Holiday Greetings from OSG Operations

Dear OSG Collaborators, OSG Operations would like to wish you a happy holiday season and joyous new year! We’d like to thank the OSG resource providers and users worldwide that have helped us provide nearly 1 Billion hours of compute time this calendar year. OSG Operations will continue to provide round the clock holiday coverage in case of operational emergencies over the holiday season. You can continue to open tickets at https://ticket.grid.iu.edu/, send us mail at goc@openscinecegrid.org, or call us at +1 (317)-278-9699. However, we will be operating on holiday procedures beginning on Monday, December 21st, and resuming regular staffing on Monday, January 4th. During this time non-emergency issues will be handled on a best-effort basis. Operations Weekly Calls will resume on Jan 4. Thanks to everyone for another successful year! We look forward to working with everyone in 2016!

Ticketing System Maintenance - Friday, December 18th - 7:00pm EST

On Friday, December 18th from 7PM EST to Saturday, December 19th at 12AM EST Indiana University system engineers will be performing maintenance to upgrade hardware for the OSG Ticket System. During this maintenance, the ability to create new tickets, update tickets, and reply to ticket email will be unavailable. Email to goc@opensciencegrid.org will not be affected. Please send any issues that need to be ticketed to this address. Monitoring of hosts and services is not expected to be affected. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Announcing OSG Software versions 3.2.33 and 3.3.7

We are pleased to announce OSG Software versions 3.2.33 and 3.3.7.

Changes to OSG 3.2.33 and 3.3.7 include:
* Fixed a problem in the PKI command line tools where "Certificate Requests"
were being rejected by the CILogon Certificate Authority.

Release notes and pointers to more documentation can be found at:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release3233
https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release337

Need help? Let us know:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/HelpProcedure

We welcome feedback on this release!

Announcing OSG Software versions 3.2.32 and 3.3.6

We are pleased to announce OSG Software versions 3.2.32 and 3.3.6.

Changes to OSG 3.2.32 and 3.3.6 include:
* CA Certificates based on the IGTF 1.70 release
* Restored the 'Sign AUP on behalf of user' feature in VOMS Admin Server

Changes to 3.3.6 also includes:
* Fixed a bug that prevented HTCondor 8.4's CREAM gahp from starting

Release notes and pointers to more documentation can be found at:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release3232
https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release336

Need help? Let us know:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/HelpProcedure

We welcome feedback on this release!

GOC Service Update - Tuesday, December 8, 2015 at 14:00 UTC

The GOC will upgrade the following services beginning Tuesday, December 8, 2015 at 14:00 UTC. The GOC reserves 8 hours in the unlikely event that unexpected problems are encountered.

Repo
* Added locking to update_all_repos.sh to prevent overlapping runs

* Added timestamps to update_all_repos.sh logging

* Updated the various mash scripts to support new goc-* repos

All services
* Operating system updates; reboots will be required. The usual HA mechanisms will be used, but some services will experience brief outages.

Announcing OSG Software versions 3.2.31 and 3.3.5

We are pleased to announce OSG Software versions 3.2.31 and 3.3.5.

This special release contains several important updates and fixes;
considering updating affected packages very soon.

Both OSG 3.2.31 and 3.3.5 contain:
* Fix a leak in LCMAPS that caused HTCondor CE to use excessive memory
* Fixed a crash when osg-configure attempted to contact ReSS servers
* Small improvements in HTCondor CE
* RSV: Corrected log rotation configuration

OSG 3.3.5 also contains:
* HTCondor 8.4.2

OSG 3.2.31 also contains:
* HTCondor 8.2.10

Release notes and pointers to more documentation can be found at:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release3231
https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release335

Need help? Let us know:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/HelpProcedure

We welcome feedback on this release!

Announcing OSG Software versions 3.2.29 and 3.3.3

We are pleased to announce OSG Software versions 3.2.29 and 3.3.3.

The only updates in this special release are the CA certificates
based on IGTF 1.69 including the CILogon OSG CA.



WHAT IS CHANGING

A new IGTF Certificate Bundle (v1.69) has just been released.
This release has a very important change and we would like our
sites to install it as soon as they can.



WHO IS IMPACTED BY THIS CHANGE:

All OSG sites and users need to install the new CA bundle.
Especially US-Atlas and US-CMS sites should install the bundle
as soon as possible since their VOs will go under the transition
in November/December timeframe.



WHY THIS CHANGE IS HAPPENING:

The OSG CA is changing its backend service support from Digicert
to CILogon HSM. As a result, a new OSG CA is created and just
recently been accredited by IGTF. The official name of the new
OSG CA in the IGTF bundle is CILogon OSG CA. Starting in November
we will transition our VOs to start using the new OSG CA (CMS and
Atlas being first ones). If a site has not installed the CA bundle
by then, they will have authentication failures.



WHAT YOU SHOULD DO:

Install the new CA bundle as soon as possible. The latest CA bundle
will NOT be distributed in OSG Software v 3.1 because OSG no longer
supports it.

For Linux servers (including worker nodes), ensure that the
certificate bundle RPM is at version osg-ca-certs-1.50-1 or
igtf-ca-certs-1.69-1 or greater.

Instructions for installing server CA certificate bundles are at
https://twiki.grid.iu.edu/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/InstallCertAuth

We also highly recommend that you use the CA Cert automatic updater
https://twiki.grid.iu.edu/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/OsgCaCertsUpdater
but note that you need to be using a current OSG software distribution
for that to work, that is, OSG 3.2 or 3.3.



OTHER INFORMATION:

If you have the CA certificate bundle installed on a server with OSG 3.1,
you need to upgrade to OSG 3.2 or greater. Follow these instructions:
https://twiki.grid.iu.edu/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/OSGReleaseSeries#Updating_from_OSG_3_1_or_3_2_to

Please email OSG Security Team with questions or comments

Both OSG 3.2.28 and 3.3.2 contain:
   * CA certificates based on IGTF 1.69 including the OSG CILogon CA

Release notes and pointers to more documentation can be found at:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release3229
https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release333

Need help? Let us know:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/HelpProcedure

We welcome feedback on this release!

