Staying informed
In addition to this web page, you can see brief announcements on the "Message of the Day", motd, displayed when you log in to one of our unix servers. There is also a low volume mailing list for Computer System announcements. You can subscribe by going to The Compannounce Web PageNEWS BULLETINS
August 6, 2008:
A power shutdown for the seventh floor of Evans Hall has been scheduled for Monday, August 11.
July 12, 2008:
Work was done on the AirBears system serving the northeast quadrant of campus, including Evans Hall.
July 3, 2008:
Tonight's scheduled maintenance lasted until 7:15 P.M.
June 27, 2008:
EMAIL SCAMS!!! Another phishing attack on calmail users: IST News
June 11, 2008:
matlab-2008a is now the default version for our linux machines.
May 8, 2008:
The login server (login.math) was be rebooted tonight after 5:00 PM, to activate a security patch.
May 8, 2008:
IST staff is still investigating the reported slow network performance and loss of CalNet kerberos authentication from multiple locations on campus.
April 2:
Tonight's scheduled maintenance lasted until 7:00 P.M. In addition to the usual server patches, on both web and mail servers the OS was upgraded.
March 13, 2008:
The March server maintenance was done on Thursday, March 13. rather than on March 6.
February 20, 2008:
Spear phishing (email scam) attacks on campus:
See
IST publication 1202.
February 12, 2008
The login server (login.math) was rebooted to activate
a critical security patch.
January 7, 2008:
Our login server (login.math.berkeley.edu) was rebooted,
after being unavailable since Sunday afternoon;
that also was preventing
users from logging in to Solaris desktops (which rely
on that
machine for font service).
January 3, 2008:
During tonight's server maintenance,
memory was upgraded
on both the web server and the mail server.
December 18, 2007:
login.math had an 'out of memory' error and was manually restarted.
December 13, 2007:
Printing problems on Solaris machines fixed.
November 28, 2007:
login.math (panda) was unexpectedly offline overnight,
but is now back in service.
Older News Bulletins
Read more...
System status for the Math servers.
Resources
People
Our unix support team consists of Steve Sizemore and Igor Savine.
Machines
Our computer systems occupy three local subnets, plus a small subnet in the Campus Data Center; there are approximately 400 machines. We fully support Solaris, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and Centos Linux (a clone of RHEL). Most of our computers are older Sun systems, running Solaris. Linux is becoming more prominent as a workstation OS. Servers are split between FreeBSD (5), Solaris (3), and linux (1). There is limited support for desktop FreeBSD and MacOS X. We do not support Microsoft Windows, nor older (pre OS X) Macintosh systems.
Login Service
Our canonical login server is login.math.berkeley.edu. You can connect to it using ssh.
You can also get ssh access to our login server through a web interface, using the MindTerm java applet. Connect to this java applet using our Mindterm Instructions.
sshd is running on most of our client machines, so you can log in remotely to the unix workstation on your desktop, if you wish. However, four of our servers are designated as login servers: login.math.berkeley.edu (panda), panda is running RedHat Enterprise Linux. blue1.math.berkeley.edu, blue2.math.berkeley.edu, blue3.math.berkeley.edu, blue1 and blue3 are running Solaris 9. blue2 is running FreeBSD.
blue2 is not (yet) fully configured to run all of the local Math software, so if you intend to use TeX, Matlab, or Maple, you should choose a different login server.
Printers
There are four public printers available:
Name Previous Room
708 hp1 731 (during 708 renovation)
838 hp3 838
958 canon958 958
1002 hp4 1002
See our
printing information page
for details.
Software
A large number of free packages are installed on our systems, and we have licensed a few commercial packages, including Matlab, Mathematica, Maple, and Magma.Regularly Scheduled Maintenance
On the first Thursday of every month, the time from 5:00 P.M. to 7:30 P.M. is reserved for system maintenance. The management reserves the right to shut down the servers without prior notice during those scheduled maintenance periods. Normally, maintenance should be completed by 6:00 PM, but the entire window is reserved.
Data Backup and Restore
User data is backed up to tape on a nightly basis. Here are the details.
AirBears
Math Department AirBears is deployed throughout the the upper four floors of Evans Hall. Please report any new (or old) problems via email to requestGetting Help
The primary support avenue for unix and network problems within the department is the request system. The desktop support teams at LSCR provide support for non-unix systems for faculty, at fac_support@ls.berkeley.edu and staff, at ohlone@ls.berkeley.edu. There is a mailing list, consult@math.berkeley.edu for general questions, which is read (and answered) by people knowledgable about unix and mathematical software. For hardware printer problems ONLY, use trouble@math.berkeley.edu. Please do not copy more than one list on your email. If you happen to send to the wrong list, it will be redirected by someone on the list.
There is a FAQ regarding Computing on the main departmental web site.
Computer Account Policy
Our account policy is to provide computer accounts for Departmental users in support of mathematical computing. General computer use policy is set by the Math Computer Committee There is also some policy information in the new user document.
SECURITY
Clear text, reusable passwords are not allowed for authentication to our machines. See our security page.
For information about our mail server, try the Mail Server Status and Email Client Configuration pages.
We sometimes hear complaints about email spam. (We used to hear a lot more complaints.) Read about our method of dealing with spam here.
We also have a Web-based email program, named SquirrelMail This is now our default web mail program.
Useful Links
Server Status
Web Mail Client
Spam Email
Viruses and Email
Macintosh SSH Instructions
Windows SSH Instructions (Math)
Windows SSH Instructions (Campus).
Mindterm Instructions
