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IST Socrates News

Socrates News

Items ordered most current first.

13 June 2008 >> Retirement of Socrates and Arachne servers postponed <<

Source: Helen Norris email of 6/13/2008

Thank you again for your participation in the recent surveys, and for your continued patience. We apologize for the confusion and concern we have created in the community announcing the retirement of Socrates and Arachne. We were naļve in our assumptions about the options available to campus, and learned from our survey that our current offerings will not meet the needs of all Socrates and Arachne users. We appreciate your feedback and are actively pursuing options to meet the requirements you identified in the surveys and at the forums, including evaluating non-campus vendors. With that in mind, we want you to know that we will not close either the Socrates or Arachne services until we have more robust and affordable solutions available.

We will be revising the timetable for the retirement of Socrates and Arachne and will communicate with you when we have a new timeframe in place. However, it is clear that it will take at least until the end of this calendar year before we can retire these services and move you to suitable new services.

Please continue to visit our website at http://ist.berkeley.edu/services/tam/serverabatement.html for the most current information.

Helen

28 April 2008 >> Socrates/Arachne Retirement News <<

Source: Debbie Meads email of 4/28/2008

We have extended the date for the Socrates retirement to the end of the fall 2008 semester; however we expect to decommission Arachne by mid-summer 2008:

Survey current Socrates/Arachne customers. (The survey closed on Thursday, April 24, 2008.)
Review the results and map customers to current IST service offerings.
Communicate our service recommendations to customers.
Assist customers needing help to move web sites.
Identify customers with needs that don’t fit into our current service offerings.
Explore new service offerings.
Coordinate moves of customers to other services.
Retire servers; Arachne mid-summer 2008, Socrates late fall 2008.

If you’d like to move now and know which IST service offering will meet your requirements, please email

If you are uncertain of your web-hosting needs, please see the following options:

IST supported web hosting options: http://ist.berkeley.edu/services/tam/webhosting.html
ETS supported bSpace: https://bspace.berkeley.edu/
Student supported Open Computing Facility (OCF): http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/

25 March 2008 >> Sun Java Run Time Environment Security Update <<

Source: Ora Prusanan email of 3/25/2008 14:58:29

If you are using the Sun Java Runtime Environment (JRE), please update your applications to use the updated JRE as soon as possible.

JRE allows users to run Java applications in a browser or as standalone programs. Sun has released updates to JRE (which is included in their Java Develoment Kit (JDK) and Software Development Kit (SDK) software packages) to address multiple vulnerabilities.

Updated versions have been installed on Socrates at:

/usr/local/j2sdk1.4.2_17 (Java 2 SDK)
/usr/local/jdk1.5.0_15 (JDK)

/usr/java on Socrates will be linked to the updated verion, /usr/jdk/j2sdk1.4.2_17, on or shortly after 4 April 2008.

The following versions of Sun Java Runtime Environments have been found to have a vulnerabilty that can allow an exploiter to run arbitrary code:

JDK and JRE 6 Update 4 and earlier
JDK and JRE 5.0 Update 14 and earlier
SDK and JRE 1.4.2_16 and earlier
SDK and JRE 1.3.1_21 and earlier

Additional details on the specific nature of the problem can be found by looking up:

US-CERT Technical Cyber Security Alert TA08-066A (http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA08-066A.html)

14 March 2008 >> Socrates Customer Forum April 8, 2008 <<

Source: Helen Norris email of 3/14/2008 (with 3/16/2008 correction)

To: <socrates_web_customers@lists.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Socrates Users Forum
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 20:26:15 -0700
Message-ID: <023201c8864c$53bc3960$1ff0e5a9@ist.berkeley.edu>

Dear Socrates customers,

We hope you’ve already heard about the upcoming retirement of the Socrates and Arachne servers. Details about this can be found on the project web site:
http://ist.berkeley.edu/services/tam/serverabatement.html

We would like to invite you to attend our upcoming open forums on this topic. The dates and times are as follows:

Arachne Customer Forum April 7, 2008 at 2:00pm
Socrates Customer Forum April 8, 2008 at 10:00 am

Both forums will be held in Sibley auditorium in the Bechtel Engineering Center. Please RSVP to Sheila Press, spress@berkeley.edu if you are interested in joining us for these forums.

Our next steps in this project include: gathering customer input; open forums as mentioned above; customer survey kick-off

We are also in the process of forming an oversight advisory committee. We will announce the Socrates Arachne Advisory Group once membership is confirmed.

We will make every effort to move web hosting customers to current IST services but we are also evaluating lower cost options.

We look forward to hearing from you and will continue to send communications throughout the project. Please continue to check the project web site http://ist.berkeley.edu/services/tam/serverabatement.html for updates and if you’d like to contact us, please send a message to cosar@lists.berkeley.edu

This message is going to customers associated with the initial account setup and email addresses associated with the virtual host setup. Multiple people associated with the site may receive the same email. We apologize for any duplication.

If you ever want to unsubscribe or change your options (eg, switch to or from digest mode, change your password, etc.), visit your subscription page at:

https://calmail.berkeley.edu/manage/list/options/socrates_web_customers@lists.berkeley.edu

Helen Norris
Director, IST Client Services

15 February 2008 >> Socrates and Arachne services to be retired. <<

IST is beginning the effort to retire the Socrates and Arachne services and to move clients to new services that are appropriate for their technical needs. IST will follow up with more detailed communications throughout the project life cycle.

The most current information about this project can be found at:

http://ist.berkeley.edu/services/tam/serverabatement.html

For general questions about this project, contact

cosar@lists.berkeley.edu

20 September 2007 >> Socrates SSH access from off-campus will discontinue <<

Socrates server -- SSH access from off-campus will discontinue

Effective November 7, 2007, Socrates will no longer be accessible via SSH (Secure Shell), SFTP (Secure File Transfer Software), and SCP (the file transfer component of SSH) from off-campus IP addresses. This is being done to protect the server from the ever-growing number of break-in attempts that are being performed via SSH.

If you are currently logging in from a non ".berkeley.edu" host, for example, from a commercial Internet provider IP address, you will need to install the campus Cisco VPN Client on your computer. This allows secure campus network connections, as if your are connecting from the campus hosts.

The Cisco VPN client can be downloaded from Software Central at:

http://software-central.berkeley.edu/

If you have problems installing and configuring VPN, please contact connecting@berkeley.edu, connecting at berkeley dot edu, or call 642-8899 for help.

14 December 2006 >> NOTICE: Socrates Emergency Security change to be implemented asap <<

Reverse-dns now required for sshd logins. If you do not have a reverse dns record for the ip of your computer, you may not be able to login to Socrates via ssh. If this is the case please connect to socrates via the campus vpn. Software for Campus VPN Service is available at http://www.net.berkeley.edu/vpn/

27 May 2005 >> REMINDER: Socrates ftp services to be discontinued

June 1, 2005 <<

Ftp passes unencrypted passwords over the network. Abatement of unencrypted ftp services is required to comply with Campus Minimum Security Standards
(http://socrates.berkeley.edu:2002/MinStds/) and specifically the section on Unencrypted Authentication
(http://security.berkeley.edu:2002/MinStds/unencrypted.auth.html).

A secure alternative to ftp, sftp, is already available on Socrates. Sftp uses the ssh protocol. To use sftp, you will need to use SSH software that includes ssh, scp and sftp. The software is free for download (http://software.berkeley.edu/). We also plan to offer another secure alternative to ftp, FTPS, in early June.

For specific inquiries regarding these services, including sftp, please see: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/Telnet/ssh_faq.html.

24 May 2005 >> REMINDER: telnet, rlogin, rsh, rcp, rexec and ftp services

will be discontinued on Socrates login server on June 1, 2005 <<

These programs pass or require the user to send unencrypted passwords over the network.

The changes are being made to comply with Campus Minimum Security Standards (http://socrates.berkeley.edu:2002/MinStds/) and specifically the section on Unencrypted Authentication (http://security.berkeley.edu:2002/MinStds/unencrypted.auth.html).

Secure alternatives to the insecure programs listed above are already available on socrates:

ssh replaces telnet, rlogin, rsh and rexec scp replaces rcp
sftp replaces ftp

To log into socrates.berkeley.edu/, you will need to switch to SSH software SSH software includes ssh, scp and sftp. The software is free for download (http://software.berkeley.edu/).

For specific inquiries regarding these services (http://socrates.berkeley.edu/Telnet/ssh_faq.html).

Please send email to socs-telnet@berkeley.edu if you have any questions.

26 Apr 2006 >> Migration Status update <<

8:30 am. Inbox migration to the CalMail system has completed. Please see http://socrates.berkeley.edu/migration.html for post-migration intructions and support for @socrates email.

25 Apr 2005 >> Migration Status update <<

8:00 am. We're almost there - inbox migration continues. Pine, mutt and mailx users, please see http://socrates.berkeley.edu/migration.html for links to post-migration instructions including those for pine and mutt.

24 Apr 2005>> Migration Status update <<

12:30pm. The Email migration is progressing. Please see http://socrates.berkeley.edu/migration.html for the latest status. Special notice for Socrates users who login and use sendmail, mail, mailx, mutt & pine: Socrates' sendmail has been reconfigured for "post-migration" use. Socrates sendmail will now only accept connections from the localhost and routes all socrates mail to the Socrates domain on Calmail. What does this mean to YOU? Email for users of sendmail, mail, mailx & pine should be functioning normally. Also, please note that we are in the process of migrating inboxes to the Socrates domain in CalMail. It would probably be better not to muck around too much with your socrates' inbox, it is possible, though unlikely that that could corrupt messages in your inbox.

24 Apr 2005 >> Migration about to commence <<

The email migration is scheduled today and the migration process is about to commence. Switchover of Socrates email to the Socrates domain on CalMail will occur ~10am this morning. SPECIAL NOTICE TO USERS LOGGED INTO SOCRATES VIA SSH OR TELNET - after the switchover we will need to reconfigure mail software on Socrates. That will result in short outages to sendmail, the mail software that runs on the socrates server.Also we advise users of the Socrates' pine, mailx, mail, and mutt programs that they might want to refrain from using these programs on Socrates whilst we migrate their inboxes, there is a possibility- albeit unlikely, that if you are accessing your /var/mail/inbox on socrates while we migrate it that your socs' inbox could be corrupted.

22 Apr 2005 >> Vacation & forwarding "frozen" <<

In preparation for the Email Migration on April 24, we have "frozen" the vacation and .forward info for Socrates users. This means that any changes you make to your vacation message or .forward file on Socrates after 10:30am today, April 22nd, will not be migrated to the Socrates email domain on CalMail. Once the migration is completed, you will be able to use CalMail's vacation and forwarding tools to change your vacation and forwarding message.