GOC Service Update - Tuesday, November 10, 2015 at 14:00 UTC

The GOC will upgrade the following services beginning Tuesday, November 10, 2015 at 14:00 UTC. The GOC reserves 8 hours in the unlikely event that unexpected problems are encountered.

*perfSONAR
Some unused packages will be removed to stop MadDash from forwarding visitors to the toolkit, and the OMD/MadDash servers will be rebooted. HA mechanisms will be used to minimize end user impact.

* Ticket Blog Feed
The ticket RSS feed will change to use Oauth authentication for blog posts.

* Ticket Exchange Certificate
The Fermi certificate on tx2 will be updated to be ready for tx2 to serve as backup.

GOC Service Update - Tuesday, October 27, 2015 at 13:00 UTC

GOC Service Update - Tuesday, October 27, 2015 at 13:00 UTC

The GOC will upgrade the following services beginning Tuesday, October 27, 2015 at 13:00 UTC. The GOC reserves 8 hours in the unlikely event that unexpected problems are encountered.

OIM
* Add VO specific messages to certificate renewal email notices (JIRA OSGPKI-399)

All services
* Operating system updates; reboots will be required. The usual HA mechanisms will be used, but some services will experience brief outages. Exceptions added to update script in case of glidein factories to prevent unwanted updates.

* Puppet will clean up some files left behind by recent temporary updates, such as last cycle’s update of the OSG release to 3.2 on machines that were then still running 3.1, and a recent security check.

Fix available for OSG BeStMan installs

OSG software versions 3.2.28 and 3.3.2, released this Tuesday, contained the wrong version of jGlobus.  The plan was to release jglobus-2.1.0-5, but instead jglobus-2.1.0-3 was released (note the 3 instead of 5 in the final digit).

Unfortunately, jglobus-2.1.0-3 has a critical bug that causes the BeStMan 2 service to fail upon start-up.  This failure has been reported at OSG sites that have upgraded since Tuesday's release.

As of late Wednesday night (US Central timezone), jglobus-2.1.0-5 is in the OSG production repositories for the 3.2.28 and 3.3.2 releases - mirrors may still be updating.  If you have any OSG hosts with BeStMan or GUMS (and therefore have jGlobus), please see if you have jglobus-2.1.0-3 installed; if so, update it to jglobus-2.1.0-5 as soon as possible, then restart BeStMan and GUMS services.  OSG tests and updates at some OSG sites indicate that jglobus-2.1.0-5 fixes the observed BeStMan failures.

We apologize for any problems that the release error has caused.  The OSG Software and Release teams are reviewing their development and release procedures to reduce the chances of this kind of mistake.

Announcing OSG Software versions 3.2.28 and 3.3.2

We are pleased to announce OSG Software versions 3.2.28 and 3.3.2.

OSG 3.2.28 and 3.3.2 contain:
* GlideinWMS 3.2.11.2
* XRootD 4.2.3
* HTCondor CE 1.16
* GIP support for multiple SLURM queues
* lcmaps-plugins-mount-under-scratch package
* CA certificates based on IGTF 1.68

In addition, OSG 3.3.2 contains:
* HTCondor 8.4.0
* StashCache improvements

Reminder for OSG 3.3.2:
* Enterprise Linux 7 support is not yet complete

Release notes and pointers to more documentation can be found at:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release3228
https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release332

Need help? Let us know:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/HelpProcedure

GOC Service Update - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 at 13:00 UTC

The GOC will upgrade the following services beginning Tuesday, August 25, 2015 at 13:00 UTC. The GOC reserves 8 hours in the unlikely event that unexpected problems are encountered.

GLIDEIN
Enable OSG yum repository and add exclude list for HTCondor and GlideinWMS rpms to prevent yum priority issues with EPEL yum repository

Ticket
nginx config file on ticket2 needs to be changed to point to 8080

All Services
Operating system updates; reboots will be required. The usual HA mechanisms will be used, but some services will experience brief outages.
Exceptions added to update script in case of glidein factories to prevent unwanted updates.

Known issue with glideinWMS and HTCondor 8.3.7 and 8.3.8

HTCondor versions 8.3.7 (released on 2015-07-23) and 8.3.8 (released on 2015-08-27) contain a bug that can affect glideinWMS factories and possibly glideinWMS VO front-ends. Some HTCondor configurations cause the shared port daemon to leak file descriptors. The problem is triggered when some, but not all, of the HTCondor daemons are configured to use a shared port. Note that the latest OSG Software release (version 3.3.1 of 2015-09-08) contains HTCondor 8.3.8, and so glideinWMS installations that upgrade to this OSG release are affected.

Further information and a workaround is available in the 3.3.1 release notes: https://twiki.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release331

Announcing OSG Software versions 3.2.27 and 3.3.1

We are pleased to announce OSG Software versions 3.2.27 and 3.3.1.

A security-related bug was found in the GUMS administrative interface.
The risk of this vulnerability has been assessed by OSG Security Team
as Critical. A new GUMS version 1.5.0 has been released and it is
included in OSG Software version 3.2.27/3.3.1. Site administrators
should update ASAP.

OSG 3.2.27 contains:
* GUMS 1.5.0
* HTCondor 8.2.9
* HTCondor CE 1.15
* gridFTP-HDFS checksum verification
* CA certificates based on IGTF 1.67

OSG 3.3.1 contains:
* GUMS 1.5.0
* HTCondor 8.3.8
* HTCondor CE 1.15
* gridFTP-HDFS checksum verification
* CA certificates based on IGTF 1.67
* StashCache improvements

Reminder for OSG 3.3.1:
* Enterprise Linux 7 support is not yet complete
* We have lightly tested the worker node components on EL 7

Release notes and pointers to more documentation can be found at:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release3227
https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release331

Need help? Let us know:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/HelpProcedure

We welcome feedback on this release!

TWiki - Intermittent Editing Issues

Greetings,

We are currently encountering difficulties with the TWiki. This problem prevents updates to some pages but not others. The problem appears to be intermittent and is under investigation. The GOC regrets any inconvenience and will inform you as soon as a resolution is available.

