MacTech 08112009

MacTech Group Agenda
August 11, 2009
2:30 to 4:30 — Room B16-B Hillsborough Bld.

1) Announcements – 5 min

a) MEETING CHANGE: MacPolicy and MacTech will both meet again on  Sep 8, 2009
b) OIT will support only version 10.3 or newer of Mac OS X after Dec 31, 2008
c) OIT will support only version 10.4 or newer of Mac OS X after Dec 31, 2009 
d) OIT  does not have a  support policy for Boot Camp.
e) OIT  does not support Classic mode on either ppc or intel hardware at all.
f) MacOS AMP Licenses and Media at www.ncsu.edu/software/available-software/product.php?software=106 
g) VirusBarrior X5 – www.ncsu.edu/it/antivirus. Update defs with NetUpdate.
h) OIT Macintosh Support Web Site http://oit.ncsu.edu/macintosh for updates.
i) Unity Macintosh Kit uses /Users/$uid$ in the LDAPv3 configuration to create a local home on each machine at login
j) Modified Unity Macintosh Kits are supported by the unit which has made the modifications.
k) All OIT distributed Symantec Antivirus software should have been removed by June 22, 2009 to remain in license compliance.

2) Fall 2008 Unity Macintosh Lab Kit Available and Known Issues  – 20 min.

The fall lab kit is now available from the image server.  It has been tested on Intel: iMac 2009 24″ and MacMini Core2Duo; PPC: iMac G5.  Application changes and Known Issues are available at http://oit.ncsu.edu/macintosh/macintosh-lab-kits 
-Short list of changes: Office 2008 SP1, Adobe Acrobat Reader and Pro 9.1.3, Latest Maple MatLab and Mathematica, +Write N Cite 2.5, Thunderbird Removed, +Turning Point Anywhere, +Zend Studio, CUPS Queues opened for job delete/cancel, all security updates previous to 10.5.8 (too late to QA, suspected network issues). 
-Short list of Known Issues: MatLab 2008a should be removed, Admin Users must cancel kerberos dialogs, PPC must replace Matlab, PPC must install VPython 2.6 libs for VIDLE to work. Discussion.

 3) Mac OS X VLA survey  – 10 min.

Early numbers show about a 17% increase in Macintosh computers on campus.  We have seen that not all units have reported and that there was confusion about testing the survey.  Please take time to take the survey again with the best possible counts so we can accurately negotiate a VLA before the deadline next year. Please check the printout at this meeting as well. This is your HOMEWORK due by the next meeting on Sep 8, 2009. Discussion.

4) 10.5.8 Issues – 10 min.

There has been some Internet reports of wireless issues with 10.5.8 on laptops.  The Mac OS update came after the freeze date for the Fall kit.  Due to these reports and no time to QA the update it was not applied to the Fall 2009 Unity Macintosh Lab kit. Discussion

 5) Adobe Security Issues – 10 min.

There are serious security issue.  Please read the Sysnews posting at: http://sysnews.ncsu.edu/news/4a01c787 And this posting from Adobe: http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb09-10.html. OIT has deployed Acrobat Reader and Acrobat Pro 9.1.3 which is patched to resolve these issues in the Fall Lab kit.  Individuals with private workstations should patch their Adobe products as soon as possible.  Discussion 

 

6) WolfTech Group Issue Update – 10 min.

We continue to work with the WolfTech AD group to resolve the issue where directory services group membership check api’s return incorrect information.  We have verified that the api’s return correctly with using the test AD WolfTest.  We will be working with Security and Compliance and ISO to audit the directory objects in both domains to try to find and reproduce the issue. Discussion

7) Active Directory Testing Fall 2009   – 10 min.

As you may be aware OIT is testing Active Directory usage for Windows based lab computers in certain labs for fall 2009.  The Macintosh Team intends to test AD as well pending resolution of the groups issue in WolfTech.  So far we have verified that authentication works reliably for loginwindow only.  We have determined that CUPS printing is not impacted because it uses proxy authentication.  We need to test and resolve the use of OpenAFS file space with AD authentication.  If these issues are resolved we will move some Macintosh Lab machines to AD during Fall semester 2009.  NOTE: The fall Unity Macintosh lab kit is distributed with NO CHANGE in authentication and authorization.  The kits remain authenticating to the OIT MIT kerberos realm and authorizing and getting account attributes from the OIT OpenLDAP tree.

 8) Q&A – 15 min

You ask we try to answer.

Next meeting – Tuesday. Sep 8, 2009 in Room B16-B Hillsborough from 2:30-4:30 pm.   

MacTech – 2nd Tuesday each month: 2009: Jan. 13, Feb. 10, Mar. 10, Apr. 14, May. 12, Jun. 9, Aug. 11, Sep. 8, Oct. 13, Nov. 10, Dec.8 
MacPolicy – 2nd Tuesday of every other month:  2009: Jan. 13, Mar. 10, May. 12, Aug 11, Sep. 8, Nov. 10.
All meetings will be held in B16-B Hillsborough Bld. 
Please mark your calendar.