21 Apr 2005 >> Reminder: Socrates Email Migration April 24, 2005 <<

On April 24, 2005. Socrates' Email Service will be migrated to the CalMail system. Every Socrates user will be affected by this change. Please see http://socrates.berkeley.edu/migration.html for more information regarding Socrates Email Migration to CalMail.

13 Apr 2005 >> Changes in interactive login and file transfer <<

This announcement affects telnet, rlogin, rsh, rcp, rexec and ftp users.

On June 1, 2005, services that are not in compliance with the Campus Minumum Security Standards will be replaced. The affected services include: telnet, rlogin, rsh, rcp, rexec and ftp.

These programs pass or require the user to send unencrypted passwords over the network.

On June 1, 2005, these services will be discontinued on Socrates. Changes are being made to comply with the Campus Minimum Security Standards (http://socrates.berkeley.edu:2002/MinStds/) and specifically the section on Unencrypted Authentication (http://security.berkeley.edu:2002/MinStds/unencrypted.auth.html).

Secure alternatives to the insecure programs listed above are already available on socrates:

ssh replaces telnet, rlogin, rsh and rexec scp replaces rcp
sftp replaces ftp

Obtaining SSH Software

To log into socrates.berkeley.edu/, you will need to switch to SSH software SSH software includes ssh, scp and sftp. The software is free for download (http://software.berkeley.edu/).

For specific inquiries regarding these services (http://socrates.berkeley.edu/Telnet/ssh_faq.html).

Please send email to socs-telnet@berkeley.edu if you have any questions.

27 Mar 2005 >> Maillist Migration Completed 2:30 pm <<

Socrates' maillists were moved to the lists.berkeley.edu/ system at approx 11am this morning. Since that time, mail list owners can administer their maillists by using their CalMail login to access the http://lists.berkeley.edu system, and mail list email addresses were changed from <list-name@socrates> to <list-name@lists>. Socrates' email addresses for these lists were disabled at 2:30pm. At that time, email sent to <list-name@socrates.berkeley.edu> ceased to function. We were not able to move a small number of lists to the lists system because some Socrates' list owners did not have a @berkeley.edu CalMail account. Also lists were not moved if they already existed on the lists.berkeley.edu/ system. We will be contacting the owners of these particular lists via email. In the meanwhile, <list-name@socrates.berkeley.edu> addresses still work for lists that were not migrated to lists.berkeley.edu/.

17 Mar 2005 >> Socrates Email Migration Rescheduled to April 24<<

The Socrates Email Migration date has been changed from March 27 to April 24. At that time, Socrates' email service, with the exception of Socrates' mail lists, will be migrated to the CalMail system. Migration of Socrates' email lists will still take place on March 27, 2005.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Please continue to migrate your Socrates email to Calmail ( Migration instructions are available at: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/Migration/migrationinstruct.html ). Additional information about the Socrates migration is available at http://socrates.berkeley.edu/migration.html. We will be updating this site frequently as the migration progresses.

Please send email to consult@socrates.berkeley.edu if you have any questions.

25 Jan 2005 >> Using Pine with CalMail Instructions Available <<

Instructions for using Pine on Socrates with the CalMail email system are now available at:

http://socrates.berkeley.edu/Migration/pine_instruct.html

We have posted this first round of Pine instructions for those users who want to start using Socrates' pine as an imap client for CalMail. Please note that while we have tested these instructions ourselves and found they work, YMMV (your mileage may vary). Users may wish to backup their current .pinerc before trying these out. If you have any feedback on how to improve these instructions please email consult@socs.

25 Jan 2005 >> Reminder: Socrates Email Migration March 27, 2005 <<

On March 27, 2005. Socrates' Email Service will be migrated to the CalMail system. Every Socrates user will be affected by this change. Please see http://socrates.berkeley.edu/migration.html for more information regarding Socrates Email Migration to CalMail.

20 Oct 2004 >> Email Migration & Changes to Maillist Program <<

As of November 1, 2004, users will no longer be able to create new mail lists on Socrates. Instead, new email lists should be created on the lists.berkeley.edu/ system. Existing mailists on Socrates will continue to be supported. You will still be able to view, edit and delete Socrates mailists created prior to November 1. This change is part of the migration of Socrates email service to CalMail, planned for Spring 2005. Please see http://socrates.berkeley.edu/migration.html for more information regarding maillists and the Socrates' Email Service Migration.

7 Apr 2004 >> Attention Users: Password Change Required by 4/13/04 <<

A security incident has occurred on Socrates. The intrusion was detected within minutes and Socrates was removed from the network to protect user data. Unfortunately, the password file was compromised. As a result, all Socrates users must change their passwords by Tuesday, April 13th at 5 p.m. After that time, accounts which have not had their passwords changed will be locked, and the account owner will have to appear in person at 206 Evans Hall with a photo id to establish a new password.

Instructions on changing Socrates passwords are available at:

        http://socsvac.berkeley.edu (web interface) or
        http://socrates.berkeley.edu/Acct/password.html (shell interface).

We apologize for the inconvenience.

9 Mar 2004 >> Abatement of SpamAssassin, Switch to PureMessage <<

The mail utility SpamAssassin will be removed from Socrates as of March 15, 2004. SpamAssassin was installed as a pilot product in early 2003. It was replaced by PureMessage, our production spam-tagging service, in May 2003.

SpamAssassin is being used by only a few Socrates accounts. It is also an extremely resource-intensive program that negatively affects system performance during peak usage periods. PureMessage is a fully-supported product that is much less resource intensive.

All users of SpamAssassin should immediately switch to PureMessage. Instructions are available at http://socrates.berkeley.edu/help/Email/spam.

SpamAssassin will no longer be available after March 15, 2004.

2 Mar 2004 >> Virus Update <<

Several varients of the BAGLE worm have been arriving in large numbers in email. Messages with virus-containing attachments purporting to come from "The Berkeley.edu Team" and support@socrates, and using various techniques of social engineering -- such as telling users that important instructions are included in these attachments, or warning users that their accounts will be deactivated unless they open these attachments -- have started appearing. Do not open these attachments.

The Socrates service is scanning for currently identified variants and removing the attached files. If you do not currently have virus software or a personal firewall installed on your workstation, please go to http://software.berkeley.edu/ for more information and free software.

8 Sep 2003 >> New virus blocking measures <<

As of today, remote usage of the Solaris finger service to provide information about the Socrates environment has been permanently disabled. The Solaris finger command executed by a logged-in Socrates user will continue to work as it did before this change.

8 Sep 2003 >> New virus blocking measures <<

This past weekend, Socrates put some additional measures in place to stem the flood of virus mail that has been coming in over the past weeks from the SOBIG worm. We are now blocking over 30,000 virus messages a day. At this point, we are only able to block messages which actually contain a virus; we are still looking into ways to reduce the total amount of virus-generated mail.

5 May 2003 >> Account deactivation <<

The Socrates Team and User and Account Services (UAS) are conducting the periodic audit of Socrates accounts. If an account has not shown activity for at least the past 6 months, the account will be deactivated. If your account has been deactivated and you now require use of the account, please call User and Account Services at 642-7355, M-F, 10-4.

1 May 2003 >> Spam reduction method <<

Too much spam? Socrates now runs spam tagging software to help you filter your mail. See http://socrates.berkeley.edu/help/Email/spam for details.

30 Apr 2003 >> Python 2.2.2 Available for User Testing <<

Due to overwhelming popular demand, Python has been added to the suite of products available on Socrates. Users should feel free test our installation of Python 2.2.2, which is available at /usr/local/python-2.2.2.

Please note that this product is a test install of Python. It may be necessary to modify or re-install this product before it is considered fully supported.

For general information regarding the Python Language, please see: http://www.python.org .

Please email consult@socs if you have any questions pertaining to testing Python.

thanks,
-The Socs Team

24 March 2003 >> Gcc 3.2.1 Available for User Testing <<

Gcc 3.2.1 is available for user testing on Socrates and can be accessed by specifying the path /usr/local/gcc-3.2.1/bin/gcc.

Related binaries and tools are available within the /usr/local/gcc-3.2.1 path.

This release includes a number of enhancements. For more information on gcc please see http://www.gnu.org.

Please email consult@socs if you have any questions pertaining to testing gcc.

thanks,

-the Socs Team

7 March 2003 >> Perl 5.8 Available for User Testing <<

Perl 5.8.0 is available for user testing on Socrates and can be accessed by specifying the path /usr/local/perl-5.8.0. Binaries are available at /usr/local/perl-5.8.0/bin/perl.

According to perl.com, 5.8.0 has new features including "generation of C code and support for lightweight processes."

The 'default' version of Perl, Perl 5.005_03, remains available for use at /usr/local/bin/perl.

Please email consult if you have any questions or feedback regarding testing Perl 5.8.0 on Socrates.

For general information about the Perl language, please see http://www.cpan.org or http://www.perl.com.

Thanks,
-The Socs Team

17 January 2003 >> New Virus Filtering Software <<

Socrates is now running Trend Micro's Viruswall antivirus software. All email which passes through Socrates will be scanned for viruses.

When a virus is detected in a piece of email, the virus will be replaced by a warning message such as:

        Found virus WORM_KLEZ.H in file badfile.doc
        The file is deleted.

The rest of the message will remain intact.

In addition, separate emails will be sent to both the sender and the recipient letting them know about the virus. For example, the recipient of the virus would get a message saying something like:

        Detected and deleted a virus (WORM_KLEZ.H) from your incoming email
        on 01/01/2003 14:58:27. No further action is required on your part

and the sender will see a message saying:

        A mail message (file: badfile.doc) containing a virus was sent
        from person@example.edu to user@example.com

No further action is required on the part of the recipient; the virus was deleted before it ever reached his or her mailbox.

The sender should verify that their computer is not infected and sending out viruses. Unfortunately, one of the standard tricks virus writers use in spreading viruses is forging the "from" address, so it is entirely possible that people will get viruses which appear to be addressed from you even if your computer has never been infected.

If you have any questions, send email to consult@socrates.berkeley.edu.

28 October 2002 >> Hardware Replacement for Socrates Server <<

During Winter Holiday, the Academic Computing Services is planning to upgrade its central server Socrates from a Sun Ultra Enterprise 5000 to a new SunFire V880 Server based on second generation 64-bit UltraSparc III processor. It will run the Solaris 8 Operating Environment to ensure binary compatibility for existing applications. The new 900 MHz processors should provide a big performance boost. The SunFire V880 scales easily for additional components and offers high availibility with hot swap components while system is running.

The conversion date for the hardware replacement has been scheduled for December 29, 2002, from 6am - 2pm. There will be additional scheduled downtime on Sunday mornings prior to the conversion date.

