IT Status (Dept of Mathematics, U of Toronto)
Due to the repeated unsolicited email originating from the following senders:
@iosr.us
@mail[1-9]iosr.org @iosrmail.org @mail[1-9]inv.com
we have started automatically directing email from those sites to the SuspectedSpam folder, with a label that says [BLACKLISTED]. If you need to receive email from that site please let us know and you can whitelist the required addresses (see our Email and Spam Filtering webpage for more information).
We are planning to upgrade to Mathematica 11.0, the next time that sphere is rebooted. If you have any concerns about this please email us at requests@math.toronto.edu.
The drum cartridge on the lw3 printer has been replaced and the printer is functioning normally again.
Summary:
1) Only use the HDMI connection in the table
2) Use the “6180” NEC remote (available at the front desk) to turn the projector on and select “HDMI2”
3) When you are finished using the projector press the “OFF” button on the remote control for about a second and then press it once more to confirm
4) Return the remote control (and the HDMI cable if you borrowed it) to the front desk
The Controller panel embedded in the table in BA6180 to control the projector has proven to be too fragile for the users of that room and now no longer works. The HDMI cable connection does work so laptops can be connected to that directly (the VGA connection is not reliable…do not use it). Please borrow, from the front desk, the NEC remote control, which is labelled with “6180” on the bottom, to turn the projector on and if the input is not “HDMI2” (this should be the only one that people use, so it should be the default setting) then use the “MENU” button on the remote to select the INPUT source and select that one.
The two small monitors in the Seminar Room (BA6183) were not working properly and have been replaced.
After more testing we have decided that SpamAssassin is ready to be deployed. Starting in the early afternoon today we will put in this new filtering. The SpamAssassin filtering is currently not aggressive, but as mentioned in an earlier post you should check your SuspectedSpam folder for the next little while to verify that things are working well for you.
As usual you please let us know at requests@math.toronto.edu if you observe any problems with this.
The departmental servers appear to be working fine after the updates.
From: Utilities & Building Operations, Facilities & Services
The Steam and Hot Water supplied from the St. George Campus Central Power Plant will be shut off for the annual inspection and maintenance of heat producing equipment and associated heat distribution piping system.
The shutdown will last for 3 ½ days commencing at 20:00 hours Sunday, August 28, 2016 and will be returned to service in stages commencing at 08:00 hours Thursday, September 1st 2016.
The electrical, computer, and networking systems should be unaffected, but there will likely be no hot water in our departmental buildings during this time.
The departmental servers coxeter, sphere, and the mail, web, share, ptr, and blog/wiki servers will have software updates applied on Wednesday afternoon, August 24, 2016 which will require rebooting (most servers will be unavailable starting at 3:45pm). Since some updates will be applied while the servers are still up there may be some temporary issues with some software. We hope that any such issues will be minor and by doing most of the upgrading before bringing systems down the shorter downtime will be worth the potential minor problems. Please restart any programs if you observe problems during the upgrades (and please let us know at requests@math.toronto.edu, so we can investigate). We expect the systems to be back up by 4:30pm.
In order to lessen the number of spam emails making their way into users’ mailboxes and to have a fallback should our current system fail or is removed by the University, we will soon be adding another spam filtering mechanism, called SpamAssassin, to our email system.
SpamAssassin modifies the Subject line of messages that it thinks are potentially spam by adding “[SPAM <number>]” where <number> is larger than or equal to 5. In our tests, with the default system settings, SpamAssassin did a very good job of detecting spam (of course, no spam filter is perfect).
SpamAssassin will use the same SuspectedSpam folder as our current spam filter (Puremessage) uses. The Subject lines of most messages will have SpamAssassin’s and Puremessage’s estimate of the likelihood that that email is spam. You should check your SuspectedSpam folder when this is first deployed to check that it is not too aggressive for your needs.
Manipulating the aggressiveness of spam filtering will remain the same, see our Emial and Spam Filtering page for more information.
Another announcement will be made on this website when the filtering is implemented.