GOC Service Update - Tuesday, August 25 at 13:00 UTC

The GOC will upgrade the following services beginning Tuesday, August 25, 2015 at 13:00 UTC. The GOC reserves 8 hours in the unlikely event that unexpected problems are encountered.

OASIS

• Move repositories and logs from oasis and oasis-replica to a shared disk attached to their hypervisor.
• Removal of content for the fermilab VO.
• oasis-login to latest version

Shared file system

• Firmware update to the nas01 device (a QNAP TS-EC879U-RP), requiring two reboots.

All Services

• Operating system updates; reboots will be required. The usual HA mechanisms will be used, but some services will experience brief outages. Relocation of service virtual machines to their new hosts will complete.

Announcing OSG Software versions 3.2.26 and 3.3.0

We are pleased to announce OSG Software versions 3.2.26 and 3.3.0.

OSG 3.2.26 contains:
* XRootD 4.2.2 (see release notes for details)
* 2 patches to HTCondor to better support HTCondor CE
* improved logging of failures in lcmaps-plugins-verify-proxy
* better credential handling and fix for crashes in lcamps-plugins-scas-client
* CA Certificates are no longer repackaged for compatibility with old software
* VO Package v61

OSG 3.3.0 starts a new release series. This series is currently largely equivalent to the 3.2.26 series with the following changes:
* Unused and unmaintained packages were dropped from the 3.3 series.
* The 3.3 series contains HTCondor 8.3.6, rather than HTCondor 8.2.8.
* The OSG 3.3 series supports Enterprise Linux 6 and 7 systems.
* Enterprise Linux 7 support is not yet complete.
* We have lightly tested the worker node components on EL 7.

For more information about OSG Release series, please review the following:

https://twiki.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/OSGReleaseSeries
https://twiki.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/SoftwareTeam/ReleaseSeriesSupportPolicy

Release notes and pointers to more documentation can be found at:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release3226
https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release330

Need help? Let us know:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/HelpProcedure

We welcome feedback on this release!

GOC Service Update - Tuesday, August 11th, 2015 at 13:00 UTC

The GOC will upgrade the following services beginning Tuesday, August 11th, 2015 at 13:00 UTC. The GOC reserves 8 hours in the unlikely event that unexpected problems are encountered.

GratiaWeb

* Modifications to use google charts tree map

* New time & efficiency tree map plot

* Opportunistic filter for all summary queries

* Bug fix for sql var replacement

OASIS

* Move repositories and logs from oasis and oasis-replica to a shared disk attached to their hypervisor

All Services

* We detected a problem with how we were synchronizing our systems’ clocks, causing some systems’ times to be off by up to four minutes; we will apply a new solution using chrony.

GOC Service Update - July 28th, 2015 at 13:00 UTC

The GOC will upgrade the following services beginning Tuesday, July 28th, 2015 at 13:00 UTC. The GOC reserves 8 hours in the unlikely event that unexpected problems are encountered.

Oasis
Deprecate RHEL5 oasis-login. Only RHEL6 available after this update and the change should be user transparent.
Move application logs on oasis and oasis-replica to network attached storage.

All Services
Operating system updates; reboots will be required. The usual HA mechanisms will be used, but some services will experience brief outages.

GOC Service Update - Tuesday, July 14th at 13:00 UTC

The GOC will upgrade the following services beginning Tuesday, July 14, 2015 at 13:00 UTC.  The GOC reserves 8 hours in the unlikely event that unexpected problems are encountered.

MyOSG
Updated the way WLCG endpoint descriptions are created - (dropped service_type and replaced it with the first token from the hostname).

OASIS
On the virtualization host, we must split the storage array’s single logical volume into two so one can be used as a shared volume for guests via local NFS.  Some downtime will be required, as this must be done from the console in single-user mode.

Fermilab LISTSERV Maintenance - Thursday, June 25, 1pm-2pm Eastern

On Thursday, June 25, from 1pm until 2pm Eastern time, Fermilab will be upgrading their LISTSERV application to the latest version. This will cause any mail sent to our mailing addresses (goc@opensciencegrid.org, security@opensciencegrid.org, etc) to queue and not deliver until after maintenance is over. During that time period, if contacting OSG Operations is urgent or regarding something such as a security incident, please call us at +1 317-278-9699.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We will update you if there are any changes to this plan.

GOC Service Update - Tuesday, June 23th at 13:00 UTC

The GOC will upgrade the following services beginning Tuesday, June 23rd, 2015 at 13:00 UTC. The GOC reserves 8 hours in the unlikely event that unexpected problems are encountered.

OIM
Install ssm v2 for gratia-apel reporting

Oasis
move all oasis virtual machines to a new physical machine
move application logs on oasis and oasis-replica to network attached storage
upgrade oasis-login-sl6 to the same software as on oasis-login

MyOSG
Fixed an issue with toolkit_url=auto not applied to GOCDB resources for perfsonar meshconfig.

All Services
Operating system updates; reboots will be required. The usual HA mechanisms will be used, but some services will experience brief outages.

GOC Service Update - Tuesday, June 9th at 13:00 UTC

The GOC will upgrade the following services beginning Tuesday, June 9th, 2015 at 13:00 UTC. The GOC reserves 8 hours in the unlikely event that unexpected problems are encountered. 

MyOSG 2.35
* meshconfig/ reintroduced toolkit_url option for auto mesh config.

GOC Ticket 1.91
* Removed hayashis from various assignees 

GOC Service Update - Tuesday, May 26th at 13:00 UTC

The GOC will upgrade the following services beginning Tuesday, May 26th, 2015 at 13:00 UTC. The GOC reserves 8 hours in the unlikely event that unexpected problems are encountered.

Oasis
* Log file configuration changes


GOC Ticket 1.90
* Minor fix/improvements to ticket links in public ticket viewer.


All Services
* Operating system updates; reboots will be required. The usual HA mechanisms will be used, but some services will experience brief outages.