We will be upgrading the Sun Workshop 5 to Sun WorkShop 6 update 2. If you are a regular user of C, C++ and Fortran from this product, see additional details at;

http://130.15.168.200/faqs/SUNWspro/WS6U2/lib/locale/C/html/index.html

Please send e-mail to consult@socrates.berkeley.edu if you have any questions or concern on the upgrades.

17 September 2002 >> Changes to POP email <<

On October 1, 2002, Socrates will begin using Dynamic Relay Authorization Control (DRAC) to handle outgoing mail of POP users. Socrates users may need to adjust the configuration of their POP mail client (Eudora, Outlook, etc.)

DRAC provides a number of benefits such as protection against spammers. Additional information on the change and instructions on how to adjust mail client configurations can be found at the following links:

http://istpub.berkeley.edu:4201/bcc/Fall2002/svcs.drac.html http://socrates.berkeley.edu/Help/Email/drac.html

Note: This will NOT affect users who ONLY use unix to check and send email (pine, elm, mail). For more info, type: news

12 July 2002 >> ToolTalk database server disabled <<

The ToolTalk database server has been temporarily disabled because vulnerabilities have been found which could allow the Socrates system to be compromised. Sun is currently working on fixes to their server code.

The ToolTalk database server will be enabled as soon as either Sun provides a fix to their code or we find a way to protect Socrates from the vulnerabilities.

For a more technical description of the vulnerabilities, please see http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2002-20.html

17 June 2002 >> Lisrel version 8.51 installed<<

Lisrel 8.51 is now available. You can invoke the new versions of the three programs that are bundled with Lisrel, as:

        lisrel851
        prelis251
        multilev50

The old version of these program (8.30) remain available as lisrel8 and prelis2, multilev. In the Fall, version 8.30 will be removed from the system and version 8.51 will become the default.

28 December 2001 >> New Pine (4.40) <<

Pine on Socrates was upgraded to version 4.40 on December 31. Users will see an informational message the first time they use the new pine to inform them of the update. The old pine (v4.21) is available via the command 'pine.old'. Please report any problems to consult@socrates.berkeley.edu.

18 December 2001 >> vacation/forwarding of email <<

There is now a web-based mechanism for setting vacation/forwarding of email directed to your socrates account. The presentation of the tool is virtually identical to a similar one on UCLINK. To give it a try, point your browser at:

http://socsvac.berkeley.edu

Your browser must be ssl-enabled to use this tool. Also, if you have already tailored your .forward file, this tool may not be able to manage forwarding; this is most likely true for people that use there .forward file as a mechanism for filtering their mail.

17 December 2001 >> Attention ATTBI Cable Modem Users. <<

We are aware of the ongoing problems with the Domain Name Service for ATTBI, which are affecting remote access to Socrates. Our understanding is that the original problem on hostname lookups has been fixed, but ATTBI continues to have problems with the load on their name servers.

Our recommendation is to use campus dial-in facilities in the interim and keep checking to see if your ATTBI connection works. We will issue an update when the situation changes.

30 November 2001 >> FTP Server Upgraded. <<

We have upgraded our ftpd server from wu-ftpd version 2.6.1 to 2.6.2. We took this action in response to a recently disclosed security vulnerability. The new release simply fixes two bugs. Users are very unlikely to notice any changes. Nevertheless, users should email consult if they experience any problems with our standard ftp server.

29 November 2001 >> Quota for mailbox has increased to 20mb. <<

We recently added new disks enabling us to increase the disk quota on user's mailbox from the default 10mb to 20mb for the soft quota limit; the hard quota limit stays the same at 25mb.

As always, if you exceed the soft of 20mb limit and below the hard of 25mb limit, you have seven days to clean up your mailbox and bring it below 20mb or you won't be able to receive new mail. You won't be able to receive new mail whenever you exceed your hard of 25mb limit until you remove some mail. Use the command 'quota -v' to view the most recent quotas when logged in.

We encourage users to download their e-mail to their POP clients when possible and to regularly cleanup their mailbox to keep the common mail spool area problem free for all users.

We encourage POP only users who do not log onto their Socrates account regularly to move their e-mail accounts to UCLink, the campus' official e-mail system. See http://uclink.berkeley.edu/ for details on setting up an account on the UCLink system.

29 October 2001 >> Ssh 1.2.31 upgraded to ssh 1.2.32. <<

We have upgraded our ssh1 from 1.2.31 to 1.2.32. We have taken this action in response to a recently disclosed exploit for 1.2.31 which can be used by malicious users to gain access to machines running ssh1.

Regardless of whether you use ssh1 or ssh2, you should not see any difference in performance. If however, you encounter any problems, please report them to consult@socrates.berkeley.edu.

24 October 2001 >> Pine 4.40 Available for Testing <<

We are preparing to upgrade pine on socrates to version 4.40. If you wish to help test this new version of pine, you can do so by running the command "pine.new". If you encounter any problems, please report them to consult@socrates.berkeley.edu.

20 September 2001 >> Nimda (Concept) Worm <<

By now, you have probably heard about the Nimda (Concept) Worm.

On Socrates, we are currently:

Filtering Socrates mail for the Nimda worm
Checking Socrates mail spools for Nimda.
Deleting any infected messages.
Sending mail to the affected Socrates user.

However, the Nimda worm uses avenues other than email to infect your machine.

The Nimda worm has the potential to affect both user workstations (clients) running Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, or 2000 and servers running Windows NT and 2000.

Details about the Nimda Worm can be found at:

http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2001-26.html

http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.nimda.a@mm.html

http://socrates.berkeley.edu:2002/nimda.html

16 September 2001 >> Ssh has been upgraded <<

As of 7am PDT this morning, we have upgraded ssh1 to ssh-1.2.31, and our ssh2 login daemon to version 2.4.0. Ssh is the login program which many of our users use to securely log in.

These upgrades include a number of performance and security fixes. We have preserved our host keys and configurations, so users should notice little, if any differences and should not have to make any changes to their ssh client.

Users of some ssh1 clients may notice the following message upon their initial login to socs:

!! If host key is new or changed, ssh1 protocol is vulnerable to an !! attack known as false-split, which makes it relativily easy to !! hijack the connection without the attack being detected. It is !! highly advisable to turn StrictHostKeyChecking to "yes" and !! manually copy host keys to known_hosts. Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?

This seemingly omnious message is merely a warning that servers should run ssh2 as their daemon (we already do this), and that users should be aware of changed server keys (ours haven't changed). Users should not be alarmed by this unless they continue to get this message upon repeated logins.

For any questions/problems with ssh, please contact consult@socrates.

Thanks,
-The Socs Team

03 August 2001 >> Sircam actions taken <<

We are actively working to eradicate the SirCam worm which has hit the campus with a vengeance.

We are currently blocking mail from addresses which are known to be virus carriers and that are creating large amounts of mail and relay attempts.

We are also:

Filtering Socrates mail for the SirCam worm
Checking Socrates mail spools for SirCam.
Deleting any infected messages.
Sending mail to the affected Socrates user.

We also advise Socrates users to take the following steps:

Update your virus software.
If you receive a SirCam message from someone, delete it, and immediately send a message to the infected sender, informing them that they are infected by the SirCam worm.
If you have received multiple messages from the same sender, please send us the address of the sender (consult@socrates). We will take appropriate action to make sure that the messages stop.

For information on how to identify email containing the SirCam worm, please refer to:

http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2001-22.html

For general information on SirCam, refer to:

http://www.zdnet.com/zdhelp/stories/main/0,5594,2800626,00.html

For technical information on how to detect and remove SirCam:

http://www.sarc.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.sircam.worm@mm.html

Thank you for helping us eradicate this worm from the campus.

02 August 2001 >> Sircam Virus Damages Windows PCs and fills inboxes <<

Sircam email virus:

Since July 25, 2001, the CERT Co-ordination center has recieved numerous reports of a virus that can damage any system running the Microsoft Windows operating system. This virus, known as "W32/Sircam" or "Sircam" spreads through email and unprotected network shares. Once it infects a PC system, Sircam often deletes files and sends a copy of itself to all email addresses it can find.

Sircam is particularly sophisticated in that it cannot be identified by subject line or attachment name. A Sircam email will have the following characteristics, as described by CERT:

"The email message will contain an attachment whose name matches the subject line and has a double file extension (e.g. subject.ZIP.BAT/ or subject.DOC.EXE/)."

We urge all of our users to NOT open email attachments, regardless of the sender's name. We also advise Windows users to update virus checking software.

Additional information about Sircam is available at:

http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2001-22.html

08 May 2001 >> Socrates operating system upgrade to Solaris 8 <<

On July 29, 2001, we will be upgrading Socrates operating system to Solaris 8 (SUNOS 5.8) from its current Solaris 2.6 (SUNOS 5.6).

Solaris 8 is a 64-bit versus 32-bit Operating System, which has addressable memory beyond 2GB and can handle data files greater than 2GB. However, in order to utilize the full power of a 64-bit UNIX OS, your products will need to support 64-bit operations. SUN expects that applications run under Solaris 2.6 will continue to run under Solaris 8.

If you have specific applications that you are not sure about, please check with the vendor to make sure that your product will be supported under Solaris 8, 64-bit Operating Environment.

For more detail information on Solaris 8 Operating Environment, see http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/cover/2001-0102/

If you have further questions, or need an account to test specific applications under Solaris 8, 64-bit, please send email to consult@socrates before July 20.

27 March 2001 >> Ytalk 3.1.1 is now production <<

Ytalk has been upgraded from 3.0.2patched to 3.1.1. This new version has increased functionality and fixes a number of bugs. Should you have any problem with this new version of ytalk, please contact consult@socrates .

05 February 2001 >> GCG version 10.1 is now production <<

GCG version 10.1 is now the production version of GCG.

Corresponding to this change, SeqWeb is now version 1.2, and accesses this new version of GCG.

08 January 2001 >> GCG version 10.1 available for test <<

GCG version 10.1 is now available for test. You can access this version by issuing the following commands:

         source /usr/local/GCG/10.1/gcgstartup
         gcg

If you currently, have your account setup to automatically access the current version of GCG (10.0), you must dis-mantle this before you try to access the test version. Unpredictable behavior may result from attempting to have both versions accessible simultaneously.

Corresponding to the new version of GCG is a new version of SeqWeb, version 1.2. If you currently have a SeqWeb account, and you want to try this new version, you should contact the SeqWeb administrator, Karin Hansen (khansen@ls.berkeley.edu).

