From lucasm at ohio.edu  Sun Sep  7 16:18:17 2008
From: lucasm at ohio.edu (Mark Lucas)
Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2008 16:18:17 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] LON-Balancer
Message-ID: <1220818697.8014.25.camel@lucas.phy.ohiou.edu>

Hi,

Out of curiosity, how does LON-Balancer decide which way to send the
students?

I have 3 systems set up as primary in spares.tab. I'm finding that it is
only populating one of these machines right now. Does it keep sending
users to this machine until the load hits a certain point? Is there any
attempt to spread the students out between primary spare servers?

Thanks,
Mark

-- 
Mark Lucas                                      email: lucasm at ohiou.edu
252D Clippinger Lab                             phone: (740)597-2984
Department of Physics and Astronomy             fax:   (740)593-0433
Ohio University
Athens, OH 45701



From lucasm at ohio.edu  Thu Sep 11 08:56:34 2008
From: lucasm at ohio.edu (Mark Lucas)
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 08:56:34 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] Reloading spare.tab
Message-ID: <1221137794.25956.20.camel@lucas.phy.ohiou.edu>

Hi,

I'm playing around with my spare.tab for lonbalancer.

What's the least intrusive way of handling the reload?

Will /sbin/service loncontrol reload do this without interrupting
services?

Thanks,
Mark
-- 
Mark Lucas                                      email: lucasm at ohiou.edu
252D Clippinger Lab                             phone: (740)597-2984
Department of Physics and Astronomy             fax:   (740)593-0433
Ohio University
Athens, OH 45701



From raeburn at msu.edu  Thu Sep 11 09:34:15 2008
From: raeburn at msu.edu (Stuart Raeburn)
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 09:34:15 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] Reloading spare.tab
In-Reply-To: <1221137794.25956.20.camel@lucas.phy.ohiou.edu>
References: <1221137794.25956.20.camel@lucas.phy.ohiou.edu>
Message-ID: <20080911093415.47x2ossdcgw0kkws@loncapa.org>

Mark,

/etc/init.d/httpd reload is what I use.

Stuart Raeburn
MSU LON-CAPA group

Quoting Mark Lucas <lucasm at ohio.edu>:

> Hi,
>
> I'm playing around with my spare.tab for lonbalancer.
>
> What's the least intrusive way of handling the reload?
>
> Will /sbin/service loncontrol reload do this without interrupting
> services?
>
> Thanks,
> Mark
> --
> Mark Lucas                                      email: lucasm at ohiou.edu
> 252D Clippinger Lab                             phone: (740)597-2984
> Department of Physics and Astronomy             fax:   (740)593-0433
> Ohio University
> Athens, OH 45701
>
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin
>




From lucasm at ohio.edu  Thu Sep 11 09:47:31 2008
From: lucasm at ohio.edu (Mark Lucas)
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 09:47:31 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] Reloading spare.tab
In-Reply-To: <20080911093415.47x2ossdcgw0kkws@loncapa.org>
References: <1221137794.25956.20.camel@lucas.phy.ohiou.edu>
	 <20080911093415.47x2ossdcgw0kkws@loncapa.org>
Message-ID: <1221140851.27381.15.camel@lucas.phy.ohiou.edu>

Stuart,

Does that really reload the spare table into the appropriate places? If
so, great!

Mark
On Thu, 2008-09-11 at 09:34 -0400, Stuart Raeburn wrote:
> Mark,
> 
> /etc/init.d/httpd reload is what I use.
> 
> Stuart Raeburn
> MSU LON-CAPA group
> 
> Quoting Mark Lucas <lucasm at ohio.edu>:
> 
> > Hi,
> >
> > I'm playing around with my spare.tab for lonbalancer.
> >
> > What's the least intrusive way of handling the reload?
> >
> > Will /sbin/service loncontrol reload do this without interrupting
> > services?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Mark
> > --
> > Mark Lucas                                      email: lucasm at ohiou.edu
> > 252D Clippinger Lab                             phone: (740)597-2984
> > Department of Physics and Astronomy             fax:   (740)593-0433
> > Ohio University
> > Athens, OH 45701
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> > LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> > http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin
> >
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin



From teharvey at vcu.edu  Thu Sep 11 13:46:02 2008
From: teharvey at vcu.edu (Eric Harvey/FS/VCU)
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:46:02 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] First and Last name removed from user during auto-enrollment?
Message-ID: <OFD3EC1A00.ECE004F5-ON852574C1.00609528-852574C1.00619547@vcu.edu>

Hello,

We have 3 instances in a particular course (I believe during 
auto-enrollment) where the user's First Name and Last Name data is 
replaced with a null value.
If I check the user's envionment.hist, I can see where these fields were 
once populated with the correct names, then recently blanked out.
The classlists created from our SIS/Banner feed DO contain the names.
Any advice on what I should check next?

Also, I have limited knowledge in reading the history files. What do the 
colon delimited codes mean before the "readable" data?

