Notes, Wed April 5th, 2000
Action Items:
a) Followup on wide printer (Dsmith has data)
Don S. presented 3 possible plotters, a low end ($3.5K), a middle ($7.5K) and a high end ($10K). There was general consensus that the low end one would not be acceptable. We agreed that some kind of re-charge mechanism would be needed, otherwise the plotters would get overused. Finally, the cost per print would be somewhere around a few dollars. Rich had used the middle end HP plotter and was fairly happy with it. Don S. will also schedule a "field trip" to check the plotters out. Some people thought bringing your own postscript would be a good idea. Send mail to Don S. if you want to go.
b) Policy on isolating machines for performance measurements
We discussed 2 classes of needs for "reservations". The first are "semi-private" machines. The second are "benchmark" machines used for performance analysis.
Semi-private machines are those run by LCSR, but that are in specific labs or offices. Because all machines run by LCSR use the same accounts (among fac,grad and ugrad), it is possible for anyone with an account to log into a "semi private" machine. Sometimes, this can create problems if the outsiders are bad neighbors and user too many machine resources. The "owners" of the semi-private machine would like exclusive access occasionally. It was agreed that giving these users the ability to shutdown cleanly was one solution (something like "slide shutdown"). Setting up separate accounts per machine was shot down. It was agreed that any machine run by LCSR will be in one of 4 account groups: ugrad, grad,fac and the new research domain. If a machine owner wants total exclusive access, he will have to manage the machine as an "island" outside of the normal LCSR YP domain. While we realize the shutdown solution will require people to be civil, we do not expect that to be a problem.
Benchmark machines are those who's main purpose is benchmarking. Some kind of reservations could be used. It was not clear what reservations system would be used or exactly what physical hardware would be used. This is still an open issue.
c) Making our notes/agendas public and announcing our meetings
Minute taking and posting will rotate. Rich M. will post the current notes in web page form. We will also post a link to these off the faculty pages.
d) getting a web page online that lists DCS/LCSR computing facilities
The notes are blank on this one. (The note taker needs to poll the audience).
e) Status report on recovery from Saturday's power outage
Charles said no permanent damage. The UPS batteries are very old an will be replaced. Finally, the UPS will be hooked up to an email/page system
f) "Research" YP-domain status report
The research domain is a set of separate logins from the usualt faculty, grad and ugrad accounts, used to help manage research projects. Don W. reported this is coming along. Some of the Monday/Tuesday machines might get co-opted for special "research domain" machines
g) Samba implementation status report
Hans said the new samba server is up. The name is luckystar.rutgers.edu. The passwords are the same as the NT domain passwords (e.g., you can use your old deftera password) Luckystar should also be able to mount the new disks located on /farm/. The note taker notes performance is good. Thu has also reported good performance compared to the old deftera.
h) draft policy for MS/PhD graduates continuing to have a web presence on our facilities. We only need to hit the substantive issues (how much space, for how long, for what purpose, etc.)
The policy will be for students to continue to maintain their account for 1 year, with their quota reduced to 5 MB. After that, email and web-page requests will be forwarded for up to 4 years
New Item: Imap server
Much time was spent discussing the pros of imap for mail. The consensus that emerged was that mail is a very critical service. The large issues with imap is that it requires people to live in the imap universe, supporting legacy users is not really possible. The current plan is to have 2 systems, One will offer people only imap service, and the 2nd will support legacy users. A mail forward can be used to accommodate new users. Legacy users will also have to continue to use old mail readers (rmail, mm, etc), however. Users who wish to use modern readers will have to switch to imap.
New Item: A DNS CS subdomain
Rick T. will look into the effort required to get a CS DNS domain. This would require the cooperation outside LCSR, and so may involve substantial effort. The benefit will be a low probability of the namespace collisions In effect, users can name their machines X.cs.rutgers.edu instead of X.rutgers.edu