Announcing OSG Software versions 3.2.23

We are pleased to announce OSG Software version 3.2.23.

OSG 3.2.23 contains:
* HTCondor CE 1.13 (see release notes for details)
* GUMS 1.4.3 (see release notes for details)
* osg-configure 1.0.1 (see release notes for details)
* Initial StashCache meta-packages (some manual configuration required)
* CILogon CA certificates for OpenID and OSG
* HTCondor 8.3.5 in the upcoming repository for EL6 platforms

Release notes and pointers to more documentation can be found at:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release3223

Need help? Let us know:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/HelpProcedure

We welcome feedback on this release!

GOC Service Update - Tuesday, May 12th at 13:00 UTC

The GOC will upgrade the following services beginning Tuesday, May 12th, 2015 at 13:00 UTC. The GOC reserves 8 hours in the unlikely event that unexpected problems are encountered.

MyOSG 2.34
Patched PHP notice issue in meshconfig generator.

OIM 3.44
Patched an issue where ipv6 localhost address was not recognized as a local user.

Condor Collectors
Update administrator configuration to allow collector to accept as CE.

All Services
An update to network configuration that will make the transition to IPv6 possible will go into effect on all virtualization hosts. No reboot will be required, but the update will cause a one-time interruption in network connectivity lasting up to ten seconds. The only unaffected services will be those hosted entirely on physical hardware, such as xd-login.opensciencegrid.org.

Operations Phone Line Outage (Resolved)

This morning, we received a report that the GOC support number (317-278-9699) was unavailable.
IU Telecom Services was immediately engaged and emergency maintenance was performed to restore service.
No further outages are expected.

Please note that we can be reached at any time via the IU GlobalNOC at 317-278-6630 as well as the GOC support number.

We apologize for any inconvenience this caused.

CVMFS bug delays OASIS update

The previously announced update of the OASIS service will be delayed by an additional two weeks due to a recently discovered problem with the underlying CVMFS software. This problem does not affect the production instance of OASIS, only the current ITB instance.

GOC Service Update - Tuesday, April 28th at 13:00 UTC

The GOC will upgrade the following services beginning Tuesday, April 28th, 2015 at 13:00 UTC. The GOC reserves 8 hours in the unlikely event that unexpected problems are encountered.

Oasis
- The oasis CVMFS Stratum 0 will be upgraded to the latest versions of cvmfs and oasis rpms; the repository will be replaced by one that was rebuilt from scratch. The httpd configuration will be updated to better handle heavy load from sending large updates to many Stratum 1s.
- The oasis-login user access machine will be rebuilt and upgraded to the latest oasis rpm.
- The oasis-replica Stratum 1 will have a rebuilt replica of the oasis repository and be upgraded to the latest oasis rpm. The httpd configuration will be updated to better separate the traffic to clients and other Stratum 1s, and to limit the rate data is sent to other Stratum 1s.

GratiaWeb
graphtool-0.6.6-25
- regexp bug fix
- query timeout implementation for MySQL connections
- JQuery UI support for XML pages input
- Incorrect title replacement in some plots (bug)
- Distinguish empty result set from timeout and exception in sql query
osg-measurements-metrics-db-1.2-34 / osg-measurements-metrics-web-1.2-34
- new fnal tape queries group
- cron job bug fix
- modifications to include VO in FOS queries
- modifications to include FOS filters for FOS queries

MyOSG
Upgrading service monitor with the latest version (MYOSG-81)

GOC Ticket 1.89
Fixed a bug where invalid ticket ID will not generate 401 page.

All Services
Operating system updates; reboots will be required. The usual HA mechanisms will be used, but some services will experience brief outages.
All systems with IPv6 addresses defined in DNS will become dual-stacked IPv4/IPv6 on both public and private networks. Some individual services may not necessarily accept IPv6 connections, depending on the software.

Announcing OSG Software versions 3.2.22 and 3.1.46

We are pleased to announce OSG Software versions 3.2.22 and 3.1.46.

OSG 3.2.22 contains:
* HTCondor 8.2.8 (bug fixes)
* CVMFS 2.1.20 (a number of new features and several bug fixes)
* HTCondor CE 1.11 (bug fix for LSF submission and an enhancement)
* Several updates to osg-configure
* Update to gLExec 0.9.11 and LCMAPS 1.6.6
* OSG VOMS RPMs updated to account for changes to EPEL VOMS RPMs
* CA Certificates updated to IGTF 1.63

This is the last planned release of OSG 3.1 and it will be
completely unsupported after April 30th, 2015.

OSG 3.1.46 contains:
* OSG VOMS RPMs updated to account for changes to EPEL VOMS RPMs
* CA Certificates updated to IGTF 1.63

Release notes and pointers to more documentation can be found at:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release3222
https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release3146

Need help? Let us know:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/HelpProcedure

We welcome feedback on this release!

GOC Service Update - Tuesday, April 14 at 13:00 UTC – OASIS2 Deployment Delay

We’ve received a request to delay the OASIS2 deployment until April 28 because of urgent production use. The OASIS2 deployment includes the following changes:

*The oasis CVMFS Stratum 0 will be upgraded to the latest versions of cvmfs and oasis rpms; the repository will be replaced by one that was rebuilt from scratch. The httpd configuration will be updated to better handle heavy load from sending large updates to many Stratum 1s. 
* The oasis-login user access machine will be rebuilt and upgraded to the latest oasis rpm.
* The oasis-replica Stratum 1 will have a rebuilt replica of the oasis repository and be upgraded to the latest oasis rpm. The httpd configuration will be updated to better separate the traffic to clients and other Stratum 1s, and to limit the rate data is sent to other Stratum 1s. 

This delay does not affect the non-OASIS2 changes previously announced.

GOC Service Update - Tuesday, April 14 at 13:00 UTC

The GOC will upgrade the following services beginning Tuesday, April 14 at 13:00 UTC. The GOC reserves 8 hours in the unlikely event that unexpected problems are encountered.

