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03.05.96

Open Computing Facility Board of Directors meeting

March 5, 1996

Attendance Board of Directors

William Perret Thomas Cheng Andrew Swan Elaine Chao (General Manager) Steve Martinot Alan Coopersmith Rune Stromsness Erik Agee Kenneth Nishimoto Jennifer Snider Wang Lam

Meeting Highlights

  • The Math Department is claiming OCF space in the Evans basement starting April; the OCF is moving! (See General Manager's Report.)

  • The Site Manager's account has been shut down pending further review at the next Board meeting. (See Old Business.)

Announcements

  • No announcements in particular.

General Manager's Report

  • The Math Department is starting construction April 8. (Background: The Math Department has secured the section of the Evans basement where the OCF resides, so that it can section it off as a separate room, remodel it, and install a bunch of math computers in our place.) Therefore, the OCF has to be out by then, and will most likely to moving to 72 or 73 Barrows Hall.

  • The General Manager reports she is meeting in person with staff from Information Systems & Technology (IST) concerning this move, and invites an active member of the OCF familiar with the technical details needed for the move to join her at the meeting.

  • Jennifer Snider notes that it is possible that IST will charge the OCF for the move--IST may require that its own staff handle the network connections and wiring associated with the OCF's token ring, and then charge OCF for the service. She recommends the OCF apply directly to the Chancellor's Discretionary Fund for financial support for this move.

  • The ASUC no longer gives out temporary keys, so OCF Staff who wish to visit the Eshleman Hall office must obtain a private key. The General Manager notes she was told this, and promptly forgot to tell affected staff.

  • There is a help session Thursday on Java.

  • Excess & Salvage confirms that it is not charging the OCF for the old systems that were removed without incident.

  • Jennifer Snider and Alan Coopersmith noted that The Daily Californian reported that the ASUC was seizing funds from student groups that had not yet spend their allocated funds, and redirected them to keep Heller Lounge open. They express worry that the OCF may have been on that student group list, as the OCF has not spent all its funds.

  • The OCF office was closed today during the open house except for the forty minutes or so Jennifer Snider was there, she reports. (OCF Staffers who were to keep the OCF office open did not have the permanent keys needed to open the door!)

  • There is still equipment in the Statistics Department to be taken care of. One machine may have been moved (unconfirmed), but that implies there is at least one still there (and the Statistics Department is getting upset).

Site Manager's Report

  • The Site Manager was absent from the meeting. Therefore, the Site Manager's Report is being composed from reports by OCF Staff at the meeting (Kenneth Nishimoto and Jennifer Snider ).

  • Secretary's note: The material in this section was moved from its chronological position near the end of the meeting.

  • Avalanche ate its disk. The errors were so severe the software gave its famous "See a certified Apollo technician" message (though some Board members wonder whether there are such technicians still in practice). On the up side, only one account was on the machine; on the down side, OCF Staff thought they had already moved out all the accounts formerly on that machine.

  • Lightning has a new monitor, but xdm, the program that is responsible for coordinating the graphics mode display on Unix, couldn't work with the monitor. The problem will be fixed promptly.

  • Tsunami's accounts are now being moved to hailstorm, so that the machine can take over avalanche's former position as new mail server for the OCF.

Sparc Managers' Report

  • The OCF has lent one IPC to TCS (NOT the CSUA, despite its name sake.csua.berkeley.edu), so that Professor Paul Hilfinger may use it for a Java project. The IPCs are being lent for "up to one semester." It will (for that duration) mount SWW, have Kerberos, and so on.

  • A meeting is being set up for "work on the machines[Suns]."

Old Business

  • An official quote from Tatung for the Sparc/83MHz should have arrived this morning, reports Alan Coopersmith .

  • Reregistration was complicated one notch, as the person who wrote the code to allow the OCF limited access to University records (to verify registration status) has himself accidentally destroyed the interface. Andrew Swan reports there are two options: The OCF may send a list of people and ask for the verification, or the OCF may wait for the interface to be rewritten; chances are it will do both.

  • Tenative timeline for implementing reregistration (Jennifer Snider ) Now to 3/17 Andrew Swan finishes software, announces it, informs OCF Staff 3/18 to 4/12 Online reregistration for OCF accounts 4/13 to 4/15 Shut off unregistered accounts 4/15 to 5/15 Turn on accounts as people who have not reregistered notice their accounts were deactivated. After finals Back up shut off accounts to tape; flush from system. This schedule did not account for the OCF's move by April 8.

  • Jennifer Snider notes that the self-reported staff logs picked up a new entry: An account was shut off, with a note that a copy of Netscape was found in the mailspool, signed (Michael Constant, the Site Manager). The Site Manager is current charged by OCF Security with "violating root privileges" and "violating user account privacy."

  • The Board contemplates the Office of Student Conduct, but appears to support the position that it is largely an internal affair concerning OCF Staff policies. Some note that considering the Office of Student Conduct may not understand the context of OCF administration, it is probably not an appropriate step at least until the Site Manager reports his defense.
    After all, Erik Agee notes, "it may have just been an honest mistake" [concerning OCF Staff policy].

  • The Site Manager was, by agreement, to have appeared at this Board meeting to defend himself against charges of "violating root privileges" and "violating user account privacy." Since he is absent, the Board moves to again shut off his account, pending further review at the next Board meeting. Motion passes, 8-0-0.

New Business

  • An OCF account with a history of violations had been shut off for being slightly over quota. Jennifer Snider reminds OCF Staff that the properly applied policy was to have this account shut off only if it would have been shut off in the course of normal OCF administration, and that no special vigilance should have been applied to that account.

  • Thomas Cheng queries whether the OCF would like to participate in E-Week (an event sponsored by the Engineers Joint Council (EJC)). The Board informally decides that any interested would email him.

Miscellaneous

  • No miscellaneous.

Corrections (after the meeting)

  • Erik Agee adds the following concerning the above minutes:

    After all, Erik Agee notes, "it may have just been an honest mistake" [concerning OCF Staff policy]. I guess I missed this while the draft was out. I don't recall saying this... To me it's clear that the Site Manager's conduct was not so much an "honest mistake", but a willful execution of improper procedure.

  • The Secretary recalls the comment, in the context of a general discussion allowing Michael Constant at least a defense before the Board takes further action. Apologies to anyone who read the comment to imply Erik Agee considered "an honest mistake" to be the actual situation. It was meant as a possibility, and should not carry any more weight than any other possibility, from the Secretary's perceived context of the statement.

Wang Lam OCF Board of Directors and OCF Board Secretary March 5, 1996