09 November 2000 >> Expect-5.31 is now production <<

Expect on socrates has been upgraded from version 5.28 to version 5.31. This distribution contains the following executables (all in /usr/local/bin):

autoexpect autopasswd cryptdir decryptdir dislocate

expect       expectk      ftp-rfc    kibitz       lpunlock
mkpasswd     passmass     rftp       rlogin-cwd   timed-read
timed-run    tknewsbiff   tkpasswd   unbuffer     weather
xkibitz      xpstat

Please report any problems you may have with these to consult@socrates.

07 November 2000 >> Unzip and zip updated <<

The compression utilities Unzip and zip have been updated. Unzip is now version 5.41, zip is now version 2.3. Please report any problems to consult@socrates .

05 November 2000 >> gcc 2.95.2 now production gcc; gmake is now 3.79 <<

Gcc 2.95.2 is now the production version of the gcc compiler. Users who wish to use gcc-2.7.2.1 can do so by specifying /usr/local/gcc-2.7.2.1/bin in their path. Please report problems to consult@socrates. We have also updated our version of gmake to gmake-3.79. Any problems with gmake should also be reported to consult.

03 November 2000 >> Tcl-8.3.2 and Tk-8.3.2 are now production <<

Both tcl-8.3.2 and tk-8.3.2 are now the production tcl and tk on socrates. Please report any problems to consult@socrates.

18 October 2000 >> Less 3.5.8 Available for Testing <<

Less 3.5.8 is available for testing at /usr/local/less-358 . This version of less incorporates several bug fixes and new features.

22 September 2000 >> Tcl-8.3.2 and Tk-8.3.2 Available for Testing <<

Tcl-8.3.2 and Tk-8.3.2 are now available for testing on socrates. (The current production versions of these products are Tcl-8.0 and Tk-8.0.) Symbolic links to the binaries for these products are /usr/local/bin/tclsh.new and /usr/local/bin/wish.new. The product directories themselves are at /usr/local/tcl-8.3.2 and /usr/local/tk-8.3.2. We urge tcl and tk users to test their applications and scripts with these new versions. Please report any problems to consult@socrates.

21 September 2000 >> Bash is now Bash 2.04 <<

Bash 2.04 is now the production bash on socrates. The former version (bash 2.03) is now available as bash.old. Bash 2.04 seems to be primarily a maintenance release in which numerous bugs were fixed; for a detailed list of changes, see /usr/local/bash/info/CHANGES. Please contact consult@socrates if you experience any problems with the new bash.

19 September 2000 >> Elm is now Elm 2.5.3 <<

Elm 2.5.3 is now the production level elm on socrates. This elm is being released with the mailbox editing feature turned on. This is fundamentally a maintenance release, with no new features.

Elm users might want to be aware that the elm filter program is no longer a part of the elm distribution. Although the documentation still refers to it, the filter program was removed from the elm package at the very beginning of the 2.5 development cycle. The filter program that we provide here (/usr/local/elm/bin/filter) is a symbolic link to the filter program in the Elm 2.4 package. If at some point this version of filter should fail, it will not be fixable. Users of elm filter may want to consider using procmail instead at some point.

19 September 2000 >> Fetchmail is now Fetchmail 5.4.1 <<

Fetchmail 5.4.1 is now the production level fetchmail on socrates. Please send mail to consult@socrates if you experience any problem with fetchmail. Fetchmail is a pop mail client for unix.

18 September 2000 >> SPSS version 6.1.4 available for test <<

Version 6.1.4 of SPSS is now available for test. It is invoked by issuing the command spss614. For example to run a program named "myprog.spss", one would issue the command:

spss614 -m myprog.spss >! myprog.lst

Version 6.1.3, the version currently in production, will remain the production version of SPSS for the rest of the Fall semester.

18 September 2000 >> Gcc 2.95.2 available for testing <<

gcc 2.95.2 and its related compilers and tools are available for testing. This version is an update to 2.91, and incorporates numerous bug fixes. This suite of tools is available at /usr/local/gcc-2.95.2/bin. You may find that some things compile better if you use the 3.79 version of gmake in conjunction with this gcc.

06 September 2000 >> Gmake 3.79 available for testing <<

The updated version of gmake, gmake 3.79, is available for testing. This version is an update from 3.75 and incorporates numerous updates and bugfixes. This suite of tools is available at /usr/local/gmake-3.79/bin .

06 September 2000 >> Zip 2.3 available for testing <<

The updated version of the zip utility, zip 2.3, is available for testing. This version is an update from version 5.2 and incorporates numerous updates and bugfixes. This suite of commands is available at /usr/local/zip-2.3/bin .

06 September 2000 >> Unzip 5.4 available for testing <<

The updated version of the unzip utility, unzip 5.4, is available for testing. This version is an update from version 5.2 and incorporates numerous updates and bugfixes, as well as a new unzip tool "zipgrep". This suite of commands is available at /usr/local/unzip-5.4/bin .

30 August 2000 >> SAS version 8 available for test <<

Version 8 of SAS is now available for test. It is invoked by issuing the command sas8. For example to run a program named "myprog.sas", one would issue the command:

sas8 myprog

An interesting feature of the new version of SAS is that it makes a wealth of documentation available in online/html form via a Netscape browser. To view the documentation, point your Netscape browser (java enabled) at:

http://socrates.berkeley.edu/Help/Software/sashtml/onldoc.htm It is possible that other browsers will work as well, but SAS installation documentation expressly refers to Netscape.

If you are used to using SAS in interactive mode (via X-windows), you will find that the "Help" button(s) do not work. This is because we do not have a Netscape browser installed on socrates. There is no plan to change this in the near future. However, users have access to the same information, via a browser running on their own workstation, as described in the previous paragraph.

Version 6.12, the version currently in production, will remain the production version of SAS for the rest of the Fall semester.

13 August 2000 >> C, cc, and fortran compilers updated <<

As of August 13th the Sun Suite of SPRO compilers will be updated to version 5.0. If you notice any problems using cc, f77 or CC compilers, please contact consult at consult@socrates or call 2-4072.

For more details about the new features/changes/documentation of the following compilers, please visit the vendor's web site, at:

http://docs.sun.com/

From this web page, choose the file-tab called "Collection Titles". You can scroll down to select any of the following entries:

Sun WorkShop Compiler C 5.0 Collection
Sun WorkShop Compiler C++ 5.0 Collection Sun WorkShop Compilers Fortran 77 5.0, Fortran 90 2.0 Collection

08 August 2000 >> Lynx 2-8-3 available for testing <<

The latest version of the text-based web and file browser lynx is available for testing with the command: lynx.new

01 August 2000 >> Sendmail Upgraded to 8.10.2 02 August 2000<<

Socrates' version of Sendmail will be upgraded from 8.9.3 to 8.10.2 at 2pm Wednesday August 02, 2000.

Sendmail is the program responsible for delivering mail to users' mailboxes. The upgrade allows for more efficient handling of mail. Users, however, should not notice any difference in the handling of their mail. If you should experience any problems sending or recieving mail, please contact consult at consult@socrates or call 2-4072.

01 August 2000 >> Matlab 5.3.1 now in production <<

Version 5.3.1 of Matlab is now in production.

The old version of Matlab can be invoked as matlab.old. For more details about the new features/functions of Matlab 5.3.1, please visit the vendor's web site, at

http://www.mathworks.com

If you should experience any problems, please contact us at consult@socrates or call (510)642-4072.

01 August 2000 >> Elm 2.5.3 Installed for Testing <<

The most recent version of elm (elm 2.5.3) has been installed on socrates for testing as "elm.new" (or more specifically, /usr/local/bin/elm.new). This new version offers no new features but merely fixes a number of bugs which had been reported in the earlier 2.5.2 version. We have compiled this elm with the calendar feature turned on, with MIME awareness, and with the inbox editing function enabled. Please try "elm.new" and report any problems to consult@socrates.

01 August 2000 >> Fetchmail 5.4.1 Installed for Testing <<

The most recent version of fetchmail (fetchmail 5.4.1) has been installed on socrates for testing as "fetchmail.new" (or more specifically, /usr/local/bin/fetchmail.new). (Fetchmail is a pop mail client for unix.) If you use fetchmail, please try this new version and report any problems to consult@socrates.

01 August 2000 >> Bash 2.04 Requires User Testing <<

On June 23 we announced the availability of bash 2.04 for testing as "bash.new". We want to encourage bash users to test all their scripts with this new version of bash. We have seen reports that, bash 2.04 compiled under Linux is more strict about posix-compliance than bash 2.03 (which is currently the production bash on socrates). Whereas we have not seen any such reports on bash 2.04 under Solaris, it would be wise for bash users to test their scripts thoroughly before we make bash 2.04 the production level bash on our system. Thanks.

28 July 2000 >> Tin Newsreader Upgrade <<

The tin newsreader has been upgraded to 1.4.3. The changes are mainly bug fixes. The new reader can be invoked with the command tin.new. If no problems are found, the command will be moved to tin and the current version moved to tin.old. Any problems or questions should be sent to consult@socrates.berkeley.edu.

18 July 2000 >> Sendmail Upgraded to 8.10.2 19 July 2000<<

Socrates' version of Sendmail will be upgraded from 8.9.3 to 8.10.2 at 2pm Wednesday July 19, 2000.

16 July 2000 >> SSH (Secure Shell) Version 2 Available <<

SSH (Secure Shell) version 2 has been installed on Socrates and will run side-by-side with the previous version 1 of SSH. SSH is a secure replacement for telnet, rsh, rlogin and other function for communicating between hosts such that all transmitted information including passwords is encrypted.

Because the protocols for version 1 and version 2 of SSH are incompatible, Socrates will support both protocols for the indefinite future. The SSH server on Socrates will determine which protocol is being used and respond appropriately.

There should be no changes required for existing SSH version 1 clients when connecting to Socrates, although initial connection time may be somewhat slower. If you encounter problems or have questions, please send e-mail to consult@socrates.Berkeley.EDU.

26 June 2000 >> Matlab Version 5.3.1 Available for Testing <<

Matlab Version 5.3.1 is now available to test.

To invoke the Matlab 5.3.1, you can issue the following commands, matlab531 or matlabdoc531 or mex531.

For more details about the new features/functions of Matlab 5.3.1, please visit the vendor's web site, at
http://www.mathworks.com

23 June 2000 >> Bash Version 2.04 Available for Testing <<

The Bourne-Again Shell version 2.04 is now available on socrates for testing. It can be invoked as /usr/local/bin/bash.new (or simply "bash.new" since /usr/local/bin is in most users' path). Bash users are encouraged to try it and send any comments to consult. For a list of changes in the new release, see /usr/local/bash-2.04/info/CHANGES.

