Service Desk Knowledgebase: Resources
This is the Resources content page of the CL Wiki Service Desk Knowledgebase. Its purpose is to provide information to the Service Desk team on how to handle problems and requests about this CL service. If you are involved with the provision of this CL service please feel free to add to the knowledge about that it.
If CL staff need to tell the Service Desk team about problems with this service please email
sys-admin-aside@cl.cam.ac.uk.
Return to the Service Desk Knowledgebase SERVICE PORTFOLIO
Key Service Description & URLs
- Information for new arrivals
- An Introduction to the Computing Facilities at the Computer Laboratory
- Computer Laboratory News (Twitter use @UC_CL_SysAdm)
William Gates Building Floor Plans (inc. Room Codes):
- Ground floor (G)
- First floor (F)
- Second floor (S)
- Find a room
CL Customer Documentation
- Personal web pages - (http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~CRSid/ on "elmer" in /home/CRSid/public_html/index.html)
Further CL Sys-Admin Resources
- http://www.wiki.cl.cam.ac.uk/clwiki/SysInfo/HelpDesk/Resources - Arrivals/Upgrades/Replacement/Disk
- http://www.wiki.cl.cam.ac.uk/clwiki/SysInfo/MachineSetup - Full Machine Setup (for reference)
- https://dbwebserver.ad.cl.cam.ac.uk/SCG/Equipment/Inventory.aspx - Inventory
[NOTE: The Personresponsible is actually the one who is financially responsible.]
People
- http://www.lookup.cam.ac.uk/
- http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~CRSid
- Staff and Fellows
- Students and Assistants
- Recent Alumni (3 years)
- Visitors (Admin Database)
- Staff List (Admin Database)
- Jackdaw
Equipment storage
All the monitors on the bottom shelf of the racking on the West wall of room GC20 are available.
Underpinning Services
- Computer Lab Administration Database, Mail Server, Networking & RT
Customer-base for this Service
- All staff and students of the Computer Laboratory
Costs
- Visitors, Interns & RAs equipment should be funded by the Sponsor for anything substantial but short term loans are possible
- RARS (Research Assistants registered for a PhD) should be treated as RAs but some funding bodies do not permit this (in which case Lab funding is used)
- Staff equipment for new arrivals is funded by the department
SLA
- N/A
Service Desk Call Handling Procedure
- RT tickets can be escalated by changing the Queue to backoffice with the Owner set to Nobody and the Status as new. Tell the requestor:
I am passing this request over to the experts who, I'm sure, will be in contact shortly.
Delaying RT Tickets
- To delay a ticket for automatic re-activation on a given date set the Status to Stalled then use Dates to set a Due: date and [Save Changes].
New arrivals
Processing of new arrivals by administrative staff automatically generate an RT ticket with the following format:
CRSid has a HR Role starting ??/??/2015 requiring equipment v#VisitorID visitor name
when they are added to the database.
- Copy the RT ticket number (without the #)
- Click on the URL in ticket like: https://dbwebserver.ad.cl.cam.ac.uk/Administration/Visitors/VisitorDetails.aspx?ID=999
- Enter your CRSid & Computer Lab password if requested
- Click the [Edit] button at the bottom left of the form
- Paste in the RT_Ticket & click [Update]
- If room information is available [Edit] Allocated_Office & [Update]
- Copy notes for any specific instructions to paste into the RT ticket
- Return to RT
- Click Comment and paste specific equipment requests into the RT ticket
- What happens next depends on what's been requested and who has the equipment:
- If there are no specific equipment requests Reply to the RT ticket requestor asking:
- If there are no specific equipment requests Reply to the RT ticket requestor asking:
What do you intend to provide for the person please? In RT set the Owner as Nobody & Status as Stalled (with a suitable Due date) & leave the Queue as Sys-Admin and then [Edit] the inventory database Equipment_state with Asking and [Update]
- If a computer has been requested or allocated to the person and is not allocated to anyone or their end date has passed then the new person should be made the "assigned user" (i.e. User in the inventory, the person who has 'cl-asuser' and 'sudo' privileges to do things such as install software on a managed Linux PC, & have access to the machines BMC if it has one).
- If a computer has been requested or allocated to the person but is already allocated to someone else who is still here, Reply to the RT ticket requestor asking if the new person should be made the "assigned user" of the computer (i.e. User in the inventory, the person who has 'cl-asuser' and 'sudo' privileges to do things such as install software on a managed Linux PC, & have access to the machines BMC if it has one). In RT set the Owner as Nobody & Status as Stalled (with a suitable Due date) & leave the Queue as Sys-Admin.
- If access to servers is required Reply and CC the Sponsor/Personresponsible for each server as they need to formally agree to that access in order to meet the Cam AUP (even though almost all machines are accessible by anyone in the Computer Lab by default). In RT set the Owner as Nobody & Status as Stalled (with a suitable Due date) & leave the Queue as Sys-Admin.
