to a newer version of java from Oracle (1.7.0_40). This applies to both the Firefox plugin and the current version in /usr/local/java.

September 28, 2013 - All DSOC Computing Down 7am to 2pm

Power to the DSOC building will be out the morning of Saturday September 28th. All computing services (Lustre, email, web, etc) will be down starting at 7am and I expect services to return by about 2pm. This effects all computing services in the DSOC building. VLA power and observiing will not be affected.

July 10, 2013 - Upgrade of Java for all Linux machines

Today, at noon, all Linux machines were upgraded to the latest Java from Oracle (1.7.0_25). This applies to both the Firefox plugin and the current version in /usr/local/java.

July 3, 2013 - Reboot of login server (gygax)

The computer known as gygax, login, ssh and linux, will be rebooted Wednesday July 3, at noon Mountain for an OS upgrade. It should only be down for approximately 10 minutes. All connections to gygax will be terminated and no new connections will be accepted during the upgrade. Please logout of gygax before Wednesday July 3.

June 26, 2013 - Upgrade of Java for all Windows and Windows 7 Policy Changes

All Windows computers will be upgraded from Java 1.6 Update 33 to Java 1.7 Update 22 starting on Wednesday at 12:00PM. The new versions will only install when the user logs off or reboots their computer.

After the Java upgrade, Windows 7 users will also see these changes:

  • Switch User will no longer be available
  • The Run command will be added to the Start Menu

June 5, 2013 - Upgrade of Firefox and Thunderbird for Windows

All Windows computers will be upgraded from Firefox 17.0.3 to 17.0.6 and Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 to 17.0.6 starting on Wednesday at 12:00PM. The new versions will only install when the user logs off or reboots their computer.

Lightning, a calendar plugin for Thunderbird, will be installed as part of these upgrades.

May 8, 2013 - Upgrade of Firefox for Linux

Firefox has been upgraded from 7.0.1 to 17.0.3 for all Linux machines.

April 2, 2013 - Upgrade of Java for Linux

On Tuesday April 2 at 10am, we will changed the following links:

/usr/local/java/bin
/usr/local/java/java7
/usr/local/java/current

for all RHEL5 Linux machines to point to jdk1.7.0_17, thus upgrading java from 1.6.0_31 to 1.7.0_17. The ALMA link of /usr/java/default was not affected and the version of java that ALMA uses, jdk1.6.0_20, will remain.

This change may break running java programs so please restart them after 10am on April 2.

March 14, 2013 - Upgrade of Firefox and Flash Player for Windows

All Windows computers will be upgraded from Firefox 7.0.1 to Firefox 17.0.3 and from Flash Player 11.1.102.62 to Flash Player 11.6.602.171 starting on Thursday at 12:00PM. The new versions will only install when the user logs off or reboots their computer.

August 14, 2012 - Upgrade of Java and Microsoft Office

All Windows computers will be upgraded from Java 1.6.0_31 to Java 1.6.0_33 and Microsoft Office 2007 will be updated to Microsoft Office 2010 starting Wednesday at 6PM, August 15. Windows users should log off their computers but leave them turned on (even if you are at the VLA) before leaving work on August 15. The upgrade of software will occur overnight.

April 18, 2012 - Upgrade of Java, Flash and Internet Explorer

Java has been upgraded on both Linux and Windows platforms to 1.6.0_31 and Flash has been upgraded to 11.1.102.62. Internet Explorer has been upgraded from 7 to 8 on Windows platforms.

February 2, 2012 - Many printers have been moved and renamed

The following printers have been moved to new locations and renamed. Their new name is also their new location.
  • aoc332-> aoc286
  • aocw125-> aoc244
  • ps305-> aoc332
  • aoc352-> aoc324
  • aoc352c-> aoc324c
  • aoc352w-> aoc324w

August 10, 2011 - FileZilla 3.5 FTP/SFTP Client for Windows

Beginning Wednesday, August 10, FileZilla 3.5, an FTP/SFTP client for Windows, will automatically install the next time you reboot your Windows computer on the NRAO network. This should only take a short time so please do not shut off your computer while FileZilla is installing.

Please see the Goldbook documentation on FileZilla for more information.