30 May 2000 >> Yet Another Email Virus: Resume <<

There have been reports in the news and elsewhere that a new email virus is circulating. It's being called the resume virus because of it's characteristic Subject: line, and it's reputed to be a variant of the Melissa virus. While there have been no reports of any incidents with this virus on campus so far, socrates is currently filtering out any mail with the subject "Resume - Janet Simons".

This particular email comes with an attachment file called explorer.doc which, when openned, sends itself to all addresses it can find in the user's addressbook. Upon closing the explorer.doc attachment, the virus then erases critical files in the user's PC environment. Users should exercise extreme caution when accepting email attachments, in addition to updating virus-detection software. Regarding this particular virus, see: http://vil.nai.com/villib/dispvirus.asp?virus_k=98661

22 May 2000 >> Maple 6 and Mathematica 4 are in production <<

Version 6 of Maple and Version 4 of Mathematica are now in production.

To type "maple" or "mathematica" will invoke the new version of products.

The old version of Maple can be invoked as maple5 or xmaple5.

For more details about the new features/functions of Maple 6, please visit the vendor's web site, at
http://www.maplesoft.com

The old version of Mathematica can be invoked as the following commands, math3, mathematica3, mcc3, MathKernel3 or Mathematica3.

For more details about the new features/functions of Mathematica 4.0, please visit the vendor's web site, at
http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/newin4

19 May 2000 >> New Variant of the ILOVEYOU virus <<

There are reliable reports that a new variant of the "ILOVEYOU" virus is infecting some PC-based computers. While no incidents have been reported on campus; you should be aware of the following:

This new variant of the Virus spreads through use of Microsoft Outlook 98 and 2000. An infected machine will mail a copy of the virus to all addresses listed in a user's address book.

Unlike the original "ILOVEYOU" this variant changes the subject and attachment name of the email as it spreads. Thus there is not any one, or set of email subject headers that can be filtered out. The virus also uses numerous names and file extensions for its attachment, including .doc, .txt, .mov . Despite this variation, all infected names of attachments apparently still terminate with .vbs

Users should exercise extreme caution when accepting email attachments, in addition to updating virus-detection software. Users of Microsoft Outlook should disable execution of .vbs attachments if they have not done so already.

For more details about the new variant of "ILOVEYOU", please see the following:

http://www.cert.org/current/current_activity.html#loveletter

The campus Windows Support group has a link to the VirusScan update from their home page at http://depot.berkeley.edu.

Providers of anti-virus software have updates that detect this new variant:

http://www.sarc.com/avcenter/venc/data/vbs.loveletter.fw.a.html http://www.commandcom.com/virus/newlove.html http://www.datafellows.com/v-descs/newlove.htm http://vil.nai.com/villib/dispvirus.asp?virus_k=98655 http://vil.mcafee.com/dispVirus.asp?virus_k=98655 http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/analyses/vbsnewlovea.html http://www.antivirus.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/default5.asp?VName=VBS_NEWLOVE.A

9 May 2000 >> New Version of LaTeX Installed <<

A new version of LaTeX is now available on socrates as the command "latex". This is LaTeX2e Version of 12/1/1999. The previous version, which is LaTeX2e Version of 12/1/1996, is available still as the command "latex1996".

4 May 2000 >> VBS LoveLetter ILOVEYOU virus <<

You should be aware of the VBS LoveLetter VBScript ILOVEYOU worm released recently. The attack affects Windows OS'es.

Do not open any email messages containing the subject: ILOVEYOU

The IST/WSSG Windows support home page at http://depot.berkeley.edu has a link to download the update for VirusScan 4.x.

A breakdown of which anti-virus tools that have updates/fixes for the ILOVEYOU virus can be found at
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/software/specials/2000/05/iloveyou/

17 April 2000 >> Maple 6 is now available on Socrates <<

Maple 6 is now available to test.

To invoke the Maple 6, you can issue the following commands, maple6 or xmaple6.

For more details about the new features/functions of Maple 6, please visit the vendor's web site, at
http://www.maplesoft.com

3 April 2000 >> Mathematica 4.0 Available to test on Socrates <<

Mathematica 4.0 is now available to test.

To invoke the mathematica 4.0, you can issue the following commands, math4, mathematica4, mcc4, MathKernel4 or Mathematica4.

For more details about the new features/functions of Mathematica 4.0, please visit the vendor's web site, at
http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/newin4

21 March 2000 >> gcg database update

The gcg database will be updated beginning Wednesday morning at about 9:30 and will be unavailable during the update process (several hours). If there are processes attempting to search the database at that time they will be killed. Processes that begin after the update process has begun may fail in an unexpected fashion. The motd will be updated when the database returns on-line.

28 January 2000 >> Hypermail Available on Socrates <<

We have recently installed Hypermail 2.0Beta29 on socrates. One can use hypermail to create a directory of HTML-format files from a mailbox or email "folder" which can then be viewed using a web browser. To quote from "man hypermail":

   hypermail is a program that takes a file of mail messages in
   UNIX mailbox format and generates a set of cross-referenced
   HTML documents. Each file that is created represents a
   separate message in the mail archive and contains links to
   other articles, so that the entire archive can be browsed in
   a number of ways by following links.

Please read "man hypermail" carefully before you try hypermail. Without previously setting configuration options either as environment variables or from a configuration file, you will have to use the -m option to tell hypermail where the file is from which to read mail. (The man page says that hypermail by default will read from the file mbox, but this does not seem to be true.) Be aware that, by default, the directories and files generated by hypermail are world-readable. If used without the -d option to specify where the output directory should be written, hypermail will attempt to write it using the name of the input file in the current directory; if these two end up being the same file, hypermail exits with a message such as "Couldn't create lock file". Finally, for your output directory to be accessible to a web browser, it must be located within a directory on which suitable permissions are set.

23 January 2000 >> Socrates Hardware Upgrade <<

Usage of Socrates, the central academic server for instruction and research, has been growing steadily over the past year. More and more researchers are discovering the power of this server and the many software packages available on Socrates.

To support this growth in the CPU and memory intensive workload, Socrates was upgraded on January 9. The SUN Ultrasparc 5000 now has six 336 mHz processors and 3 GB of real memory, a 50% increase from its original four processors and 2 GB of memory. At the same time, for software maintenance purposes, its internal system storage was replaced with larger 9.1 GB disks.

19 January 2000 >> "Getting Started with Unix" class <<

If you are interested in becoming more aquainted with the UNIX platform and learn about new aspects of your account, come to an introduction to Unix class.

All UC Berkeley students, faculty, and staff are invited to attend. No pre-registration is necessary, but proof of UC Berkeley affiliation is required for entrance. Classes are available on a first-come, first-served basis and are limited to the number of seats available. We would like to remind everyone that free courses are taught by IST staff.

This introduction course to Unix consists of three, two hour long sessions. Topics include how to log in, how to get online help, files and directories, basic Unix commands, the C Shell and how to get started with creating your webpage. (NOTE: this class will not teach HTML.) There will also be an overview of sending and receiving mail. Practice accounts will be provided.

     Tuesday, February  8, 15, 22
     2-4 p.m.
     Instructor: Ilona Ozmon
     Location: 262 Evans Hall

12 January 2000 >> Pine Upgraded to Release 4.21 <<

We have upgraded our production version of pine to Pine 4.21 in which a number of bugs have been fixed, including the "READONLY INBOX" problem which has caused problems in Pine 4.10. See the Release Notes (available by way of the "R" command from the Main Menu) for details.

08 January 2000 >> Pine READONLY INBOX Condition and How to Fix It <<

Some users have experienced an unfortunate READONLY condition with their pine INBOX which arises from having multiple pine sessions open at the same time. This behavior of our new pine (Pine 4.10) as it is configured on our system sadly differs from that of the earlier version (Pine 3.96). The following article explains what is happening and how you can fix the situation yourself.

Likely scenarios: A user accesses pine from home and forgets to exit before leaving for the office. At the office the user invokes pine while the other pine session at home is still open and finds the INBOX accessible read-only. A similar situation would arise sometimes if a user's pine session is interrupted (e.g., the user's telnet session broke for some reason): when the user logs on again and invokes pine, the INBOX may be read-only.

In Pine 3.96 (and supposedly since 3.84) the newly-openned pine session will get the lock on the INBOX, leaving the first session with read-only access to the INBOX and giving the new pine session read-write control of the INBOX.

In Pine 4.10 (and supposedly since 4.0) a new INBOX locking mechanism is in place which, as it comes out of the box, supports multiple pine sessions with _all_ of them having read-write access to the INBOX. However, we had to turn this feature off by setting the parameter "disable-these-drivers=mbox" in the pine system config file, because with the feature in place, users' email could potentially be sucked into the mbox file in the users' home directories.

With this feature turned off, however, Pine 4.10 exhibits unfortunate (pre-3.84) INBOX locking behavior: The second pine session in our scenario above ends up with read-only access to the INBOX, while the first pine session keeps read-write access. This means that, in the second pine session, the user cannot delete items from the INBOX. It also means that the list of email items in the INBOX will not be updated when new mail arrives; the user would have to exit the read-only pine and start a new one to see items newly arrived in the INBOX.

We are trying to see if there is a solution for this problem. However, in the meantime, users may from time to time seem to be locked out of their INBOX (viz., have read-only access to it) because of two or more concurrent pine sessions. The user can rectify this situation when it occurs by killing the original pine process(es) and then opening a new pine session.

Here's how to do it:

First of all, it's a good idea that the user know what pts (pseudoterminal) he or she is using, and which pts is running the pine which needs to be killed. For example, suppose the user has logged on from home on molly.hip where the first pine session is active, and the user wants to access pine on a connection from golly.berkeley.edu/:

socrates% who | grep username

username   pts/109      Jan  5 08:51    (molly.hip.berkeley.edu/)
username   pts/134      Jan  5 09:05    (golly.berkeley.edu/)

So the at-home session (from molly.hip) where the bad pine is open is on pts/109.

Next, the user should grep for his or her username in the list of current processes:

socrates% ps -ef | grep username
username 444 419 0 09:05:18 pts/134 0:00 -csh username 22716 22576 0 08:51:29 pts/109 0:01 pine username 1178 444 0 09:06:32 pts/134 0:00 grep username username 22576 22521 0 08:51:11 pts/109 0:00 -csh

You can see in this example that the pine the user wants to kill is process-id 22716 on pts/109. So the user (currently active on pts/134 in our example) can execute this command to kill the offending pine:

socrates% kill 22716

The user can demonstrate that the pine session has been killed by running "ps -ef | grep username" again: the pine session process should not appear.

The user can then open a new pine session and should have read-write access to the INBOX.

20 December 1999 >> tin newsreader upgraded <<

The tin newsreader has been upgraded to 1.4. The previous version is available as the command "tin.old". A list of new features can be found in /usr/local/tin/WHATSNEW

See the news item below dated November 16 1999 for details.

