Optimizing our TCP/IP Environment

                         Meeting Minutes
                             4/3/95

Attending:  Bob, Dave, Justin


1.  Discussed Email and what the issues/concerns are in consolidating all
    email onto one server platform (our Unix mail server).  Questions to
    be answered include:

    - Do two (2) or more people share computers?
      (Our Unix email system (POP) downloads email to the individual's personal
      computer.  This would not work well if the computer were shared)

    - Do any employees use terminals only?

    - How would an employee access email from other places on campus? from off-
      campus?
      (Currently, students carry a floppy disk with them whenever they want to
      check their email at different places around campus.)

    An IMAP email client program for the Mac and DOS/Windows would give us the
    flexibility to make these changes.  Justin and Dave are lookin into this.

    We contacted John Flack (Central Computing) to determine equipment was
    being used in the Financial Aid office.  We found out that they use
    DOS, but not Windows.  Several employees only have an 8088-based PC.
    Several employees in the Bursar's office are reported to be using terminals
    only.

    We will need to meet again to continue our investigation of consolidating
    email.  Since SPOTVA will be shutdown at the end of this fiscal year, it 
    may be the right time to make this change.


2.  Below is the plan for optimizing services based upon the host for
    the service and who takes "ownership" of each service (primary
    responsibility):

                                                                      Mission
Responsible  TCP/IP Service      Mac     Ultrix    Sun 5(1)   Sun 5(2)  Critical
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Dave           DNS                                BKUP        x        yes
 Dave           Bootp                              BKUP        x        yes
 Dave           Email                     x        BKUP        x        yes
 Dave           CSO                                BKUP        x        no
 Dave           Interactive Unix          x                             no
 Justin         WWW             x                                       no
 Justin         Gopher          x                                       no
 Russ           NetNews                             x                   no



3. We met with Russ Nelson, Bill Jaeger and Erik Denny to review our Unix host
   plan, to determine what how our Unix hosts should be configured and to look
   at security concerns (in light of the release of SATAN, a program that is
   available on the Internet which looks for security "holes".

   Our current Unix hosts are configured as follows:

   * Sun Sparc 5 - 32Mb RAM, 1.05Gb internal HD; 2Gb external HD
   * DEC Ultrix  - 24Mb RAM, 300Mb internal HD; 1 Gb external HD (5 years old)
   * Exabyte external tape drive is *not* functioning at this time.


   It was agreed that we should purchase and configure a second Sun Sparc 5 to
   be identical to our current Sun Sparc 5.  There was some discussion about
   whether to invest in faster processing speed, but Russ pointed out that was
   not necessary as long as there was sufficient memory.

   Dave will prepare a purchase requisition to purchase a Sun Sparc 5 with 32Mb
   RAM, 1 Gb of HD storage and cables for a serial interface to a VT terminal.


4. Security.  Russ feels confident (others concurred) that we face no real
   security problems with our TCP/IP network.  Bill and Erik pointed out that
   we should update SENDMAIL to the latest patch version to avoid any security
   problems that would be pointed out by SATAN.

   We will used "shadowed" passwords when we establish interactive Unix 
   accounts for students on the Ultrix this fall.