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It was noted that a suggestion had been made to produce a web page describing the policy and/or procedure for creating Division-wide accounts. It was hoped this would be completed by the end of the month.
[Action: RB/JMHO]
It was also suggested that the script written by Rainer Thonnes (and currently used to generate a significant proportion of Division accounts) is examined to see if its scope can be extended.
The final few oustanding items with respect to LaTeX styles & RPM management were reported to have been completed.
[This item will be removed from future Minutes]
This is now being dealt with by KTD, rather than TC.
Further investigation is required to establish the cause of the load on the Division DB and consequent slow response time. AJS asked if it was possible to raise the priority of this investigation to see if the situation could be improved before the additional DB load from Easter exam-marking.
KTD was also to investigate the use of the DB person table primary key (person@).
There were none.
Paul gave reports on the 4th Annual Linux Showcase and Conference in Atlanta, and the 14th Systems Administration (LISA) Conference in New Orleans. Paul's notes are available on the latter.
Paul also gave details of the proposed MSc in Systems Administration to be offered to existing staff, and as an recruitment incentive to prospective new staff. It is expected that this will initially involve only small numbers, in order to minimise the teaching load for existing staff.
Also discussed were the accessibility & security of wireless ethernet, and the current status of the DICE investigations (LDAP, Kerberos authentication, &c). Mention was also made of lcfg and the collaboration with CERN on this.
KTD reported on the CO recruitment position, interviews having taken place just before Christmas. Four posts had Authority To Recruit (with a fifth ATR for "exceptional candidate only"). Three appointments have currently been made, namely Ian Rae (new staff) at KB, John Berry at FH/SB (existing staff), and Alison Downie (new staff). John has moved from a CSO post to a 3-year contract (PC/Windows support), Alison has been appointed to a post which includes part-time support for IANC.
Appointment to the fourth post (at KB) is still under discussion.
AJS reported on the current state of the Beowulf bid, saying that the first pass through hardware tenders was complete, but no delivery date had yet been agreed, although it was possible that it could be here by Easter.
It was overwhelming agreed that meetings should now be held every TWO months (eight week intervals).
There was none.
Following on from above, it was agreed that the next meeting should be held in Room 2511, JCMB, on Wednesday, March 21st (venue to be confirmed).
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