Long time ....

Well, that is a long time since last there was a post here. But why, do you know?

CE servers in maintenance mode

In order to upgrade some services, and initiate data migration services, your files on CE are mounted as read only. This means you cannot change your files, but still can access them through FTP. Also CE may not be available for some hours, and your ssh connection to shell server will terminate after 10 seconds.

Normal service will be resumed after a few hours.

UPDATE: Normal service is now resumed.

FreeBSD 5.4 and Ubuntu are available on Cabinet

FreeBSD 5.4 (for amd64) and Ubuntu 5.04 (for amd64) are available on Cabinet.
You can get them from ftp://cabinet.ce.sharif.edu.
Thanks to Mr. Kamali for putting them on Khorjin.

Consequences of helping people

One of my friends, known to be a kind and helping student, forwarded me this e-mail he had recieved and granted me permission to post it on this blog.

Following is the context of his e-mail. Recipient's email and name have been changed to protect the innocent [from probably receiving more of these emails ;-)]

PHP LDAP Errors

Some days ago our PHP and PHP related packages were updated, and yesterday when we restarted web server, the new PHP version was loaded.
There seemed to be a problem in configuration options of this new version, and certain LDAP operations could not be performed duew to these configuration errors. As a result, course management software could not log anybody in. The problem is now fixed, and course management system is ready for use.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

Sofware Group is on the web!

Dr Ghodsi is kindly updating a weblog for updates concerning software group course material and related topics. You can find the blog on http://ce.sharif.edu/dept/software or can use the RSS feed available here.

This weblog uses a commenting system which authenticates against CE authentication server, so you need to enter your username and password to submit a comment. Your username will appear next to your nickname. Also, the emails you eneter are automatically altered so that spammers cannot harvest them.

Many thanks o Dr Ghodsi for his interest in keeping students current with new updates, wish all parts of our university will soon use similar facilities.

Shell Died

Monday (1384/1/15) 4:50 PM :
Suddenly shell stop from working, after 66 day be up.
We go to server room and see that shell is sleep for ever and doesn't wake up.
We start checking hardware (because we were sure that it is not a software problem) and find that it's power system doesn't work. We change it's power system and then power on shell.
Shell is now again with us!
It was off for only 40 min and again one of CE server reboot because of hardware failure!

Happy new year !

Norouz with its thousands year old message is here once again. It tells us that the year ahead bears all the ingredients that are needed for making it better and more fruitful. It reminds us that the year ahead is what we make it to be. It gives us a chance to look back and evaluate our last year accomplishments and failures. In Norouz we reflect back on our deeds and can decide to become better human beings, leaving the unpleasant feelings behind and start the New Year with new missions.

"Norouz is a great chance for recollection of lots of great memories. Memories of relationship between man and nature, which is renewed each year. This forgetful child of nature who has got himself so much engaged in artificial affairs and pre-scheduled engagements, that he/she has even totally forgotten his own lovely mother."

We wish each one of you and your families a very Happy New Year. A year filled with joy, happiness and health.

-CE Administration Team

Spam & Network

1- We were receiving too much spam through SINA as our relay, so I changed /etc/mail/spamassassin/local.cf and added the below line so that more of the relays between real sender and our mail server were checked (the default value is 2). In the test period, this reduced amount of false negatives. [There is nothing wrong with SINA, but in fact spammers were taking advantage of SINA to mask their real IP addresses]

2- Since last weekend we are experiencing network problems again. CE is not avaiable as it was in the past weeks/months (bandwidth problem?), and the gateway is some times out of reach! A friend said the whole campus network was down on Friday.
Why am I writing this? Just wanted to let everyone know that we know about the problem, and are trying to contact CC in order to figure out the origin of the problem. Currently there is nothing we can do by ourselves.

Spamcop gone mad?

Our front-end in fighting spam was bl.spamcop.net, which identifies spammers according to their IP address. This feature is known as "DNSBL feature", through which you can identify IP addresses that have caused problem for other mail servers around the world. But some mistakes have been reported in the past week (form other sources, not on CE) which have upset me. Also, it seems as if Yahoo!, too, has problems concerning spam detection. Every day I receive some emails in my inbox which are *very* obvious spams, and Y! filters cannot identify them.

Special thanks to Mr. Yasser Ganji Saffar

If you take a look at courses page , you will see this term we had about 26 course-pages(we have more but some are not listed) and I think you have seen the new course-pages and new management system for them, They work great . we owe all this to Mr. Yasser Ganji Saffar who has made all this.I want thank him for his great project , wish him the best.

CE SMTP authentication

From now on, you can use CE for sending emails using desktop email reading and sending programs, like Microsoft Outlook. It was not possible till now since some technical difficulties, such as the way we authenticate users against LDAP, were not resolved. You need to set up your email clients as our manuals instruct you, else it will -not- work.

New Wireless System

Ladies and Gentlemen! We’ve got a new robust wireless network. From the physical point of view it is nothing more than a simple access point, but I am pride to state that it is being serviced by a unique software system- something I doubt you have seen anywhere else.

The CE wireless system authenticates in application layer over SSL. Besides network keys and MAC address restrictions, every user has a user name and password for his wireless account. When you start your laptop the DHCP on fw.ce.sharif.edu assigns you an IP address from a private range, this way you can see the firewall which is also your gateway. You are not yet connected to the rest of the department or any other host. To get connected, open an ssh session to 172.16.16.1 and login with your wireless username and password – these will be given to you. Upon successful login you see a welcome message. From now on you are connected to the rest of the world. Remember not to close the ssh session unless you want to get disconnected and all your connections terminated.

From the security point of view, this system is almost perfect! But the existence of a secure session along other programs your desktop is running and the need to remember yet another pair of username and password may seem uncomfortable. If so, feel free to improve it. Read on to see what you can do.

WWIII: Axis of Spam!

Netcraft News::

Hosts Disable Movable Type as Comment Spam Slows Servers:

Comment spam attacks on Movable Type weblogs are straining servers at web hosting companies, leading some providers to disable comments on the popular blogging tool. The issues are caused by bugs in MT, forcing publisher Six Apart to recommend configuration changes while it prepares fixes.

The server load issues have affected "a number of web hosts," according to Six Apart's Jay Allen, and are "especially evident in shared hosting environments." Allen said the problems are tied to two bugs that cause Movable Type to rebuild posts even when no pages are being changed, allowing comment spam attacks to tie up server resources. Six Apart is promising a fix within 48 hours.

Comment spam, also known as link spam, is believed to boost a site's ranking in Google, which uses inbound links as a measure of a site's popularity. Spammers are using automated scripts to bombard weblogs with comments that include links to sites offering prescription drugs or porn. While weblogs on all platforms have been affected, Movable Type and its mt-comments.cgi script have become a particular target.

This was mentioned in the article. Poor MT!

Is Solaris 10 Free?

The Free Software definition expresses that free software must have:
Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.
Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour.
Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

Recently I tried to download the well known FREE Solaris 10. I was guided to the download page. See what happened.

It’s a shame for sun to call Solaris Free. It’s just another advertising and marketing trick.