Oasis

* The oasis CVMFS Stratum 0 will be upgraded to the latest versions of cvmfs and oasis rpms; the repository will be replaced by one that was rebuilt from scratch. The httpd configuration will be updated to better handle heavy load from sending large updates to many Stratum 1s.
* The oasis-login user access machine will be rebuilt and upgraded to the latest oasis rpm.
* The oasis-replica Stratum 1 will have a rebuilt replica of the oasis repository and be upgraded to the latest oasis rpm. The httpd configuration will be updated to better separate the traffic to clients and other Stratum 1s, and to limit the rate data is sent to other Stratum 1s.

Software

* Install robots.txt to block indexing

GOC Ticket 1.88

* Implemented capability to link tickets (TICKET-79)
* Updated software(other) issue to go to support team
* Removed references for oim/contact.timezone (ex. OIM-46)

OIM 3.43

* Added APEL factor field for Resource (OIM-122)
* Fixed the potential SQL-injection vulnerability for user/host certificate request search form.
* Updated host certificate request form to use CertificateAUPDE.
* Reverted the change I made in Footprints access model which prevents notifications under debug mode.
* Added capability to open detail / log tab via the t= option.
* Fixed the issue where error servlet reports incorrect port number if port is not set
* (patched) Fix for vo registration issue due to null certificate_signer.

ANNOUNCING THE OPEN SCIENCE GRID USER SCHOOL 2015!

If you could access thousands, maybe millions of hours of computing, how
would it transform your research? What discoveries might you make?

We are looking for students to apply for and attend the Open Science Grid
(OSG) User School 2015, where they will learn to use high throughput
computing (HTC) to harness vast amounts of computing power for research.
The School takes place 27-31 July at the beautiful University of Wisconsin
in Madison.

Using lectures, discussions, roleplays, and lots of hands-on work with OSG
experts in HTC, students will learn how HTC systems work, how to run and
manage many jobs and huge datasets to implement a full scientific computing
workflow, and where to turn for help and more info.

Worried about costs? Successful applicants will get financial support to
attend the OSG School, covering all basic travel, hotel, and food costs.
This is a great deal!

Ideal candidates are science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
(STEM) graduate students whose research demands large-scale computing.
Also, we will consider applications from post-doctoral students, faculty,
staff, and advanced undergraduates, so make a good case for yourself!

IMPORTANT DATES

Application Period - OPEN NOW: 1 April - 1 May 2015
OSG User School: 27-31 July 2015

MORE INFORMATION AND APPLICATIONS

Web: http://www.opensciencegrid.org/UserSchool
Email: user-school@opensciencegrid.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OSGUserSchool
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OSGUserSchool

Please forward this announcement to help us reach potential students. And
consider posting our flyer where appropriate:

https://twiki.opensciencegrid.org/twiki/pub/Education/OSGUserSchool2015/osg-user-school-2015-flyer.pdf

HTCC 2015 Winners

Congratulations to the winners of this year's High Throughput Computing Challenge!

1st Place: Bala Desinghu and Judith Stephen
2nd Place: Majid Arabgol of Purdue
3rd Place: Kenyi Paolo Hurtado Anampa of Notre Dame

Thank you to all the participants and we hope you had fun. If anyone has suggestions for next year's mystery challenge application, feel free to contact Elizabeth Prout.

2015 OSG All-Hands Meeting: See you next week!

For those of you who are registered for the OSG AHM, see you next week!

Monday, March 23 – Friday, March 27 at Northwestern University’s Evanston Campus, Illinois!

Please take a moment to check the list of those currently registered http://sites.northwestern.edu/osg-ahm2015/attendees/.  If you believe you have signed up, but you do not see your name, please contact Pamela Villalovoz (pmv@northwestern.edu) to confirm your registration.

If you have not yet registered, but plan to attend the meeting, or if you have any questions, please email pmv@northwestern.edu.


See you next week!

2015 OSG All-Hands Meeting: Final chance to register for OSG AHM!

Still not registered for the OSG AHM?

We have extended registration until this Monday, March 16 but no further! Don’t lose your spot, register today! http://sites.northwestern.edu/osg-ahm2015/register/

The OSG AHM will be held Monday, March 23 – Friday, March 27 at Northwestern University’s Evanston Campus, Illinois. Click here to see the agenda: https://indico.fnal.gov/conferenceTimeTable.py?confId=8580#20150323

Please also take a moment to check the list of those currently registered http://sites.northwestern.edu/osg-ahm2015/attendees/. If you believe you have signed up, but you do not see your name, please contact Pamela Villalovoz (pmv@northwestern.edu) to confirm your registration.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us (osg-contact@opensciencegrid.org).

2015 OSG All-Hands Meeting: Registration closes end of TOMORROW Friday, March 13!

Register by end of the day tomorrow for your place at the OSG AHM (Monday, March 23 – Friday, March 27 at Northwestern University’s Evanston Campus, Illinois): http://sites.northwestern.edu/osg-ahm2015/register/ 


Please also take a moment to check the list of those currently registered http://sites.northwestern.edu/osg-ahm2015/attendees/ 

If you believe you have signed up, but you do not see your name, please contact Pamela Villalovoz (pmv@northwestern.edu) to confirm your registration.
 
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us (osg-contact@opensciencegrid.org).

Announcing OSG Software versions 3.2.21 and 3.1.45

We are pleased to announce OSG Software versions 3.2.21 and 3.1.45.

OSG 3.2.21 contains:
* XRootD 4.1.1 (see release notes for critical EL5 update instructions)
* Globus Toolkit 6.0 , which is mostly a packaging update with a few small functional changes
* HTCondor CE 1.10 (see release notes for details)
* CA certificates updated to IGTF 1.62
* GIP configuration for HTCondor CE is now fully automated in osg-configure
* HTCondor 8.3.4 in Upcoming

At this time, OSG 3.1 receives critical updates only and
will be completely unsupported after April 30th, 2015.

OSG 3.1.45 contains:
* CA Certificate update to IGTF 1.62

Release notes and pointers to more documentation can be found at:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release3221
https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release3145

Need help? Let us know:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/HelpProcedure

We welcome feedback on this release!