18 December 1999 >> Pine and Elm Both Upgraded <<

Both pine and elm were upgraded this evening. Pine 4.10 and Elm 2.5.2 are now the production versions of these products on socrates.

The previous version of pine (Pine 3.96) is available to users as the command "pine.old"; similarly, the previous version of elm (Elm 2.4) is available as the command "elm.old".

For details on Pine 4.10, see the news item for November 12, 1999 below. For details on Elm 2.5.2, see the news item for December 6, 1999 below.

17 December 1999 >> Lisrel version 8.30 installed<<

Lisrel is now version 8.30. When you invoke lisrel8 or prelis2, you will now be invoking this new version.

There are some small irregularities in this new version:

there were no man pages shipped with this new version, so the man pages are those left from the previous version.
the output on the console/terminal is more verbose than in previous versions.
the output to the console/terminal always begins with a spurious line that looks like:
ABDD4222.tmp:File exists. The line is innocuous, but a little perplexing the first time you see it; it is NOT an indication of a problem.
when the product is invoked with no arguments the style of querying for input and output files is a little different (however the user response is the same).
a couple of instances of difficulties with reading binary files have been noticed. It is unlikely that the average user would be trying to use such features, but it is a little disturbing none less. Items 1, 3, and 5 have been reported to the vendor (items 2 and 4 are, presumably, intentional).

The old version of the product can be invoked as lisrel8.old or prelis2.old. It is known that these old versions will FAIL beginning January 1, 2000.

15 December 1999 >> Pine and Elm to be Upgraded on Dec 18 <<

Please note the both pine and elm will be upgraded late in the evening of Saturday, December 18, 1999.

The production version of pine will become Pine 4.10. (This is the version which is currently available as the command "pine.new".) The old version of pine (3.96) will be available under the command "pine.old".

The production version of elm will become Elm 2.5.2. (This is the version which is currently available as the command "elm.new".) The old version of elm (2.4) will be available under the command "elm.old". The old version of elm, however, is notoriously y2k-non-compliant.

06 December 1999 >> Elm 2.5.2 Documentation and a New Feature <<

Users have noted some subtle differences between the main menu in Elm 2.5.2 (currently available as the command "elm.new" but soon to become the production version of elm on socrates) and the old Elm 2.4 that they are used to. These differences are due to the presence of a new feature in Elm 2.5.2 which is not exactly described but at least referenced in the product's documentation. It is the "mlist" feature, which enables Elm 2.5.2 to display on the menu which pieces of mail were sent to mailing lists as opposed to you the receiver alone. To help users become aware of this and other features of Elm 2.5.2, we have placed formatted versions of the "Elm 2.5.2 User's Guide" and the "Elm 2.5.2 Reference Guide" in a publicly accessible area, viz.:

     "User's Guide"        /usr/local/elm-2.5.2/doc/Users.guide.fmt
     "Reference Guide"     /usr/local/elm-2.5.2/doc/Ref.guide.fmt

(The unformatted documents, in the form of nroff source, are also available in the /usr/local/elm-2.5.2/doc directory.)

The "User's Guide" is a brief overview of elm which would be very helpful to the novice elm user. It does not, however, mention the new "mlist" feature of Elm 2.5.2, nor does its description of the elm main menu elucidate the symbols used on the menu to indicate "mlist"-related information. The developers probably have not gotten around to updating the "User's Guide" to include this information.

The "Reference Guide" is a terse and technical compendium of all elm commands and all the parameters that are configurable in the user's elmrc file (viz., $HOME/.elm/elmrc). Its documentation on the elmrc file takes the form of a sample elmrc listing all possible parameters. The "Reference Guide" barely mentions the new "mlist" feature but does define the two parameters which can control it: showmlists and tochars. Figuring out exactly what these parameters do has been a matter of experimentation, and this is what we have found out:

As we said above, the new "mlist" feature of Elm 2.5.2 indicates on the main menu which pieces of mail were sent to you alone, which to you and somebody else, and which to a mailing list. By default, this information is displayed in its bare-minimal form as a single character between the date and the field which names from whom the mail came. That single character will be a letter "T" if the mail was sent to you but to a list as well; a letter "C" if it was sent to a list and you were cc-ed; an asterisk "*" if the mail was sent merely to a list (and you got it by being on that list); or a blank if you are the sole addressee. This default behavior of Elm 2.5.2 corresponds to having the following record in the elmrc file:

showmlists = OFF

The uppercase "M" command toggles the main menu from showing this minimal information about mailing-list mail to showing explicit information on the name of the mailing-list to which the mail was sent. (Try uppercase "M" and you'll immediately see the difference.) If you prefer that this more detailed mailing-list information be displayed on the main menu, you can add this record to your elmrc file:

showmlists = ON

The specific characters (viz. "T", "C", "*" and blank) used to indicate mailing-list mail when in "showmlists = OFF" mode are controlled by the "tochars" parameter in the elmrc file. If set, this parameter's value should be a string exactly four characters long to correspond to the four possible mailing-list-related conditions. An underscore character in the "tochars" string will show up as a blank when displayed. A corollary to this fact is that you can turn off the display of "mlist" information by setting the "tochars" parameter to a string of four underscore characters:

tochars = ____

19 November 1999 >> A New Y2K-Compliant Elm Available for Test <<

Attention Elm users! We have just now installed Elm 2.5.2 from the University of Virginia. It is available for testing by users as elm.new (full pathname: /usr/local/bin/elm.new). Please try it out and see what you think.

We have not seen any overt statement from the developers claiming that Elm 2.5.2 is Y2K-compliant. However, the Changes file that came with the source distribution indicate that Y2K-related considerations were added in one pre-release version of 2.5.0. We have run Elm 2.5.2 on a machine with the date set ahead to the year 2000; to the limited degree of our ability to test this product, it seems to behave well. In particular, it seems to use four-digit year values in date-related fields. Hence we have hopes that this elm will survive with us into the year 2000.

But we encourage Elm users to try elm.new and report any suggestions by email to consult@socrates. None of us are actually experienced elm-users, so your input is important to us. In particular, do any of you use elm's calendar feature? We have built elm.new with the calendar function disabled, but if it is important to our users, we can re-build the product with the calendar feature in place. Thanks.

16 Nov 1999 >> New tin command available <<

A new version of tin, pre-1.4 release 19990624, is available on Socrates using the command: tin.new

The tin development group expects to have a production version of 1.4 very soon. We've make this pre-production version available so that our tin users can get used to some of the differences between 1.4 and our current reader, 1.2 PL2. The current version may not be Y2K compliant.

One difference you may notice is that it will take longer to load your newsgroups if you have a large .newsrc. The speed can be greatly increased by use the -l option or removing newsgroups you don't read from your .newsrc file.

15 November 1999 >> A New Y2K-Compliant Elm To Be Installed <<

Thanks to several knowledgeable users for informing us of a source for a Y2K-compliant Elm. We will be installing that product and giving it a test run within a few days. We'll get back to you elm users as soon as we have something to show you.

The version of Elm currently running on socrates (elm 2.4) is not Y2K-compliant. We had been unable to locate any recent development in the Elm product. We deeply appreciate the suggestions we've received from users who care about this product, and we'll make every effort to insure the continued support of Elm on socrates.

12 November 1999 >> Pine 4.10 Will Go Production on December 18 <<

Some time during the evening of Saturday, December 18, we will make Pine 4.10 the production version of pine on socrates. This date was chosen because it is after finals yet before the Y2K boundary. We hope this will pose minimal inconvenience to our users. We encourage all pine users to try the new version, which has been available on socrates for several months now as "pine.new" (specifically /usr/local/bin/pine.new). (See "news" of Aug 09, 1999 "Pine 4.10 available for test as pine.new".) The developers assert that Pine 4.10 is Y2K compliant.

Our current level of pine (3.96) is now and will continue to be available as "pine.old". There is no guarantee, however, that Pine 3.96 is fully Y2K compliant.

Pine 4.10 is now available for testing on socrates. To invoke it, type "pine.new" ( or /usr/local/bin/pine.new). To learn about its new features, invoke the product and execute the R "Release Notes" function from the main menu. A few points to note:

This pine introduces a new "Roles" concept, by which you can define rules which determine the role you are playing when replying to or forwarding a message.
The greater-than and less-than signs (">" and "<") are now used to navigate between levels of the product (e.g., between the main menu and the list of folders) and are shown as such in the legend at the bottom of the screen. This does not seem to be a configurable feature. However, many of the letter commands used in previous versions (e.g., the "i" command to move from reading a piece of mail to the index of the current folder) still work.
The command to print within pine 4.10 is the percent sign, "%", and that is what you see in the legend at the bottom of the screen. However, the "y" command will also print as in earlier versions of pine (never particularly mnemonic). We have configured it to do so by setting the enable-print-via-y-command in the system configuration file.

A problem with this new release was discovered and rectified under an earlier test period. We encourage pine users to try pine.new, since it will become our production version on the evening of December 18.

18 Oct 1999 >> New Lynx 2.8.2 available <<

The latest version of Lynx, a non-graphical Web browser, has been installed on Socrates. Changes include cookie support and performance enhancements. If you use the the options "-head", "-mime_header" or "-traversal", you now need to supply a full URL.

To try the new lynx command, enter "lynx.new" at the command prompt. If you have any questions or problems, please email consult@socrates.berkeley.edu.

03 Septermber 1999 >> "Getting Started with Unix" class <<

If you are interested in becoming more aquainted with the UNIX platform and learn about new aspects of your account, come to an introduction to Unix class.

     Tuesday, September 14, 21, 28 
     10:00 a.m.- 12:00 p.m.
     Instructor: Phillip Leclair
     Location: 262 Evans Hall

25 August 1999 >> New GNU Emacs 20.4.1 available for test <<

You can try it by calling the program emacs.new.

20 August 1999 >> New expect-5.28 available for test for one week <<

By calling the program /usr/local/bin/expect.new.

Any bug reports may be sent to:

Don Libes
National Institute of Standards and Technology Bldg 220, Rm A-127
Gaithersburg, MD 20899
libes@nist.gov

20 August 1999 >> New tcsh-6.08.00 available for test for one week <<

By calling the program /usr/local/bin/tcsh.new.

The default shell prompt has been changed from "> " to "%". Author claimed this version has been tested for Y2K compliance.

Any bug reports and comments should be sent to the author at:

christos@gw.com

Note: your default shell should be /usr/local/bin/tcsh, in order to test 'tcsh.new' properly. /bin/csh user calling tcsh.new may get resource limit errors, which you may ignore.

