Service Desk Knowledgebase: Mifare (University) Cards

This is the Mifare (University) Cards 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

• Access and security
• The University Card
• UIS News - All current articles

William Gates Building Floor Plans (inc. Room Codes):

• Ground floor (G)
• First floor (F)
• Second floor (S)
• Find a room

CL Customer Documentation

• None

Further CL Sys-Admin Documentation

• http://www.wiki.cl.cam.ac.uk/rowiki/SysInfo/HelpDesk/Mifare - Mifare
• http://www.wiki.cl.cam.ac.uk/rowiki/SysInfo/HelpDesk/Services - Verex info
• http://www.wiki.cl.cam.ac.uk/clwiki/SysInfo/PhysicalSecurity - Verex system info

Underpinning Services

• This service relies on two services, Verex and the database server. Updates fail if either is not running.

Customer-base for this Service

• All current staff and students of the collegiate University.
• Access to the CL limited to current staff and students of the Computer Laboratory and bona fide visitors.

Costs

• Free to all current staff and students of the collegiate University

SLA

• N/A

Service Desk Call Handling Procedure

• RT tickets can be escalated by setting the Status to new & Owner to Nobody and leave in sys-admin queue (if urgent bring to attention of one of the named experts below). Tell the requestor:
  I am passing this request over to an expert who, I'm sure, will be in contact shortly.

Contacts

Primary

• Leave in sys-admin queue (bring to attention of CL staff below if urgent).

Other

• Martyn Johnson
• Graham Titmus

Availability

• Monday:
• Tuesday:
• Wednesday:
• Thursday:
• Friday:
• Saturday: Closed
• Sunday: Closed

Hints, Tips & Known Issues

Mifare cards required for visitors

Go to the Visitors page and look for the entry. If the person is a employee then they will have had a card ordered. Visitors of short duration may not have. Check with reception to see if one is expected.

If a card is in the pipeline then make ticket resolved. Otherwise leave ticket in queue to be processed by someone with a mifare reader.

Verex not working

Keywords: Verex connect access control cyclic ID

Users report unable to connect to Verex server form clients. The usual reason for this is that the service running on 'verex01.ad.cl.cam.ac.uk' has lost contact with the database and fails to reestablish it.

• Login to verex01 using a sysadmin userid specifying the domain, open Start/Administrative Tools/Services, find the service called "Guardall Director Server" and restart it (right click on the row and select restart).
• If you have a Guardall Director login, login and test it. Otherwise, ask the user to try again.
• If that is insufficient (rare) restart the service "Guardall Director Communication" in "Services" as well (e.g. go to the taskbar at the BRHC, show hidden, right click on "Communications stopped" (or whatever state it reports), Stop it if it's running, and then Start it.)
• If that fails to cure the problem (very rare) then the whole server should be rebooted.

Verex ERMUserImport processing appears stalled

Keywords: Verex database automatic updates

If this message appears restart the two Verex services as above. If database connectivity is lost this can happen. If users (check with Building Services) can access Verex OKFootNote(RDP to verex01, login as *admin, start "Guardall Director" and login) then report the problem to Martyn or Graham rather than reboot.

Card not recognised

Keywords: new card not working crsid

cards are sometimes issued without the crsid being added to the data feed. To check this lookup the card. If it appears then the crsid is mapped. If not then a mapping can be added from the cardid to crsid.

Access requests for additional physical access (existing CL user)

Keywords: Verex Card Access

Most people's physical access rights are determined by their status in the database, but occasionally there are requests for extra areas to be added. This is done by augmenting the automatically generated capabilities with additional ones picked from a list. A capability may confer access to more than one physical area, and its name may also imply why the access has been granted.

First of all, check that the request is authorised. Common sense needs to be applied here, but typically we could expect authorisation to come from:

Resource	Owner
Cycle store	Dept Secretary or Building Manager
SE18	PI on an appropriate research project
FN11	PI in the SRG
Library	The librarian
Usability Lab	Alan Blackwell
Bin store	Building Manager
Car Park	not done this way except in emergency - get a badge number added to the database instead
Offices Undergrad	Student Administration

Go to the physical security section of the SCG pages and use "Card lookup" to find the card.

Check the "mode". If it is reported as "Auto", click the "Augmented mode" button. The mode should now be either "Manual" or "Augmented".

Do not edit the main part of the record on the left, but look at the central section. This is where additional capabilities are added. It is possible that there will be some in the list already, but in most cases the list will be empty and you will see a pull-down menu and an "Add capability" button.

Select the capability you want from the pull down list. The entries do not correspond directly with physical areas, but attempt to express the logical function being offered. Try to find the most specific match rather than the first that matches. For example, an undergraduate needing access to the library is given "`UndergradLibrary`", rather than "`Library`". Having chosen the right capability, click "Add capability".

The newly added capability should now appear in the list and will be active, but it lacks an explanatory comment. Click "Edit" in the newly added row and fill in the free-format text field. At the very least the ticket number should be entered for future reference. If this is an email form studentadmin to add a Part II student then record the reason, the sponsor and the requestor as the comment.

To check that it all worked, wait 10-15 minutes and revisit the card. The area list on the right should be updated with the new list of areas and it should still say "Card valid in Verex" in green. If not, Verex updates may be stuck, or (rarely) you may have requested a combination of areas which is not currently available as a programmed authority.

To check for the rare case, go to the anomalies page. If you see "New authorities are required" at the top, then expert attention is required before the change can take effect.

Access requests for Photonics

Keywords: Verex Photonics Card Access

Requests for access to the building for people from Photonics will normally come from Adrian Wonfor, aw300. His instructions for additions, removals and amendments should be followed. For each person he should give CRSid, name for verification, and the desired expiry date.

Go to the physical security section of the SCG pages and use "Card lookup" to find the card.

For an amendment such as an expiry date change, simply edit the record.

For a removal, use the "Remove" button.

For an addition, check that the name matches and choose "Manually Manage". Fill in the capability as "Photonics" and the expiry date one day after the date given (expiry occurs at midnight at the beginning of the date entered). Put a reference to the RT ticket in the comment field and save the record.

If you did any removals, go to the card anomalies page and confirm that the removal is actually to be done (there may be others waiting, which should be done unless there are so many that it looks like something bad may have happened, in which case seek expert assistance).

To check that it all worked, wait 10-15 minutes and revisit the card. The coloured message reflects the actual state in the access control system and should normally be green "Card valid in Verex" for a card that has been added or red "Card not in system" for one that has been removed. If the wrong state persists, check the anomalies page for "Clear errors in processing". If all is clear there, Verex may need restarting (as above). If none of this works, expert attention will be required.

Note that "{{{cardID}}}" in this case is used only for local cards, so if the user has a University card, it will be blank - this is not a problem.

Categorising Keywords

• Mifare number University white card visitor access