2015 OSG All-Hands Meeting: Registration closes this Friday, March 13!

Only a few days left to register for the OSG AHM (Monday, March 23 – Friday, March 27 at Northwestern University’s Evanston Campus, Illinois).

Click here http://sites.northwestern.edu/osg-ahm2015/register/ to register today!

If you are coming only for the beginning of the week, make sure you check out the agenda for Thursday morning. With an extra plenary, a panel and two tutorials, you will probably want to stay!

Click here to see the draft agenda: https://indico.fnal.gov/conferenceTimeTable.py?confId=8580#20150323

Please also take a moment to check the list of those currently registered: http://sites.northwestern.edu/osg-ahm2015/attendees/

If you believe you have signed up, but you do not see your name, please contact Pamela Villalovoz (pmv@northwestern.edu) to confirm your registration.

If you have any questions or suggestions for the agenda, please do not hesitate to contact us (osg-contact@opensciencegrid.org).

OSG Software Notice To Sites About GFAL 2 Packaging Issue

GFAL (Grid File Access Library) is a library and command-line tool for uniformly accessing files using a wide variety of protocols, including SRM, XRootD, and GridFTP.
Some OSG meta-packages recently switched from requiring lcg-util to gfal2-util (which comes from EPEL), but most sites have not switched to GFAL 2 yet.
If you do not use GFAL 2 from EPEL, you may skip the rest of this message.

EPEL recently released gfal2-2.8.1-1, an update to the core GFAL code.
This update splits one binary package into several, resulting in new failures for at least one common use case that the OSG Software team tests (using gfal-copy to/from a file:// URI).
There is a simple workaround for now. If you install and use gfal2-util, especially with local filesystem endpoints, please install an extra GFAL package as follows:

yum install gfal2-plugin-file

OSG hopes to have a fully automated solution to this issue in time for the March release.
If you have any questions or comments about GFAL, please contact .

2015 OSG All-Hands Meeting: Registration Countdown Begins!

If you have not yet registered for the 2015 OSG AHM, there are only 10 DAYS left to sign up, so click here (http://sites.northwestern.edu/osg-ahm2015/register/) to register today!

The meeting will be held Monday, March 23 – Friday, March 27 at Northwestern University’s Evanston, Illinois Campus.  You can sign up for the whole week or in daily increments.  Click here (https://indico.fnal.gov/conferenceTimeTable.py?confId=8580#20150323) to see the draft agenda.

We apologize for the technical problems with the registration page last week.  Registration is now fully open.  Please also take a moment to check the list of those currently registered (http://sites.northwestern.edu/osg-ahm2015/attendees/).  If you believe you have signed up, but you do not see your name, please contact Pamela Villalovoz (pmv@northwestern.edu) to confirm your registration.

If you have any questions or suggestions for the agenda, please do not hesitate to contact us (osg-contact@opensciencegrid.org). The deadline is Friday, March 13. Register now to secure your place!
 
We look forward to seeing you at the meeting!

Notice to sites about gfal2 packaging issue

GFAL (Grid File Access Library) is a library and command-line tool for uniformly accessing files using a wide variety of protocols, including SRM, XRootD, and GridFTP. Some OSG meta-packages recently switched from requiring lcg-util to gfal2-util (which comes from EPEL), but most sites have not switched to GFAL 2 yet. If you do not use GFAL 2 from EPEL, you may skip the rest of this message.

EPEL recently released gfal2-2.8.1-1, an update to the core GFAL code. This update splits one binary package into several, resulting in new failures for at least one common use case that the OSG Software team tests (using gfal-copy to/from a file:// URI). There is a simple workaround for now. If you install and use gfal2-util, especially with local filesystem endpoints, please install an extra GFAL package as follows:

yum install gfal2-plugin-file

OSG hopes to have a fully automated solution to this issue in time for the March release. If you have any questions or comments about GFAL, please contact .

GOC Service Update - Tuesday, March 10 at 13:00 UTC

The GOC will upgrade the following services beginning Tuesday, March 10, 2015 at 13:00 UTC. The GOC reserves 8 hours in the unlikely event that unexpected problems are encountered.

GratiaWeb
* Some long running queries were causing timeouts for the web server, timeout value will be increased to 180 seconds.


Oasis
* The oasis-replica CVMFS Stratum 1 upgrade was aborted during the last maintenance period, so it will again be attempted to be upgraded to the latest versions of cvmfs, oasis, and frontier rpms.  Also, the process of adding new repositories will be automated based on OIM registration.


OIM 3.42
* Refactored model access code for meshconfig administration page in order to prevent excessive cache refresh.

* Fixed the error report page which was causing tomcat to display tomcat generic error page. Updated the link for GOC Ticket submitter to pre-select various ticket submission form. Various other fixes to error report page. (OIM-120)

* PKI / Added checks for null secondary_email during certificate renew criteria test so that user with no secondary email address can be handled correctly.

* Added capability to specify certificate signer for each VO (frontend feature is only available for ITB). 

* Refactored footprints model so that *all* ticket update events will be vetoed under debug mode. 

* Made various bug fixes for CILogin certificate signer to be tested in ITB.


MyOSG 2.33
* Renamed pfmesh to psmesh and updated parameter "pfds" to "psds". All changes should be backward compatible. (MYOSG-84)

* Various cosmetic updates for RSV status details

* Added toolkit_url: "auto" to all mesh_config for new maddash config parser to add link to each toolkit from MadDash status matrix

* Removed references to OIM's user profile settings for timezone (OIM-46)


OSG All Hands Meeting Registration

OSG Collaborators,

We are currently experiencing problems with the OSG All Hands Meeting registration system, due to these difficulties we cannot currently collect registration fees. If you are planning to attend the AHM but have not yet registered, please email Pam Villalovoz (pmv@northwestern.edu) including your name and the dates you wish to attend. We will contact you again when registration is fully available. This is expected to be within the next few business days.

If your name appears here http://sites.northwestern.edu/osg-ahm2015/attendees/ you are already registered and you do not need to take any action.

