Network upgrade status update, including upcoming outages

The Brooklyn Elementary network is still down except for a few computers in the office. Contractors will be here Monday to complete the wiring work in the building. Hopefully it will be done Monday. 

At 8:00 AM on Tuesday, the Prairie View data network will have an interruption lasting around 5 minutes to install a fiber patch cable.

Wireless networks are still available in only certain areas in the buildings. (There are 43 wireless access points currently running, instead of 74 at the end of the school year.) Wireless should begin coming online (in new and improved form) starting tomorrow, with full coverage scheduled for August 22. At that point, there should be 168 high-capacity access points providing coverage. I'm sure there will be some tweaking necessary. Thanks for your patience as we try to get everything installed.

Planned network outage at NKE on 8/9

Scheduled outage: NKE 8/9

All network services including wireless, Internet access, and printers, will be down in Netherwood on 8/9 starting for part or all of the day. Please plan accordingly. Thank you.

Brooklyn fiber is back up

The fiber connection to Brooklyn has been repaired. Phones and computer networks are working normally again.

Network down tonight (Wed. 8/10) 10-11 PM

The district's network will be down tonight, Wednesday, August 10, from 10-11 PM while we perform regular maintenance which requires powering down the core network switch.

Network services, phone services, and Internet will be down during this time. If any unforeseen complications occur, we will post updates here.

Why we use network-based security devices

This article is a good example of why we use a network-based security scanner.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/15/bbc_driveby_download/

Basically, users who simply visit a legitimate website (BBC) could be infected by malware, even if their computers have anti-virus installed. Only nine of the top forty-three anti-virus programs found the malware.  This is why we use not only desktop anti-virus, but also a network security scanner. The network security device is updated continuously, so when such vulnerabilities are detected, they can be blocked, even if they are on a legitimate website.

We are also piloting the use of a "Secure Web Gateway" network appliance to scan all traffic in real time, which would provide another layer of protection.

New servers and drive letters- a quick overview

All the servers have been moved and renamed. Here's a cheat sheet including the shortcut drive letters on your computer.

H: is a shortcut to your home folder on a server called osd-home1\staff

S: is the place for sharing files internally with other staff. The share folders on the separate building servers have all been moved to a single server so that you can share more easily with staff from other buildings. These are now called "CommonShare" and are accessible at the S: drive. The building-specific folders are still intact, but that's just because we didn't want to mess with anybody's organization. 

U: is where applications live. You don't really need to use this- it's just where the apps are stored.

V: is a big drive space for storing videos.

W: is a shortcut to a server called "osd-web1" which is (as you may have guessed) a web server. The public can get to this server at http://teachers.oregon.k12.wi.us Many teacher website are hosted here. Don't put anything here if you don't want it to be public.

Here is a screenshot of the local and network volumes as they appear on a Windows7 computer.

Content filtering issues being resolved today

There has been an issue with the Lightspeed network security system blocking staff access to content that it should allow. This affects only web sites that are allowed for staff but are blocked for students. YouTube is the most prominent example of this.

We have identified the cause of this behavior as being due to the system not knowing if it is staff or students logged in to a particular computer. Today we are deploying a small software program to all the computers, called the Lightspeed User Agent, which will let the network security system know who is logged into the computer so that the proper content filtering settings can be applied.

This should be in effect by tomorrow (Thursday, Aug. 14). Until then, if you are blocked from a site, look or a "Login" link near the bottom of the security warning message. Staff can click on it and log in using Novell credentials to access sites that would otherwise be restricted from students.

Trying to get fiber connection to OASIS

Our new alternative high school OASIS, will be physically located in the new ice rink south of OHS. We need to provide phone/data/CATV to our staff and students there. We have two main options: install new fiber or somehow do a mid-run splice on the fiber that is already underground right on the property. I will be meeting with several folks next week to discuss the most cost-effective options which won't hamstring us in the future.

Internet planned outage Mon., Mar. 24, 4:30 PM

At 4:30 today all internet services will be down for maintenance. We are installing a new filter to handle (among other things) the spam that we have all been receiving this past week.

Systems Affected:
During this outage you will not be able to:
-Use any internet services whatsoever from inside the district.
-Email from outside the district.
-Powerschool from outside the district.
-Citrix
-District web pages other than www.oregonsd.org

Duration:
This outage will start at 4:30 PM today (Mar 24) and last for approximately 1 hour.

Actions needed to be taken by you:
If you are using any of the affected system at the time of the outage you are prone to data loss. Please log off of any affected system before 4:30 PM.