Unix Committee

The Unix Committee of M.C.G.V. Stack is responsible for systems and network administration. The committee provides and manages Stack's technical services: a number of different computer systems, the communications network, system and application software, account management, and services like mailing lists and webmail. The Unix Committee also manages main content for the webserver for student associations, www.stud.tue.nl.

Composition

The 16th Unix Committee was appointed on 27 June 2011 by the 25th Board of M.C.G.V. Stack. It has the following composition:

• Dean Strik (chairman)
• Remko van der Vossen (treasurer)
• Boris Ammerlaan (secretary)
• Johan van Selst (vice-chairman)
• Jilles Tjoelker
• Jeroen Habraken
• Giel van Schijndel
• Ruud Althuizen
• Paul Bongers
• Phuoc Tran
• André van Schoubroeck

The Unix Committee is currently in search of new members. If you are interested, please contact us.

News, maintenance and interruptions

System administration news and service interruptions are announced on the Stack homepage. Major interruptions are also mentioned on the Stack status site. The status site is located off-site to our other services, so it remains available in cases of local power or network outages.

Current projects

This is a non-exhaustive list of some of the projects the Unix Committee is currently working on.

name	description	status
Core network upgrade (2008Q3-2008Q4)	Replacement of core routers and switches, implementation of spanning tree and redundant uplink, renetworking of secondary rooms	Active Done: Core switch "sequoia" and gigabit server switch "c49g-mr-1" installed Done: Border and core routing migrated to layer 3 switch sequoia Done: Spanning tree network over the main room, server room and ground floor storage room Done: Redundant network uplink connection Todo: Replacement of IPv6 router meestal-mk4 by new system skynet Todo: Renetworking basement storage room (cabling and switches) Todo: Replacement of server room gigabit switch
Wireless network upgrade (2008Q4)	Replacement of access point and wireless encryption setup	Active Done: placement of Cisco Aironet access point Ongoing: WPA2 testing on new AP Todo: offering WPA2 encryption using the STACK SSID (more info) Todo: termination of WEP service and old AP
Fibre channel (2008Q3-2009Q1)	Use of fibre channel for centralized "local" storage. Allows for use of enterprise disks for many systems at low cost, high speed, location independence and option of reassignment of drives to different systems	Active Done: FC switch in main room (fcs-mr-1) as core and server switch Done: FC cabling to and switch in ground floor storage room (fcs-r6-1) Done: Hookup of storage shelves with hard drives (currently totalling 28x73GB 10K) Done: First deployments by servers toad, tesla, stockholm and fourier Done: Installation of new 2Gbps switch (fcs-mr-2) in main room racks Ongoing: Migrate systems from fcs-mr-1 to fcs-mr-2 Todo: Installation of cabling to and switches in server room and basement storage room Todo: Hooking up more systems, such as helsinki and stockholm
Email scanning (2008Q3-2008Q4)	Use of Surfnet Mail Filter and virus scanning	Active Ongoing: testing/development (on vaak-mk5) Todo: Application of amavis on mailrelays Todo: Use of mail filter for stack.nl and subdomains Todo: Virus scanning
Directory service replacement (2008Q4)	Migration of the current LDAP directory service	Active Ongoing: investigation of options Ongoing: testing of OpenDS Todo: approval of a new service Todo: replication testing
New database server (2008Q4-2009Q1)	Replacement of current MySQL/PostgreSQL server oslo (SunFire E280R) by new server (SunFire V440) stockholm	From late October Done: physical installation and network/FC hookups of stockholm in racks Ongoing: installation and configuration of Solaris on stockholm Todo: install new dbz[0-4] zones on stockholm Todo: migrate db0/db3/db4/db5/db6 databases to zones on new host
Weber replacement (2008Q4)	Replacement of weber (Sun clone running FreeBSD/sparc64) by newer system running FreeBSD/i386	From November Todo: preinstall old mud (1U dual P3-1GHz) as weber replacement Todo: install status.stack.nl service on new weber Todo: install system at Dispuut Interlink

Contact

The Unix Committee can be contacted by e-mail at unix@stack.nl. For confidential messages, e-mail to the system administrators may be encrypted using the unix PGP key. The fingerprint of this PGP key is

pub   4096R/4CB3621D 2010-01-08 [expires: 2012-02-27]
      Key fingerprint = E9C0 EFBB 1977 E1D6 0320  46BD 635B A115 4CB3 621D
uid                  Stack Systeembeheer <unix@stack.nl>
sub   4096R/F6DC0662 2010-01-08 [expires: 2012-02-27]