Thank you. See you in March at Northwestern!

Gratiaweb data is not current

The gratia service will be restarted at approximately Noon (eastern time) today. A outage of approximately 5 minutes is anticipated.

GOC Service Update - Tuesday, February 24th at 14:00 UTC

The GOC will upgrade the following services beginning Tuesday, February 24th, 2015 at 14:00 UTC. The GOC reserves 8 hours in the unlikely event that unexpected problems are encountered.

Oasis

• The oasis-replica CVMFS Stratum 1 will be upgraded to the latest versions of cvmfs, oasis, and frontier rpms.  Also, the process of adding new repositories will be automated based on OIM registration.

GOC-TX 1.45

• Added capability to merge ticket metadata prior to the reverse ticket update. This prevents GOC-TX from resolving GGUS ticket unnecessarily just to synchronize the ticket status in a rare occasion (https://ggus.eu/index.php?mode=ticket_info&ticket_id=111495)

OIM 3.41

• PKI / Made various changes to user certificate request / renewal interfaces requested by super-RA (Alain Deximo) and GOC support staff. For a full list of changes made, please see http://confluence.grid.iu.edu/display/CHANGE/UI+updates+surrounding+user+certificate+workflow+UI

All Services

• Operating system updates; reboots will be required. The usual HA mechanisms will be used, but some services will experience brief outages.
• Major update to internal Puppet configuration management: the same configuration stated in different terms, separating site-specific data from configuration code.  This is a step toward being able to share that code as well as to employ Puppet in provisioning.  No fundamental changes to the actual configuration should happen.

UPDATE: Difficulties accessing GratiaWeb

Users were experiencing difficulties accessing GratiaWeb. Administrators traced the problem back to the Gratia database and restored service around 12:00pm EST. We apologize for any inconvenience this caused.

Difficulties accessing GratiaWeb

Users are currently experiencing difficulties accessing GratiaWeb. Administrators are currently investigating and working to resolve the problem. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

OSG announcement: Executive Director

Dear all,

Click here to read the latest OSG newsletter!  Among other articles, you can read a message from Lothar Bauerdick on stepping down as the OSG Executive Director, and a message (re-)introducing the new Executive Director, Frank Würthwein.

If you would like to sign up to the OSG newsletter.  Please email osg-contact@opensciencegrid.org.

Best wishes,

Clemmie Jones

Announcing OSG Software versions 3.2.20 and 3.1.44

We are pleased to announce OSG Software versions 3.2.20 and 3.1.44.

OSG 3.2.20 contains:
* GIP now produces information about the HTCondor-CE for BDII
(See release notes for a manual configuration step)
* HTCondor 8.2.7
* GlideinWMS 3.2.8 (improved monitoring and bug fixes)
* Based on request of OSG VOs, a subset of EGI.EU CVMFS repositories
are now accessible by default with the oasis-config RPM
* Several updates to osg-configure
* Security fixes for HTCondor 8.3.2 in upcoming

At this time, OSG 3.1 receives critical updates only and
will be completely unsupported after April 30th, 2015.

OSG 3.1.44 contains:
* Added TLS support to edg-mkgridmap
* Security fixes for HTCondor 7.8.8

JAVA UPDATE AND OSG SOFTWARE: Around January 20th, OpenJDK 7u75 was released;
this update to OSG’s preferred Java implementation was notable in that it
disabled SSL communication by default, thereby relying on TLS for all secure
connections. This change caused edg-mkgridmap 4.0.0 and earlier fail to connect
to VOMS Admin, because it lacked TLS support. OSG 3.2 already contained
edg-mkgridmap 4.0.1 with TLS support, and with today’s release of edg-mkgridmap
4.0.1 in OSG 3.1, we believe that all OSG software in Java or uses Java services
is ready for TLS. As always, if you find issues with OSG software, due to SSL or
other causes, please email us at .

Release notes and pointers to more documentation can be found at:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release3220
https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release3144

Need help? Let us know:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/HelpProcedure

We welcome feedback on this release!

2015 OSG All-Hands Meeting

Registration for the 2015 Open Science Grid all-hands meeting closes a month from today on Monday, March 9.  Register now to secure your place!  http://sites.northwestern.edu/osg-ahm2015/register/
 
Remember, you can sign up for the whole week or in daily increments, depending on how long you can attend.  The draft agenda is available here:  https://indico.fnal.gov/conferenceTimeTable.py?confId=8580#20150323
 
If you have any questions or suggestions for the agenda, please do not hesitate to contact us (mailto:osg-contact@opensciencegrid.org).
 
We look forward to seeing you at the meeting!

GOC Services Update - Tuesday, February 10th, 2015 at 14:00 UTC

The GOC will upgrade the following services beginning Tuesday, February 10th, 2015 at 14:00 UTC.
The GOC reserves 8 hours in the unlikely event that unexpected problems are encountered.

GOC Ticket 1.87
* Fixed the issue where EventNotifier sometimes doesn't set proper submitter name (TICKET-115)

GOC-TX 1.44
* Added url to error message used for getnextassignee in case of error.
* Improved exception handling for test class.
* Updated Footprints accessor to set ticket-type by default (GOCTX-31)

Glidein Factory
* As happened with the ITB Glidein factory on January 20, the production Glidein factory will be upgraded to RHEL 6 by request of the Glidein group.

Save the Date March 17-19, 2015 Clemson University

Advancing Research Computing on Campuses: Best Practices Workshop
Professionals involved in operating and supporting campus shared research computing infrastructure are invited to participate in this sharing of experience and expertise. Proposed topics include:

·      Best practices in advanced computing resources
·      The condo model
·      Business models
·      Collaboration with researchers
·      Return on investment
·      Interactions with national data centers and infrastructures

In Partnership with Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Research and Education Facilitators (ACI-REF) and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)

If you are interested in giving a lightening talk on your current practices and issues facing your research computing infrastructure please submit an abstract using the form located on the workshop registration page: http://citi.clemson.edu/arcc/register.html.