July 20, 2011 - Upgrade VPN Software to Cisco Anyconnect

We have received word that the older Cisco VPN software will no longer function when connecting to Chile as of August 1, 2011. Please contact the Helpdesk to get the new version installed on your computer.

July 20, 2011 - Java 1.6.0.26 Upgrade for Linux and Windows

Windows computers will upgrade to Java 1.6.0.26 after a reboot beginning at noon MDT on Wednesday, July 20, 2011; this upgrade should take less than five minutes. Because this upgrade fixes important security issues, please reboot your Windows computer by the end of Thursday, July 21, 2011. RHEL5 Linux computers will upgrade to Java 1.6.0.26 at noon MDT on Wednesday, July 20, 2011. After this time, please restart any Java application to ensure you get the new version and to keep your current version from crashing or failing to work properly.

June 29, 2011 - Flash 10.3.181.26 for Windows

Beginning Wednesday, June 29, Flash 10.1.102.64 will be upgraded to Flash 10.3.181.26 when you reboot your Windows computer. This should only take a short time so please do not shut off your computer until the Flash upgrade has finished.

February 25, 2011 - VPN hardware/software change

The NRAO is installing new VPN client software from Cisco called "AnyConnect" on machines that need VPN access and has already done so on many existing machines. This new version is incompatible with the VPN concentrator in NM (vpn.aoc.nrao.edu). Because of this, and known stability issues, the NM concentrator has been turned off and will no longer be used. The new AnyConnect VPN software only uses the concentrator in Charlottesville (vpn.cv.nrao.edu).

If you find you are still using the old VPN software and not AnyConnect please contact the Helpdesk to get the new version.

Note: The old VPN software is still required if one needs to connect to the concentrator in Chile.

January 22, 2011 - NetApp filer upgrade completed

We have replaced our main file server, filehost, with a newer, larger mode. As a side effect, the default user quota has been increased from 8GB to 16GB and the total user space increased from 1.2TB (terabytes) to 2TB with another 2TB in reserve.

January 5, 2011 - Tortoise SVN Subversion Client Available for Windows

Tortoise SVN 1.6.12, a Subversion client, is now available for Windows users. Subversion is a source code management control system in common use here at NRAO. Tortoise SVN is a Windows Explorer plug-in. When installed you will notice additional options available when right-clicking on files/folders. If you would like to have Tortoise SVN to be installed on your Windows computer, please contact the Helpdesk.

January 5, 2011 - Flash 10.1.102.64 and EMET 2.0.0.3 for Windows

Beginning Wednesday, Jan. 5, Flash will automatically upgrade to version 10.1.102.64 and EMET 2.0.0.3, a security program, will install the next time you reboot your Windows computer on the NRAO network. This should only take a short time so please do not shut off your computer until the Flash upgrade and the EMET install has finished.

October 18, 2010 - Adobe Acrobat Reader/Professional 9.4 and Symantec Endpoint Protection upgrade for Windows

Beginning Monday, October 18, at the end of the work day, Acrobat Pro 9.2, Acrobat Reader 9.2, and Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) 11.0.5 will automatically upgrade to Acrobat Pro 9.4, Acrobat Reader 9.4, and SEP 11.0.6a when you reboot your Windows computer. These upgrades will take between 1/2 and one hour so please do not shut off your computer until they have finished.

Computers at the VLA that are shut off at night will begin these upgrades when they are turned on the next work day.

October 1, 2010 - Flash 10.1.85.3 for Windows

Windows computers will upgrade from Flash 10.1.53.64 to Flash 10.1.85.3 after a reboot beginning at noon MDT, October 1. Because these upgrades fix important security issues, please reboot your Windows computer by the end of Friday, October 1.

September 6, 2010 - Autodesk 2011

Windows computers with Autodesk 2010 will be upgraded to Autodesk 2011. Users with Autodesk 2010 installed on their computers will be notified through email to first reboot to uninstall the old product and then to reboot again to install the new version.

July 17, 2010 - Downtime for Windows Servers

All NRAO-NM Windows servers will be unavailable Saturday, July 17, 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. MDT. This downtime will affect all NRAO-NM Windows users including aoctsa users. This will not affect NRAO-NM Linux/Unix or Mac server/workstation users.

During this downtime, all Windows users should log off of their computer; all users must log off of aoctsa.