- Finally when all the required information has been gather escalate the RT ticket by leaving on the backoffice queue with Status as new and Owner as Nobody
Creating accounts for people arriving
Requests for machine moves
The move process involves:
- Reception allocate people to a free desk in a room using OpenRoomMap (ORM).
- When people are physically moved into a room, whoever moves them (e.g. the operators) checks that the OpenRoomMap (ORM) information is correct, reporting any erros to Reception, then moves them and when the move is complete updates the Staff List.
- Users can update their details within a room (e.g. if they move tables etc).
Requests for machine moves are raised by Reception after they allocate a new office.
- Take the RT ticket and check the equipment the person has in the equipment Inventory.
- Check what phone may need moving in the VOIPList.
- If there is some equipment to move then list it and pass the ticket over to the operators.
- Set the Queue to oper, the Owner to Nobody and with Status as new.
After the operators have moved the machine they should provide back details of which port the machine is now plugged into on the ticket.
1. Take the RT ticket and then update the inventory with the new machine's location.
2. Check that the information in the Staff List and the OpenRoomMap (ORM) is correct.
3. Using Updating VLANs in the Cisco switches note the VLAN of the old switch port and then set the old switch port where the machine was to no longer be on the VLAN it was with no switch port access vlan vlan# then set the new switch port to access the VLAN that was removed.
4. Check you can access the machine remotely
5. To check the "assigned user" on Linux desktop machines: On svr-ssh-1 or sandy run ssh -K $host ls -l /etc/user-config/bundles
-rw-rw-r-- 1 qg216 sysadmin 3565 Nov 3 20:06 /etc/user-config/bundles
to check the user can install software as the "assigned user" (i.e. sysadmin). If not see Adding privileged or 'assigned' users
6. To check the "assigned user" access to BMC on Linux desktop machines: On svr-ssh-1 or sandy run cl-amttool $host user list
kikyo-bmc Registered 3 AMT user accounts: $$uns 1 realm LocalAccessPermission Enabled <system account> $$OsAdmin 6 realms LocalAccessPermission Enabled <system account> qg216 21 realms AnyAccessPermission Enabled
to check that the user has AnyAccessPermission Enabled. If not see (4.7) BMC ACL - when up if present.
User Can't Installed Software under Linux
See Adding privileged or 'assigned' users
Machine Hardware Problems
Graham Titmus (22 Apr '15)
Machines with noise issues etc.:
Change the RT ticket queue to hw-admin with status New AND email a comment Nick Baterham (nb@cl.cam.ac.uk) to alert him.
Operating System Upgrades
- See http://www.wiki.cl.cam.ac.uk/clwiki/SysInfo/HelpDesk/Resources - Arrivals/Upgrades/Replacement/Disk
and
Duel boot requests
Piete Brooks (06 May '15)
Duel booting is discouraged in favour of running virtual machines instead. The options are either Computer Lab Windows + virtual Linux, or Computer Lab Linux + virtual Windows See http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/local/sys/platforms/#dualboot
Contacts
Primary
- sys-admin@cl.cam.ac.uk (Goes to RT sys-admin queue)
- sys-admin-comment@cl.cam.ac.uk (Goes to CL back-office staff)
- reception@cl.cam.ac.uk (For queries about the status of someone due to arrive)
Availability
- Monday:
- Tuesday:
- Wednesday:
- Thursday:
- Friday:
- Saturday: Closed
- Sunday: Closed
Hints, Tips & Known Issues
Typical "Standard Lab PC" (Linux & Windows) Spec.
Typical Standard Computer Lab PC Spec. Dated 15/04/15: Qty Item Price Total Description 1 Med-ATXB £66 £66 Med Tower ATX Case High Efficiency 80Plus 350W PSU 1 SH-W163A-BL £18 £18 Samsung Internal 22xDVD-RW SATA Black 1 Q87M-E £98 £98 ASUS 1150 Q87M-E Executive Series /SI M-ATX Haswell 1 SV300S37A/240G £70 £70 Kingston V300 - 240GB - Read 450MB/s - Write 450MB/s - 533 DW 1 i5-4670 £169 £169 Intel Haswell Core i5-4670 3.4-3.8 GHz 4 Cores, 84W, HD Graphics 4600 2 KVR16N11/8 £53 £106 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL11 DIMM 2 25SATSAS35 £11 £22 StarTech.com 2.5 inch SATA/SAS SSD/HDD to 3.5 inch SATA Hard Drive Converter 2 HSB100SATBK £14 £28 StarTech.com 5.25 inch Tray-Less Hot Swap Mobile Rack for 3.5 inch Hard Drive 1 USB2.0Header £3 £3 USB 2.0 Header plate 1 Header £5 £5 Serial Header plate 1 USB3.0Header £9 £9 USB 3.0 Header plate 1 K/B-Mouse-Bl £17 £17 Microsoft USB Wired Desktop 600 Keyboard+Mouse Black Total: £611.00 Discount: £30.55 Total Ex-VAT: £580.45 VAT: £116.09 Total: £696.54 to which you need to add a screen - a 4K screen costs about £350 + VAT.
Categorising Keywords
- Resources PC machines new arrivals upgrades failures