19 August 1999 >> New bash-2.03 available for test for one week <<

Bug reports for bash should be sent to:

bug-bash@prep.ai.mit.edu

using the program /usr/local/bin/bashbug.new.

Since Bash does not manipulate date strings, it is Y2K-safe. The only thing that Bash does with date strings is manipulate the string returned by ctime(3) in the prompt customization code. In all cases, it discards the year.

13 August 1999 >> SPSS 6.1.3 available for test <<

SPSS version 6.1.3 is now available for test on socrates. During the test period (which will probably be about a week), this new version can be invoked as spss613; for example,

spss613 -m myprog.spss >! myprog.lst Assuming no serious problems arise, version 6.1.3 will become the production version in a week or so.

While we do not anticipate problems with this new version, people who are running production spss programs should test them during this period.

09 August 1999 >> Pine 4.10 available for test as pine.new <<

This pine introduces a new "Roles" concept, by which you can define rules which determine the role you are playing when replying to or forwarding a message.
The greater-than and less-than signs (">" and "<") are now used to navigate between levels of the product (e.g., between the main menu and the list of folders) and are shown as such in the legend at the bottom of the screen. This does not seem to be a configurable feature. However, many of the letter commands used in previous versions (e.g., the "i" command to move from reading a piece of mail to the index of the current folder) still work.
The command to print within pine 4.10 is the percent sign, "%". If you want to use the "y" command to print as in earlier versions of pine (never particularly mnemonic), there is an option in the configuration menu, enable-print-via-y-command.

Pine 4.10 is Y2K compliant.

09 August 1999 >> Fetchmail 5.0.5 now available for testing as fetchmail.new <<

Fetchmail 5.0.5 is now available for testing on socrates. To invoke it type "fetchmail.new <hostname>" (viz. /usr/local/bin/fetchmail.new). (Fetchmail is a pop mail client program.) Fetchmail 5.0.5 is Y2K compliant.

09 August 1999 >> Procmail 3.13.1 now available on socrates <<

Procmail 3.13.1 is now available for testing on socrates. To use it, create a .forward file in your home directory with this string (including the quote marks) as its text:

"|IFS=' '&&exec /usr/local/procmail-3.13.1/bin/procmail -f-||exit 75 #mylogin"

where "mylogin" is your loginid; then create a suitable .procmailrc file. See "man procmail" for details. Procmail 3.13.1 is Y2K compliant.

05 August 1999 >> Change to yearcutoff option in SAS. <<

The sas option "yearcutoff" has been changed from its factory-default value of 1900; it is now 1920. While the sas program itself is y2k compliant, user programs may not be (ie. they may contain or refer to raw data that has year recorded as a 2-digit value). This change increases the likelihood of user programs running correctly as data comes in after the century change, Jan. 1, 2000. For more information on this topic, point your browser at:

http://ftp.sas.com/techsup/download/technote/ts597.html Note that users can change the "yearcutoff" value in their own programs to whatever they like. How to do this is described in the above URL.

02 August 1999 >> New version of perl installed. <<

New version of Perl (v5.005_03) has been installed for production use. Bugs or questions to consult@socrates. More info at:

http://www.cpan.org/doc/manual/html/READMEs/Announce.html

02 August 1999 >> New version of GNU compiler suite installed. <<

The Cygnus GNU compiler package has been installed for production use. Bugs or questions to consult@socrates. More info at:

http://egcs.cygnus.com/egcs-1.1/egcs-1.1.2.html

08 July 1999 >> New versions of gcg and seqweb. <<

On Monday morning (July 12, 1999), gcg (Genetics Computer Group) and seqweb will be migrated to new versions. In the case of gcg, the command:

source /usr/local/gcg/gcgstartup
will access verion 10.0 of gcg.
In the case of seqweb, the URL:

http://socrates.berkeley.edu:7029/gcg-bin/seqweb.cgi will access version 1.1 of seqweb. Users that are currently registered to used seqweb will automatically be registered to use the new version.

06 July 1999 >> New versions of gcc/g++/g77 available for testing. <<

Version 2.8.1 of several popular GNU compilers has been installed for user testing. New versions of gcc, g++, and g77 are available in /usr/local/egcs-1.1.2/bin. Users are advised to try compiles with these new compilers and report and errors or abnormalities with the compile process to consult@socrates. These compilers will be made the system default compilers on August 2nd if no serious problems are reported.

More information about this package can be found at:

http://egcs.cygnus.com/egcs-1.1/egcs-1.1.2.html

22 June 1999 >> New version of Perl available for testing. <<

A new version of perl is now available for testing. The Perl v5.005_03 executable is currently in /usr/local/perl-5.005_03/bin/perl. Most perl programs should work without change with this new version. If you have an important application, though, you may wish to test it with this new version of perl to verify that no problems occur.

Barring any serious problems, this new version of perl will become the standard perl for Socrates on August 2. If you have any questions or problems, please mail consult@socrates. For more information on this new version of perl, please see:

http://www.cpan.org/doc/manual/html/READMEs/Announce.html

29 Mar 1999 >> Melissa virus <<

Over the weekend, a new virus called "Melissa" surfaced which can cause problems for users of Word 97/98/2000 and Outlook/Outlook Express. The virus is inside a corrupted Word document which is sent as an attachment. When you open the document, the virus automatically resends itself to up to 50 nicknames in your addressbook.

If you receive a message with the subject "Important Message from" and then the name of someone you know, please delete it immediately without opening it. Even if you do not use Word or Outlook, it is still advisable to delete the message.

While the virus is known to infect PCs, it is not yet clear whether Macs are also affected. There are two sites you can go for updates to your anti-virus software:

Mac: ftp://cornucopia.berkeley.edu/ (go to the Anti-Virus Folder)

PC: http://depot.berkeley.edu/software/anti-virus/nai.html

If you would like more information on this virus, please see the following web site:

http://www.avertlabs.com/public/datafiles/valerts/vinfo/melissa.asp

For an introduction to Word Macro viruses, see:

http://depot.berkeley.edu/SOFTWARE/anti-virus/Solomon/wordmacro.html

23 Feb 1999 >> Getting Started with Unix class <<

We would like to remind everyone that free courses are taught by IST staff.

All UC Berkeley students, faculty, and staff are invited to attend. No preregistration is necessary, but proof of UC Berkeley affiliation is required for entrance. Classes are available on a first-come, first-served basis and are limited to the number of seats available.

Featured this time is : "Getting Started with Unix"

This introduction course to Unix consists of two, three hour long sessions. Topics include how to log in, how to get online help, files and directories, basic Unix commands, and the C Shell. There will also be an overview of sending and receiving mail. Practice accounts will be provided.

     Thursday, March 4 and Friday, March 12
     1:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m.
     Instructor: David Kalins
     Location: 262 Evans Hall

18 Feb 1999 >> Version 5.0 of S-Plus is now available on socrates.

See news for details. <<

Version 5.0 of S-Plus is now available on socrates. Before trying to use this new version, the reader should take a look at the file:

/usr/local/SPLUS5/RELNOTES.TXT
It describes some of the new features, but more importantly, it describes some of the compatibility issues with respect to version 3.4 (the current version).

Noteworthy, among these compatibility issues is the fact that the structure for almost all stored materials has changed. As a consequence, any materials created by version 5 cannot be used with version 3. To avoid problems, the folks at MathSoft recommend that you set up a new space before using version 5. The following steps are recommended (from your home directory):

      mkdir splus50
      cd splus50
      Splus5 CHAPTER

In you subsequent work with Splus5, you should cd splus50, before invoking Splus5.

The following documentation:

S-Plus 5 for UNIX User's Guide (September 1998) and,

Getting Started with S-Plus 5.0 (September 1998) will be useful to the user in migrating and getting started with S-Plus 5.0. They can be ordered from:

      MathSoft Inc.
      (800)569-0123

You may also be interested in looking at their website for a description of the new features that make version 5 attractive:

http://www.mathsoft.com/splus/splsprod/spls5.html

It is anticipated that version 5 of Splus will become the "production" version during the summer of 1999, when the command Splus will invoke version 5.0 (instead of version 3.4, as it currently does).

14 Dec 1998 >> Operating system upgrade to Solaris 2.6 <<

On Saturday January 2, 1999 Socrates will be unavailable from 6am until noon while the system will be upgraded from Solaris 2.5.1 to Solaris 2.6. This new operating system release will primarily fix subtle problems and provide system management enhancements. The socs-team support programmers have been testing this system for some time and have found no problems with standard software under this new release. If after January 2 you do experience a problem, please send email to consult@socrates.

We wish you a joyous holiday season and a Happy New Year.

The socs-team

11 Nov 1998 >> Standard hostname change effective Sunday, November 29 <<

The standard host name returned by the "hostname" command (and "gethostname" system call) will change from "socrates.berkeley.edu/" to "socrates". At the same time, the "domainname" command will be changed to return "berkeley.edu". This change is necessitated by certain Sun system software which malfunctions with fully qualified standard host names. This change does not effect the receipt of email.

If you have any scripts or programs which depend on the fully qualified standard host name "socrates", you may need to modify them. We do not anticipate many such scripts running on socrates. However, user scripts which set specialized prompts including the hostname may require modification.

26 October 1998 >> Perl 5.004_04 available for testing <<

Perl 5.004_04 has been made available for testing. It can be invoked with the following command: perl.new

It is a good idea to test any perl applications you have with this new version. Send email to consult@socrates.berkeley.edu if you encounter any problems.

We will make this the production version in two weeks.

21 Sept 1998 >> Fall scheduled downtime <<

We expect to be taking systems maintenance/testing time every Sunday morning throughout the Fall in order to upgrade Socrates to Solaris 2.6 by January 1999. Socrates will be unavailable each Sunday from 6 am until 10 am. Some Sundays this time will be extended until noon. Please watch for weekly announcements.

17 Sept 1998 >> Getting Started with Unix Class rescheduled <<

We would like to remind everyone that free courses are taught by IST staff.

Featured this time is : "Getting Started with Unix"

This is a four-session introduction for new Unix users. Topics include how to log in, how to get online help, files and directories, basic Unix commands, and the C Shell. There will also be an overview of sending and receiving mail. Practice accounts will be provided.

This course has been rescheduled to Wednesdays and Fridays, September 18,23,25 and 30, 2:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. Instructor: Joe Faracchio Location: 262 Evans Hall

21 August 1998 >> New bash-2.02 available for test for one week <<

Type "/usr/local/bin/bash.new"

GNU Bash, version 2.02. Bash is the GNU Project's Bourne-Again SHell, a complete implementation of the POSIX.2 shell spec, but also with interactive command line editing, job control on architectures that support it, csh-like features such as history substitution and brace expansion, and a slew of other features. Bug reports for bash-2.02 should be sent via the command "bashbug.new".

