February 10, 2008
VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Remote login access to coxeter and sphere via ssh has been disabled due to a security issue with Red Hat kernels. We expect that Red Hat should have this fixed by Monday.
Email access via our mail server with pine or thunderbird (or any other IMAPS client) should not be affected. Please send email to requests@math.toronto.edu if you have problems.
coxeter (and sphere) will have to be rebooted when the security fix is applied.
February 11, 2008
Access to coxeter/sphere from the machines in the public terminal room (BA6200) is still possible.
Email access is working again while we wait for Red Hat's updates for the security problems. A patch is currently being tested by Red Hat but they have not given an estimated availability time. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope to have this problem solved later today.
As of 8:30pm on Monday the patch from Red Hat has still not appeared and there has still been no announcement about when it should be expected. We will continue to monitor this and if things are not better by Tuesday morning then please send email to requests@math.toronto.edu if you need to access coxeter from your departmental office. We will check individual cases and if machines are secure then we can arrange for access to coxeter. Unfortunately we cannot test home machines so access from them can not be arranged.
Please remember that it will take some time for the patching, rebooting, and testing even after the patch arrives. Thank you for your patience.
February 12, 2008
As of 8:30am on Tuesday the patch has still not arrived. Allowing access to coxeter from outside the department is still not possible so we will be checking individual departmental machines to determine if they are safe and if so will give them access to coxeter. If your need is urgent please send an email to requests@math.toronto.edu so we can try to enable your access more quickly.
Red Hat says, concerning the patch: We expect this to be completed shortly (pending successful completion of testing). So we are expecting the patch to be here this morning.
Since the mail server is still available you can access it with any IMAPS client or webmail even if you cannot access coxeter.
February 12, 2008
The Red Hat patch has been installed and normal ssh service has resumed. Please send an email to requests@math.toronto.edu if you notice anything amiss. Once again, sorry for the inconvenience this security lockdown has caused, we will investigate ways to minimize the impact future events of this kind might cause.
February 19, 2008
The email system will be unavailable for approximately two 10 minute periods today for system maintenance.
The email system maintenance was successfully completed.