For more information on the workshop, hotels, and registration, please visit our website http://citi.clemson.edu/arcc/.

Barr von Oehsen: joehsen@clemson.edu

perfSONAR Infrastructure Monitoring and 3.4.1 Update Reminder

Dear All,

This is a reminder to all WLCG sites to reinstall or upgrade their perfSONAR instances to version 3.4.1 if they haven't done so already. The deadline for sites to upgrade is 16th of February. We'd like to stress, that after updating, it's very important to reconfigure your instances following the instructions at https://twiki.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/InstallUpdatePS

We'd also like to ask ALL sites to reboot their instances in order to ensure that the latest security updates are applied and to check if you have correctly whitelisted the OSG subnet, which is now hosting the core infrastructure for WLCG perfSONAR.

Finally, we would like to announce availability of the perfSONAR infrastructure monitoring at: http://pfomd.grid.iu.edu

To access it, you will need to have your personal certificate loaded in the browser. You can check status of your perfSONAR instances by typing hostname (or just domain) in the quick search bar. Detailed information on the metrics and troubleshooting is available at https://twiki.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/TroubleFAQPS

For any issues, please open GGUS ticket for WLCG perfSONAR Support or contact wlcg-perfsonar-support@cern.ch.

Best regards,
perfSONAR Support Team

2015 OSG All-Hands Meeting: Agenda and Registration

Dear all,

The 2015 Open Science Grid all-hands meeting (Monday, March 23 to Friday, March 27, 2015) draft agenda (https://indico.fnal.gov/conferenceTimeTable.py?confId=8580#20150323) is now available! Please note that the timetable is provisional at this stage and subject to change, but we hope it will help as you begin to plan your trip.

Register now! ( http://sites.northwestern.edu/osg-ahm2015/register/) The deadline is Monday, March 9. Register now to secure your place!

You can sign up for the whole week or in daily increments, depending on how long you can attend. Visit our website (http://sites.northwestern.edu/osg-ahm2015/register/) to sign up.

Please also take a moment to check the list (http://sites.northwestern.edu/osg-ahm2015/attendees/) of those currently registered. If you believe you have signed up, but you do not see your name, please contact Pamela Villalovoz (pmv@northwestern.edu) to confirm your registration.

If you have any questions or suggestions for the agenda, please do not hesitate to contact us (osg-contact@opensciencegrid.org).

We look forward to seeing you at the meeting!

GOC Services Update - Tuesday, January 27th, 2015 at 13:00 UTC

The GOC will upgrade the following services beginning Tuesday, January 27th, 2015 at 13:00 UTC.
The GOC reserves 8 hours in the unlikely event that unexpected problems are encountered.

MyOSG 2.32
* meshconfig / removing GOC to WLCG meshconfig redirection. GOC's meshconfigs are now considered authoritative mesh config for perfsonar instances. ?new parameter is no longer needed to disable redirection.
* Removed various pages pointing to old datastore (perfsonar matrix, perfsonar host status, and perfsonar VO matrix page). These pages are to be replaced by the new version of datastore (pfds), MaDDash, and OMD display soon.
* (patched) Fixed the issue where disabled tests show up on auto mesh config
* (patched) Added disable flag filtering for auto mesh config

GOC Ticket 1.86
* Minor bug fix for search result page

Glidein
* Upgrade OS to RHEL6 (pending ITB testing)

All Services
* Operating system updates; reboots will be required. The usual HA mechanisms will be used, but some services will experience brief outages.

Announcing OSG Software versions 3.2.19 and 3.1.43

We are pleased to announce OSG Software versions 3.2.19 and 3.1.43.

OSG 3.2.19 contains:
* Several HTCondor CE fixes and improvements (see release notes)
* HTCondor 8.2.6 with a backport of the user-specific config file feature
* HTCondor 8.3.2 in the upcoming repository
* Update to VOMS 2.0.12
* Added an XRootD security module
* Introduced an RSV perfSONAR probe (primarily for the GOC)
* Improved TLS support in MyProxy
* Added TLS support to globus-gram-client and edg-mkgridmap
* Improved support for multiple frontier-squid servers on a single machine
* Several other minor bug fixes

At this time, OSG 3.1 receives critical updates only and
will be completely unsupported after April 30th, 2015.

OSG 3.1.43 contains:
* Improved TLS support in MyProxy
* Added TLS support to globus-gram-client

Release notes and pointers to more documentation can be found at:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release3219
https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/Release3143

Need help? Let us know:

https://www.opensciencegrid.org/bin/view/Documentation/Release3/HelpProcedure

We welcome feedback on this release!

GOC Services Update - January 13th, 2015 at 13:00 UTC

The GOC will upgrade the following services beginning Tuesday, January 13th, 2015 at 13:00 UTC. The GOC reserves 8 hours in the unlikely event that unexpected problems are encountered.

MyOSG 2.31
meshconfig / Added capability to override read_url (pfds)
(patched) moved traceroute service from latency to bandwidth service - per Shawn's request

GratiaWeb
Added new FOS queries (GRATIAWEB-67).

GOC Ticket
Fixed the issue where empty ticket type causes DataTable filtering to malfunction (TICKET-114)
Adding ticket type to Solr index and made all security ticket to be indexed by Solr. Added filtering code to hide security and/or security_notification from the search result (TICKET-112)
Added a few more character for allowed html url replace characters (TICKET-60)
Hidden email addresses in ticket descriptions for guest user (TICKET-108)

OIM 3.39
Added clear_cache internal rest API used by WLCG Loader used by Perfsonar Mesh config admin
Fixed the user/host certificate detail page table header issue.
Fixed invalid link inside GridAdmin/RA agreement text.
Replaced deprecated DivRep function calls inside CertificateRequestUserServlet.
Fixed an issue where googlemap's zoom control bar is missing (OIM-116)
Improved the refreshing mechanism for status indicator for user/host cert reqests (OIM-115)
Perfsonar Endpoint Crawler / updated use null instead of empty MA result (empty MA could be a valid mas list)

TWiki
Applied security patch to deal with http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/SecurityAlert-CVE-2014-9367