There are some user-visible incompatibilities between this version of Bash and the previous widely-distributed version, bash-1.14.

Bash now uses a new quoting syntax, $"...", to do locale-specific string translation. Users who have relied on the (undocumented) behavior of bash-1.14 will have to change their scripts. For instance, if you are doing something like this to get the value of a variable whose name is the value of a second variable:

eval var2=$"$var1"

you will have to change to a different syntax.

This capability is directly supported by bash-2.0:

var2=${!var1}

This alternate syntax will work portably between bash-1.14 and bash-2.0:

eval var2=\$${var1}

2. One of the bugs fixed in the YACC grammar tightens up the rules

concerning group commands ( {...} ). The `list' that composes the body of the group command must be terminated by a newline or semicolon. That's because the braces are reserved words, and are recognized as such only when a reserved word is legal. This means that while bash-1.14 accepted shell function definitions like this:

foo() { : }

bash-2.0 requires this:

foo() { :; }

This is also an issue for commands like this:

mkdir dir || { echo 'could not mkdir' ; exit 1; }

The syntax required by bash-2.0 is also accepted by bash-1.14.

3. The options to `bind' have changed to make them more consistent with

the rest of the bash builtins. If you are using `bind -d' to list the readline keybindings in a form that can be re-read, use `bind -p' instead. If you were using `bind -v' to list the keybindings, use `bind -P' instead.

4. The `long' invocation options must now be prefixed by `--' instead

of `-'. (The old form is still accepted, for the time being.)

5. There was a bug in the version of readline distributed with bash-1.14

that caused it to write badly-formatted key bindings when using `bind -d'. The only key sequences that were affected are C-\ (which should appear as \C-\\ in a key binding) and C-" (which should appear as \C-\"). If these key sequences appear in your inputrc, as, for example,

"\C-\": self-insert

they will need to be changed to something like the following:

"\C-\\": self-insert

6. A number of people complained above having to use ESC to terminate an

incremental search, and asked for an alternate mechanism. Bash-2.0 allows ^J to terminate the search without accepting the line. Use ^M to terminate the search and accept the line, as in bash-1.14.

7. Some variables have been removed: MAIL_WARNING, notify, history_control,

command_oriented_history, glob_dot_filenames, allow_null_glob_expansion, nolinks, hostname_completion_file, noclobber, no_exit_on_failed_exec, and cdable_vars. Most of them are now implemented with the new `shopt' builtin; others were already implemented by `set'. Here is a list of correspondences:

        MAIL_WARNING                    shopt mailwarn
        notify                          set -o notify
        history_control                 HISTCONTROL
        command_oriented_history        shopt cmdhist
        glob_dot_filenames              shopt dotglob
        allow_null_glob_expansion       shopt nullglob
        nolinks                         set -o physical
        hostname_completion_file        HOSTFILE
        noclobber                       set -o noclobber
        no_exit_on_failed_exec          shopt execfail
        cdable_vars                     shopt cdable_vars

8. `ulimit' now sets both hard and soft limits and reports the soft limit

by default (when neither -H nor -S is specified). This is compatible with versions of sh and ksh that implement `ulimit'. The bash-1.14 behavior of, for example,

ulimit -c 0

can be obtained with

ulimit -S -c 0

It may be useful to define an alias:

alias ulimit="ulimit -S"

9. Bash-2.02 uses a new quoting syntax, $'...' to do ANSI-C string

translation. Backslash-escaped characters in ... are expanded and replaced as specified by the ANSI C standard.

10. The sourcing of startup files has changed somewhat. This is explained

more completely in the INVOCATION section of the manual page.

A non-interactive shell not named `sh' and not in posix mode reads and executes commands from the file named by $BASH_ENV. A non-interactive shell started by `su' and not in posix mode will read startup files. No other non-interactive shells read any startup files.

An interactive shell started in posix mode reads and executes commands from the file named by $ENV.

18 August 1998 >> MAPLE V Release 5 available for test <<

MAPLE V Release 5 is now available for test. To invoke it, type "maple5" or "xmaple5" for x-windows environment.

14 August 1998 >> MATLAB 5.2 available for test <<

MATLAB version 5.2 is now available for test. To invoke it, type "matlab52". If you encount any problem, please contact consult@socrates.berkeley.edu.

3 August 1998 >> SPSS 6.1.2 available for test <<

SPSS version 6.1.2 is now available for test on socrates. During the test period (which will probably be a week or two), this new version can be invoked as spss612; for example,

spss612 -m myprog.spss >! myprog.lst Assuming no serious problems arise, version 6.1.2 will become the production version in a couple of weeks.

While we do not anticipate problems with this new version, people who are running production spss programs should test them during this period.

27 July 1998 >> New Compilers <<

New versions of the C, C++, FORTRAN 77 and Pascal compilers have been installed on Socrates. These are all from SUN's WorkShop Compilers 4.2.

        C has been updated from 4.0 to 4.2
        C++ has been updated from 4.1 to 4.2
        f77 (Fortran 77 Compiler) has been upgraded from 4.0 to 4.2
             There is now also a Fortran 90 at level 1.20
        Pascal has been updated from 4.0 to 4.2
        DBX is now available as well at 4.0

If you encounter any problems, please contact consult@socrates.berkeley.edu.

24 July 1998 >> SAS 6.12 available for testing <<

SAS version 6.12 is now available for test on socrates. During the test period (which will probably be a week or two), this new version can be invoked as sas612; for example

sas612 myprog.sas
Assuming no serious problems emerge, version 6.12 will become the production version is a couple of weeks.

While we do not anticipate problems with this new version, people who are running production sas programs should test them during this period.

17 July 1998 >> Academic central printing to be discontinued August 1, 1998 <<

For many years, Central Computing Services (CCS) has provided a central printing service whereby academic users could direct their printer output to the "HP1" printer in the basement of Evans Hall for later pickup. This service has been used very little over the last year, and is no longer used sufficiently to warrant the cost of continued maintenance of the current printer or an upgrade to a newer model. Excellent laser printers suitable for departmental use are now available at very reasonable prices, and users find local printing to be far more convenient and efficient.

As of August 1, 1998, this central printing service will be discontinued. Anyone who needs help in finding an alternative can contact the CCS consultants via email at consult@socrates.berkeley.edu

10 July 1998 >> CPU and memory upgrades <<

Over the 4th of July weekend we upgraded Socrates's four CPUs and added memory. Four new 336 mhz CPUs replaced the old 167 mhz CPUs. Memory was doubled to 2 GB.

As part of this upgrade we will be re-adjusting the rate schedule. You should see no changes in your charges as a result of the upgrade.

18 May 1998 >> Password change required before June 1, 1998 <<

As a security precaution, it is advisable to have all passwords on socrates changed periodically. For the next two weeks, until June 1, users will be prompted to change their passwords when they log onto Socrates. After June 1, any accounts which have not had their passwords changed will be disabled, and users will need to contact User and Account Services in Room 206 Evans Hall, (phone number 642-7355) in order to have access to their accounts.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but everyone benefits when we maintain good security procedures.

Passwords must be constructed to meet the following requirements:

Each password must be 6-8 characters long.
Each password must contain at least two alphabetic characters and at least one numeric or special character. In this case, "alphabetic" refers to all upper or lower case letters.
Each password must differ from the user's login name and any reverse or circular shift of that login name. For comparison purposes, an upper case letter and its corresponding lower case letter are equivalent.
New passwords must differ from the old by at least three characters. For comparison purposes, an upper case letter and its corresponding lower case letter are equivalent.

11 Mar 1998 >> Mathematica 3.0 is available on Socrates <<

Mathematica 3.0 has been installed on Socrates. Mathematica is a fully integrated environment for technical computing. It contains numerical calculations, algebraic calculations, symbolic mathematics, graphics, transformation rules and definitions, mathlink and external program communication, etc. For help, see http://socrates.berkeley.edu/help/mathematica

18 Feb 1998 >> SSH - Secure Shell protects network communications <<

SSH (Secure Shell) is a program for for logging into and executing commands commands on a remote machine through secure encrypted communications. SSH protects users against the interception by "sniffer" programs of clear text passwords or data on the network. We are running the SSH server on socrates. For more information including how to get the SSH client software see the Berkeley Communications and Computing article on SSH at
http://istpub.berkeley.edu:4201/bcc/Winter98/gen.ssh.html

4 Feb 1998 >> APOP email password security <<

A new email password security feature called APOP has been added to the POP server on Socrates for users of Eudora and some other POP mail programs. The POP server is the process running on Socrates that allows Socrates users to make brief connections from Windows PCs and Macintoshes to check for incoming email messages and download them. See the [4]APOP FAQ. For details and configuration information please see the Winter 98 Berkeley Computing & Communications article "Socrates APOP authentication enhances POP password security" at http://istpub.berkeley.edu:4201/bcc/Winter98/aca.apop.html.

10 Dec 97 >> 1997 Holiday Shutdown Schedule <<

Computer Operations will be closed for the Christmas and New Year holidays according to the schedule shown below, however, systems will be attended at all times. An 18-hour shutdown is also scheduled with the Christmas shutdown for the annual air conditioning maintenance work. All systems will shut down at 6 a.m. on Thursday, December 25th and be unavailable until midnight on December 25th.

Christmas

Wednesday    Dec.24 (Christmas Eve)     close at 8 pm
Thursday     Dec.25 (Christmas Day)     closed all day (computers
                                        shut down at 6 am)
Friday       Dec.26 (Holiday)           closed all day but systems
                                        up and running by noon
Saturday     Dec.27                     reopen at 8 am

New Year

Wednesday Dec.31 (New Year's Eve) close at 8 pm

Thursday Jan 1 (New years's Day) closed all day, systems up and running Friday Jan. 2 (Holiday) closed all day, systems up and running Saturday Jan.3 reopen at 8 am

Printing will be unavailable in the I/O Room, B06 Evans Hall. Systems problems will not be examined until normal operation resumes. Call 642-4774 for a systems status recording.

Consult telephone and e-mail queries will not be answered from December 25th through January 2. Mail sent to consult@socrates will be saved and answered beginning January 5.

29 Sep 97 >> Disk and email inbox quotas have been implemented <<

Now that the migration from Garnet and Violet is complete, disk and email inbox quotas have been implemented on Socrates. Quotas existed on Garnet and Violet as well, however, the size limits are different on this new system. Standard quotas on Socrates at this time are: 30 MB for your home directory and 2 MB for your email inbox. If your account has close to, or over these defaults, we have made an allowance over your current usage for your convenience. Disk quotas are necessary on a system the size of Socrates in order to insure that all users have sufficient disk space available to them.

Quotas are enforced by actually having two size limits: a "soft" limit and