June 23, 2010 - Flash 10.1.53.64 for Windows

Windows computers will upgrade from Flash 10.0.32.18 to Flash 10.1.53.64 after a reboot beginning at noon MDT, June 23. Because these upgrades fix important security issues, please reboot your Windows computer by the end of Thursday, June 24.

May 26, 2010 - Symantec Endpoint Protection upgrade for Windows

Windows computers will upgrade from Symantec AntiVirus 10 to Symantec Endpoint Protection 11 (SEP) at noon on May 26. This upgrade will require several reboots so please do not use your Windows computer for an hour after the first reboot. Because this Symantec upgrade is important for security reasons, please reboot your Windows computer by the end of Wed., May 26. Windows laptops need to be on the NRAO network for this upgrade to occur.

May 19, 2010 - Firefox 3.5.8 and Java 1.6.0.20 upgrades for Linux and Windows

Linux computers will upgrade to Firefox 3.5.8 and Java 1.6.0.20 at noon MDT on May 19. After this time, please restart your Firefox browser and any Java applications to ensure you get the new version and to keep your current version from crashing or failing to work properly. If you see an "Assersion Failed" popup, this means you have not restarted your Firefox browser yet.

Windows computer will upgrade to Firefox 3.5.8 and Java 1.6.0.20 after a reboot beginning at noon MDT, May 19. Because these upgrades fix important security issues, please reboot your Windows computer by the end of Thursday, May 20.

March 9, 2010 - Acroread upgraded to 9.3.1 on Linux

Adobe's PDF reader (acroread) has been upgraded on rhel5.4 Linux machines to version 9.3.1. This new version has one known bug with signed PDFs, see here.

February - IDL 6.4 upgraded to 7.1 on Linux

IDL was upgraded today to version 7.1. AOC desktop Linux users will notice the change immediately. Laptop and VLA Linux users will get the update by tomorrow.

December 11, 2009 - AutoCAD and Inventor Upgrades for Windows

Starting on Friday, December 11, AutoCAD and Inventor 2010 SP1 upgrades will become available. AutoCAD and Inventor users should reboot their computers between 1-3 p.m. on Friday for their current AutoCAD and Inventor versions to uninstall. Users should also log off but leave their computer powered on at 5:00 p.m. Friday to allow the CID admins to finish this upgrade.

October 26, 2009 - Acrobat Upgrades for Windows

Starting at noon on Wednesday, October 28, these Windows software upgrades will become available:
- Acrobat Professional 8.1.2 to 9.2
- Acrobat Reader 8.1.3 to 9.2
Windows users should reboot their computers for these changes to occur.

October 14, 2009 - New printers

The printers, psnet and ps, have been replaced with new Hewlett-Packard 9040 models and renamed aoc213 and aoc352 respectively. Please use the new names for printing to these new printers as the old names will no longer work.

September 16, 2009 - Software Upgrades for Windows

Starting at noon on Thursday, September 17, these Windows software upgrades will become available:
- Microsoft Visio 2003 to 2007
- Microsoft Project 2003 to 2007
- Adobe Flash 10.0.22.87 to 10.0.32.18
In addition to these upgrades, Adobe Shockwave 10.1 will be uninstalled. Windows users should reboot their computers for these changes to occur.

Aug 24, 2009 - Firefox 3.5.2 for Windows and Linux

Firefox 3.5.2 will become available for RHEL5 Linux and Windows computers starting on August 27th at 10:05am MDT. Linux users should restart Firefox. Windows users should reboot their computers to install the new version.

August 4, 2009 - Internet Explorer 7 for Windows

Windows computers with Internet Explorer 6 will be upgraded to Internet Explorer 7, starting tomorrow at noon. Users will be requested to reboot their computers to install this upgrade.

July 16, 2009 - WinZip 12.1 for Windows

If you have a Windows computer with WinZip installed, starting at noon on July 16, 2009, WinZip will automatically upgrade to version 12.1 the next time your computer reboots.

June 30, 2009 - Quicktime 7.62.14.0 for Windows

Starting at noon on July 2, 2009, Quicktime will automatically upgrade to version 7.62.14.0 the next time your Windows computer reboots.

