• Robert Bridson - faculty rep

• Ron Maharik - Linux czar

• ImagerMachineList

• ImagerMachineList updated July 2008

Imager Machine List

• CLL, please link to new machine list here!

• Old ImagerMachineList from July 2006

• Tamara Munzner - faculty rep

Imager-Tech Group and Problem Tracking Procedures

• Tamara Muzner - faculty rep
• Glen Lee - techstaff rep for Imager
• Cheryl Lau - imager-tech czar
• Christopher Batty - Windows and Mac czar
• Tiberiu Popa - Linux czar

Current Open Problems

The main avenue for technical problems is always the helpdesk, help@cs, for problems like "my graphics driver no longer works". Most of the time, those problems get fixed quickly. Sometimes things are more complicated and drag on for longer. We keep track of those in a Current Open Problems list, and have weekly meetings to track the progress and keep things from falling through the cracks. We often add items to that list ourselves. It's a wiki, so you can add items to the list yourself if there's something that is lingering unresolved for longer than a week or so. Our weekly meetings are currently Thursdays at 11am, we'll address everything that's been added by Wednesday morning. The list itself is at StatusReport

Czarships and Sudo

In Imager, specific representatives (czars) have sudo admin privileges. Tibi (stpopa@cs) is the Linux czar, and Christopher (batty@cs) is the Windows/Mac czar. Sudo access is intended only for problems that are urgent, after normal hours, and relatively straightforward. (Of course, the czars do not commit to on-call 24/7, but if they're around they'll try to help you out.) We send mail to the techstaff after every sudo to let them know what we fixed, so that they're aware of it for the record.

Imager Technical Information

We maintain a list of technical and/or policy tidbits that general Imager folks might need to know. It's up at ImagerTechnicalInformation

Conference Freeze Dates

We're also trying to be proactive about freezing system updates for specific machines before conference deadlines relevant for their main users. We are maintaining a list of upcoming conferences, and the list of machines that will be frozen for those. Again, it's a wiki, please add information yourself if there's a conference that's not currently listed that should be. That list is at ConferenceFreezeDates

Problem Tracking Procedures

We have established a wiki page under StatusReport, that is used to track open system administration issues.

This page tracks all known open problems. Progress on the issues on this list will be discussed with the technical staff on a weekly basis (Tuesday afternoons this term).

In order for this mechanism to work, we need your collaboration. If you encounter a problem with the computer systems, you should do the following:

• send mail to help@csDELETEthisTEXT.ubc.ca as usual.
• if the problem does not get resolved within a few days, add it to the above wiki page. Make sure you list your name, so we can contact you if necessary. Also specify the help system tracking number. Any entry that makes it by Monday morning will be discussed at our meeting Tuesday afternoon.
• if you have problems or question regarding the wiki, contact Shruthi Achutha (shruthi@csDELETEthisTEXT.ubc.ca). Shruthi is not responsible for solving the problem, but she takes care of the tracking, and might be able to tell you the result of the discussion at the weekly meetings.
• once your request to help@cs is addressed, please send Shruthi a note, and remove the entry from the wiki.

In addition to this mechanism, we also have 3 students to fix urgent(!) problems, or perform trivial tasks that would take the technical staff too long to get around to. The three are:

• Tiberiu Popa (stpopa@csDELETEthisTEXT.ubc.ca) for Linux
• Tyson Brochu (tbrochu@csDELETEthisTEXT.ubc.ca) for Mac
• Ken Rose (kenrose@csDELETEthisTEXT.ubc.ca) for Windows

Tibi already has sudo access on the lab's Linux machines, and has been using it for some while to help people out. The exact mechanisms that Tyson and Ken can use to help with Mac and Windows will have to evolve.(*)

We will review this new mechanism after a few months, so if you have any concerns or suggestions, drop me an email, or talk to your supervisor.

Cheers,

Wolfgang

(*) It is likely that Macs will see Linux-style management at some point. The situation for Windows is more complicated due to registry fun.

-- WolfgangHeidrich - 07 Feb 2006