04.01.96

Open Computing Facility Board of Directors meeting

April 1, 1996

Attendance Board of Directors

Andrew Swan Elaine Chao (General Manager) Michael Constant (Site Mgr) Alan Coopersmith Kenneth Nishimoto Wang Lam

Meeting Highlights¶

In case you haven't noticed, the OCF has moved to Barrows Hall. :)
(See all sections of the minutes, General Manager's Report through Old Business, for various details about the move.)
If you walk into the OCF at Barrows Hall and can't get the screens to light up with a login prompt, it is probably because the monitor is off.
OCF users, please turn on the monitors to use the machines, and turn them off when finished to prevent the rooms from overheating any more than they already are! (See Site Manager's Report.)

Announcements¶

This meeting did not reach quorum, as two-thirds of nine board members requires six present.

General Manager's Report¶

"We moved."
72 Barrows keys: Elaine Chao , Michael Constant , and Kenneth Nishimoto each have one key to 72 Barrows; one more key for 72 Barrows, destined for a lockbox, is currently at Elaine's apartment.
70 Barrows keys: (The OCF temporarily occupies 70 Barrows.) Elaine Chao has the only key to 70 Barrows the OCF has.
Barrows building keys: Elaine Chao says her key doesn't work; Michael Constant tried his (the other one, of two) on an open door and notes it appeared to work.
Elaine Chao and Andrew Swan went in search of lockboxes, but could find none for sale at various local stores.
Elaine Chao and Andrew Swan bought six tables from Excess and Salvage for the move (which, she notes, was not enough), and were unable to obtain chairs.
Elaine Chao notes she has no information on (ASUC) FiComm meetings, but is aware they are happening "these next few days." Alan Coopersmith helps fill in some details.

Site Manager's Report¶

After the move, hailstorm, volcano, and whirlwind are still down. The rest of the OCF machines are up and running.
A few machine names currently unused are still tied to the 128.32.184 subnet (which is tied to the Evans Hall-Davis Hall region). They should probably be moved for future use, but as they are currently not used, this is not a big deal.
War, currently the backup mail server, could be set up to become the primary mailserver. The Board (also OCF Staff) discussed various details that would need to be taken care of to make this happen, such as giving war a password file, readjusting all the mail clients to work on POP or IMAP, synchronizing mailspools, and handling .forward files.
Users have come into the OCF, shaken the OCF mice, but found the OCF screen savers just won't quit. Michael Constant notes he had to tell them to turn on the monitor, as they are now off to reduce heat in the rooms. He notes we should probably have signs telling users to turn on the monitor.

Sparc Managers' Report¶

Neither Sparc Manager was present, hence Michael Constant and Alan Coopersmith pieced together some pieces:
Michael Constant and Dan Holliman tried to work on pestilence, but Dan had forgotten the root password.
War, the OCF's backup mail server, was installed as maleficent.eecs.berkeley.edu to catch email during the OCF move to Barrows. It had caught 12,000+ pieces of mail, ready to be sorted and delivered soon.

Old Business¶

Moving: Elaine Chao asks for comments on the move, and how it could have been better. The Board agrees it would have helped a lot of everybody who signed up to help with the move showed up for the move.
Elaine notes also that most of the moving activity happened Monday, Tuesday, then Sunday, and thought that could have been better scheduled.
She also notes only three people had keys, which proved troublesome.
Hours: The Open Computing Facility would like to live up to its name and open as much of the Barrows rooms as possible, but must also consider security concerns. Michael Constant notes that only pestilence was a good machine--Andrew Swan noting that this was true only for some definition of "good" (i.e., relative to the OCF's outdated machines).
Alan Coopersmith notes in contrast that the printer, rather than any machine, was most likely to be stolen.
Michael Constant proposes locking down the OCF printer, and pestilence, which would then enable the OCF to open both 70 and 72 Barrows 24 hours a day (barring restrictions on Barrows building access beyond the OCF's control). Wang Lam notes the printer can't be locked up forever anyway since users who print need to reach the printouts. After some discussion, the proposal is amended to additionally lock war when it returns, but without quorum, no action can be taken.
Michael Constant tenatively opens 70 Barrows, and leaves 72 Barrows locked for now.
Reregistration: Andrew Swan reports he hasn't touched the reregistration software in a long time, and figures he may as well rewrite it as things have changed. Elaine Chao asks that it be done by Saturday, to get reregistration rolling this semester. She tenatively hopes that reregistration can start next week, continue for the next two weeks, and then have problems resolved during the two weeks thereafter before accounts are deleted after finals.
Tatung purchase: The OCF is waiting for the ASUC to release OCF's funds so that it may buy the migration machine (the Tatung Sparc system).
Considering that the machine would be made in Milpitas (a small city about an hour south of Berkeley), Elaine Chao notes it may be practical to just pick up the machine from the South Bay, rather than having them deliver it for however long it takes.

New Business¶

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL) is looking to donate HP Apollos to the OCF. Elaine Chao notes she needs to figure out how to sort through the paperwork of transferring materiel from a federal to a state agency.

Miscellaneous¶

No miscellaneous.

Corrections (after the meeting)¶

The Secretary corrects all significant errors in the minutes; please send errors to bod@ocf.berkeley.edu.

Wang Lam OCF Board of Directors and OCF Board Secretary April 1, 1996