June 24, 2009 - Flash 10.0.22.87 for Windows

Starting at noon on June 24, 2009, Adobe Flash will automatically upgrade to version 10.2.22.87 the next time your Windows computer reboots. This upgrade will coincide with the usual monthly Windows patches and security updates.

June 23, 2009 - dvips defaults to letter paper.

A change has been made to the program dvips on our RHEL5 computers so that it now defaults to creating PostScript suitable for Letter sized paper instead of A4 sized paper. This may change the way some of your TeX documents print.

May 27, 2009 - Openoffice 3.1 is now installed on all Linux computers at the AOC.

To start it simply type soffice. The new Openoffice should allow a greater compatiblity with MS Office 2007. It should be availble to all Linux machines at the site by the end of the week.

May 18, 2009 - Firefox 3.0.10 and Office 2007 ODF Plugin

Firefox 3.0.10 will become available for RHEL5 Linux and Windows computers starting on May 18. Also the Sun ODF plugin will install on Windows computers running Office 2007 after the next reboot.

April 7, 2009 - java in /usr/local/java

The current version of java in /usr/local/java on the RHEL5 Linux machines is now 1.6.0_13.

March 24, 2009 - Firefox 3.0.7 Available

Firefox 3.0.7 will become available for Windows computers starting on March 25th. Current Firefox Windows users will get this upgrade when their computer reboots to install the monthly Windows operating system updates.

February 19, 2009 - Upgrade RHEL5.2 to RHEL5.3

On Tuesday, February 24th, we will be upgrading most of our RHEL5.2 linux installations to RHEL5.3. ALMA RHEL5.2 machines will not get upgraded yet. This upgrade will start after 5pm and will occur in the background to reduce impact on users.

February 3, 2009 - Email Access Upgrade

On Saturday, February 7th, the email access server, mail.aoc.nrao.edu, will upgraded. This will be an upgrade to both the hardware and software. It is expected that this upgrade will fix the occasional problem where the downloading of an email message can take a long time.

This upgrade will not require any changes to a user's email client

January 28, 2009 - Firefox 3.0.5 and Java 1.6.0.11 Available

Firefox 3.0.5 and Java 1.6.0.11 upgrades are now available for Windows users. Current Firefox and Java Windows users will get these upgrades when their computer reboots.

January 26, 2009 - Microsoft Office 2007 Upgrades

The Windows system administrators plan to upgrade Office 2003 to Office 2007, one NRAO division at a time, over the next few months. Division managers will be given a more detailed upgrade schedule and users will receive email notification before their Office upgrade occurs. This will affect all Windows users currently using Microsoft Office 2003. A training session will be offered during the upgrade process.

In addition, Microsoft provides useful online training: training courses and webcast training courses. Windows users are strongly encouraged to take this training as it will ease their transition to Office 2007.

More information about the Office 2007 upgrade can be found at the NRAO Office 2007 SharePoint. This site will ask for a username and password so please use your Windows account to login.

December 9, 2008 - Firefox 3.0.4 and Acrobat Reader 8.1.3 Available

Firefox 3.0.4 and Acrobat Reader 8.1.3 upgrades are now available for Windows computers. Current Firefox and Acrobat Reader Windows users will get these upgrades when their computer reboots. Firefox 3.0.4 has ETK rendering problems: the font color on tabs is almost the same as the background color and the field search hourglass icon is not displayed.

November 2, 2008 - Obit installed

Obit has been installed on all the Red Hat Linux 5 (rhel5) computers at the AOC.

October 10, 2008 - IDL 6.4

We have upgraded IDL from 6.2 to 6.4 on all our RHEL5 Linux computers. We have also installed the 32bit and 64bit versions. Just typing idl will start the correct version for your computer.

September 22, 2008 - Upgrading from RHEL4 to RHEL5

We are currently in the process of upgrading all of the Red Hat 4 Linux computers to Red Hat Linux 5. For information on the changes please look here.

April 4, 2008 - Mathematica upgraded to version 6.0.2

We have upgraded our Linux installation of mathematica from 4.1 to 6.0.2. We have also removed mathematica from our Solaris machines.

January 30, 2008 - Firefox 2.0.0.11 and Flash 9.0.115 Available

Firefox 2.0.0.11 and Flash 9.0.115 upgrades are now available for Windows computers. Current Firefox and Flash Windows users will get these upgrades when their computer reboots.

