The Calar Alto Computer News for 2004

 

(A) Hardware:

-         The TP cabling at 3.5 has been reorganized totally

-         Installed new wireless access at Hotel Hall

-         The Main Servers room has been moved to a new location

-         The above is completed with a totally new TP cabling  on the Laboratory, reducing the number of switched needed at this building. this job is not finished still.

-         A new room for other important computers has been prepared. On that room we include the hardware for both Extinction Monitor and Fish Eye projects.

-         Webcams for 2.2m Telescope control are already working. Webcams for 3.5m Telescope control are in preparation

-         Sound from 2.2m to SOR observing room at lab is now working

-         Two new Thin Clients at the library substituted the old x-terminals.

-         A new PC for scanning and/or DVD +/-RW is now prepared for general access on the same room as the Extinction Monitor.

-         Together with the inprovement of the Almería’s Office network (having now a fast 4Mbps ADSL access) two firewalls has been installed, one at Calar Alto (the main one) and another at the Office. Also new IP addressing for the DMZ is already working.

-         DHCP computer (which it was already a Linux computer) has been moved into a better computer.

 

 (B) Software:

-         Lots of security patches on Unix+Windows machines

-         New Linux Server Computer giving access to the new Linux Network. This Linux machine  is serving also NIS, NFS and file and applications access for Linux Clients. It is serving also  CUPS  printer queues for both Linux and Windows computers.

-         This Linux Server is now our new DNS Server too, allowing name resolution for all computers at Calar Alto Network and accepting also DNS resolution for external networks. This new system accept queries about our internal private network.

-         The complete Mail System has been moved from Solaris into Linux. Now all services related with mail are running on the new Linux Server Computer. This include secure pop and imap, spamassassin, anti-virus, majordomo… Some of those services are totally new, and were not included on the previous Mail Server. Our WebMail system is also integrated with the new mail system.

-         Although it is in a test phase, a new machine is prepared as the first Linux client, giving the possibility of working with Linux instead of Solaris. Anyway, this is not a powerful computer and we are thinking on substitute this one by a much better one, probably next year. This computer as a NIS/NFS client from the Linux Server can run midas, iraf, and all sort of Astronomical applications installed on the Linux Server. The way of working is identical as for the Solaris environment.

-         In preparation, porting the Anonymous Ftp Computer from Solaris into Linux

-         We have now a new NTP internal server working under Linux.

 

 

CAHA COMPUTER GROUP (December 2004)

Enrique de Juan      (+34 950 632 505)

Ricardo Hernández (+34 950 632 533)

Enrique de Guindos (+34 950 632 517)