GOC Service Update - Tuesday, August 10th at 14:00 UTC

The GOC will upgrade the following services beginning at Tuesday, August 10th, 2010 at 14:00 UTC. The GOC reserves four hours (14:00 - 18:00 UTC) in the unlikely event that unexpected problems are encountered.

OIM 2.23 (https://oim.grid.iu.edu)

ITB version is now available for testing at https://oim-itb.grid.iu.edu; we encourage users to test this service before the production release.

Release Notes:
Increased the maximum number of characters allowed for downtime editor's summary field, and added a more user friendly validation.
Added check for CLIENT_VERIFY_SSL flag for improved security
Minor cosmetic changes & improved logging.

MyOSG 1.24 (https://myosg.grid.iu.edu)

ITB version is now available for testing at https://myosg-itb.grid.iu.edu; we encourage users to test this service before the production release.

Release Notes:

Added Resource Group / BDII information XML schema which was missing.
Added a new page under Misc. callled "OIM Users" which let user search / show OSG user profiles & contact information [MYOSG-42]
Set correct file name for KML output for Status Map page (for Google Earth)
Added "Promo View" for Status Map which masks unknown site as Greendots

GOC Ticket 1.24 (https://ticket.grid.iu.edu)

ITB version is now available for testing at https://ticket-itb.grid.iu.edu; we encourage users to test this service before the production release.

Release Notes:

Viewer / Added a filter for guest user to hide email address on update "by" entries. [GOCTICKET-64]
Viewer / Fixed the layout issue for guest user
Submitter / Twiki / Added a new field to ask what type of TWiki issue user is having [GOCTICKET-68]
Navigator / Adjusted datatable css again.. and fixed the word-wrapping issue on Chrome for table headerNavigator / Added column specific filters.Added REST / "List Open Tickets" interface for programmatic query of GOC tickets
Home / Added ticket expectation note (GOCTICKET-44)
Patched a warning caused by incorrect query for quick description when null value is selected.
SOAP API / Fixed the issue where closed date information is not correctly set.
Cosmetic updates & improved logging.
Various bug fixesGOC Ticket Synchronizer 1.10Release Notes:Updated MySQL Connector/J, and fixed load balancing issue with data1/2.
Fixed the issue where notification suppression for assignee was disabled causing redundant email notifications sent on some circumstances.Stopping old GGUS ticket exchange script (no longer used by any tickets)

OSG TWiki (https://twiki.grid.iu.edu)

ITB version is now available for testing at https://twiki-test.grid.iu.edu; we encourage users to test this service before the production release.

Release Notes:
Added new style for CEMon/BDII (http://is.grid.iu.edu)

There has been a security update to OpenLDAP; Redhat has backported a patch to OpenLDAP while maintaining the same major version, as is customary with Redhat Enterprise Linux. This is documented here: http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2010-0542.html . At the same time, there are a number of other Redhat updates we would like to install on the two BDII servers, including this kernel update: http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2010-0504.html . We will be
making use of our DNS round-robin setup between the two servers to ensure that one of them will always be up and responding to queries.

Timekeeping Improvements on Virtual Machines

The unreliability of the timekeeping on all GOC virtual machines has been a cause for concern for some time. We have followed VMware's best practices (http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1006427) in terms of ntpd parameters, but this has not been enough, despite VMware's assurances that the "divider=10" kernel parameter is no longer necessary as of RHEL 5.3. After extensive testing we have determined that certain kernel command-line parameters will greatly improve the timekeeping, but in order to make use of them a virtual machine must be rebooted. We will therefore be systematically rebooting GOC services that reside on VMs after altering the kernel parameters to improve the timekeeping. We will also be taking advantage of the maintenance window to apply all recent Redhat security updates. This will affect all GOC services other than BDII (which does not reside on virtual machines), but downtime will in all cases be limited to under 15 minutes, and very likely under 5 minutes.