January 22, 2008 - Hummingbird Exceed 2007 Available

Hummingbird Exceed 2007 is now available for Windows computers. Current Hummingbird users will be contacted by Help Desk personel to get this upgrade.

December 18, 2007 - Symantec AntiVirus 10.1.7 Available

Symantec AntiVirus 10.1.7 is now available for Windows computers. Current Symantec AntiVirus users will be contacted by Help Desk personel to get this upgrade.

October 30, 2007 - Inventor 2008 SP1 Available

Inventor 2008 SP1 is now available for Windows computers. Current Inventor users can get this upgrade by emailing the NRAO-NM Help Desk. Users that do not currently run Inventor need their supervisor to approve its install.

October 29, 2007 - Revision Control System Disabled

We disabled the doco revision control system, which was used to control pages under www.aoc.nrao.edu, www.vla.nrao.edu and www.vlba.nrao.edu. Along the way we tightened down the permissions on those files: if you used maintain a web page (not including home pages) and cannot edit it now, submit a ticket to the helpdesk.

October 9, 2007 - New Poster Printer 'aoc352w'

The AOC has replaced its poster printer which was called widebed with a new HP Designjet Z6100ps 42inch poster printer called aoc352w. Instructions to use the new printer can be found here.

October 6, 2007 - New NetApp Filer 'filehost'

The AOC has replaced its main NetApp filer (FAS 250) with a new NetApp filer (FAS 270). The new filer has twice the capacity and therefore quotas have been increased from 3GB to 8GB.

September 15, 2007 - OpenSSH upgraded on Suns

OpenSSH on all the Solaris computers at the AOC and the VLA has been upgraded to 4.6p1 and was also installed locally on each computer instead on a network drive. This means ssh will be available to a Sun even if the fileserver is not.

August 6, 2007 - Disabled telnet, rlogin and rsh to Suns

We have finally disabled telnet, rlogin and rsh to our Sun SPARC computers. Please use ssh (unix) or putty (Windows) to connect to Sun computers from now on.

July 24, 2007 - Updated Flash plugin for Firefox and IE

Plugins for Flash 9 have been installed for firefox both in Linux and Windows and for IE in Windows.

March 19, 2007 - RPM updates for RHEL4

Updates have been released for firefox-1.5.0.10 and thunderbird-1.5.0.10 as well as gcc-3.4.6-3.1, gcc4-4.1.0-18 and other such associated gcc packages.

March 13, 2007 - Samba server upgraded

The server that provides \\samba-aoc as well as the helpdesk system was upgraded th Red Hat Enterprise 4 Update 4 today.

December 9, 2006 - FTP server upgraded

The server that provides ftp, rsync and web proxy services was upgraded to Red Hat Enterprise 4 Update 4 today. The upgrade went well and all services were upgraded to the latest stable versions available.

If you see errors on your computer like "Stale NFS file handle" then you will have to reboot before you can access /home/ftp.

September 7, 2006 - Red Hat Enterprise 4 Update 4

AOC Linux machines running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 have been upgraded to Update4. This has had the following noticeable effects:

  • Firefox and Thunderbird upgraded to 1.5.0.5
  • Mozilla browser and mail reader are no longer under development and have been replaced with SeaMonkey which provides similar functionality.
  • Xterm has once again redefined the backspace key. You may see this if vi or emacs. If you do, try setting stty sane in your appropriate shell rc file or just type it on the command line.

July 11, 2006 - OpenOffice 2.0.3

     The AOC has installed the latest version of the OpenOffice.org suite of programs on all Red Hat Enterprise 4 Linux computers. The new suite of programs can be accessed by typing soffice from a Linux command prompt or through the KDE Office menu.

January 17, 2006 - Spam Quarantine

     NRAO has developed a new utility to handle spam. The service and how to use it is described in the Gold Book webpages at automatic spam quarantine. Note: This utility will not work for employees who receive their e-mail on the Exchange Server.

2006 - New Web pages

     We are currently working on updating previous computing pages as well as creating new web pages - [INC].   If you would like to see a special computing page added that would be informative and helpful to other employees, please submit your suggestion to the Help Desk.

Content reviewed on: 24-August-2009
Reviewed by: Sonja Mendoza