Thanks,

Eric Harvey
VCU Learning Systems
(804)828-8595
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From hkng at fsu.edu  Thu Sep 11 14:33:03 2008
From: hkng at fsu.edu (H.K. Ng)
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:33:03 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] First and Last name removed from user
  during auto-enrollment?
In-Reply-To: <OFD3EC1A00.ECE004F5-ON852574C1.00609528-852574C1.00619547@
 vcu.edu>
References: <OFD3EC1A00.ECE004F5-ON852574C1.00609528-852574C1.00619547@vcu.edu>
Message-ID: <7.0.0.16.2.20080911140957.02452d50@fsu.edu>

Not sure if this is related, but I once had a whole class enrollment 
dropped. It turns out that if the updating of the class roster 
coincides with the central database update (the database where I get 
the roster is a copy of the registrar's database) - weird things have 
happened, like the whole class being dropped.  -hk


At 01:46 PM 9/11/2008, you wrote:

>Hello,
>
>We have 3 instances in a particular course (I believe during 
>auto-enrollment) where the user's First Name and Last Name data is 
>replaced with a null value.
>If I check the user's envionment.hist, I can see where these fields 
>were once populated with the correct names, then recently blanked out.
>The classlists created from our SIS/Banner feed DO contain the names.
>Any advice on what I should check next?
>
>Also, I have limited knowledge in reading the history files. What do 
>the colon delimited codes mean before the "readable" data?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Eric Harvey
>VCU Learning Systems
>(804)828-8595
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From raeburn at msu.edu  Thu Sep 11 21:34:31 2008
From: raeburn at msu.edu (Stuart Raeburn)
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:34:31 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] Reloading spare.tab
In-Reply-To: <1221140851.27381.15.camel@lucas.phy.ohiou.edu>
References: <1221137794.25956.20.camel@lucas.phy.ohiou.edu>
	<20080911093415.47x2ossdcgw0kkws@loncapa.org>
	<1221140851.27381.15.camel@lucas.phy.ohiou.edu>
Message-ID: <20080911213431.2af0er3hicw0osw0@loncapa.org>

Mark,

Yes it does.

spare.tab is read within the BEGIN block in lonnet.pm which results in  
population of the %spareid hash (a global).

lonnet::spareserver() is the routine which makes use of %spareid to  
determine which servers to try.  It tries any servers designated as  
"primary" first, and identifies the one with the lowest load.  This is  
the server it will return unless the lowest load is 100 or more, in  
which case it will try the servers designated as "default", and  
identify the server with the lowest load from that group.  That is the  
server it will return unless the lowest load in the "default" group is  
higher than the lowest load in the "primary" group.

lonnet:;spareserver() is called by lonlogin.pm -- to allow an  
overloaded server to send users hoping to log-in to LON-CAPA via that  
particular server to another  machine to host the user sessions), and  
also by switchserver.pm -- to load balance after successful  
authentication when:

PerlSetVar lonBalancer yes

appears in the Apache config files for the server.

As these operations rely on the contents of the global %spareid hash  
for the particular Apache child, /etc/init.d/httpd reload is  
sufficient as that reloads all of the Apache children.

Stuart Raeburn
MSU LON-CAPA group

Quoting Mark Lucas <lucasm at ohio.edu>:

> Stuart,
>
> Does that really reload the spare table into the appropriate places? If
> so, great!
>
> Mark
> On Thu, 2008-09-11 at 09:34 -0400, Stuart Raeburn wrote:
>> Mark,
>>
>> /etc/init.d/httpd reload is what I use.
>>
>> Stuart Raeburn
>> MSU LON-CAPA group
>>
>> Quoting Mark Lucas <lucasm at ohio.edu>:
>>
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > I'm playing around with my spare.tab for lonbalancer.
>> >
>> > What's the least intrusive way of handling the reload?
>> >
>> > Will /sbin/service loncontrol reload do this without interrupting
>> > services?
>> >
>> > Thanks,
>> > Mark
>> > --
>> > Mark Lucas                                      email: lucasm at ohiou.edu
>> > 252D Clippinger Lab                             phone: (740)597-2984
>> > Department of Physics and Astronomy             fax:   (740)593-0433
>> > Ohio University
>> > Athens, OH 45701
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
>> > LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
>> > http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin
>> >
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
>> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
>> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin
>
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin
>




From lucasm at ohio.edu  Thu Sep 11 21:45:34 2008
From: lucasm at ohio.edu (Mark Lucas)
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:45:34 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] Reloading spare.tab
In-Reply-To: <20080911213431.2af0er3hicw0osw0@loncapa.org>
References: <1221137794.25956.20.camel@lucas.phy.ohiou.edu>
	 <20080911093415.47x2ossdcgw0kkws@loncapa.org>
	 <1221140851.27381.15.camel@lucas.phy.ohiou.edu>
	 <20080911213431.2af0er3hicw0osw0@loncapa.org>
Message-ID: <1221183934.5360.5.camel@lucas.phy.ohiou.edu>

Great! Thanks!

Mark

On Thu, 2008-09-11 at 21:34 -0400, Stuart Raeburn wrote:
> Mark,
> 
> Yes it does.
> 
> spare.tab is read within the BEGIN block in lonnet.pm which results in  
> population of the %spareid hash (a global).
> 
> lonnet::spareserver() is the routine which makes use of %spareid to  
> determine which servers to try.  It tries any servers designated as  
> "primary" first, and identifies the one with the lowest load.  This is  
> the server it will return unless the lowest load is 100 or more, in  
> which case it will try the servers designated as "default", and  
> identify the server with the lowest load from that group.  That is the  
> server it will return unless the lowest load in the "default" group is  
> higher than the lowest load in the "primary" group.
> 
> lonnet:;spareserver() is called by lonlogin.pm -- to allow an  
> overloaded server to send users hoping to log-in to LON-CAPA via that  
> particular server to another  machine to host the user sessions), and  
> also by switchserver.pm -- to load balance after successful  
> authentication when:
> 
> PerlSetVar lonBalancer yes
> 
> appears in the Apache config files for the server.
> 
> As these operations rely on the contents of the global %spareid hash  
> for the particular Apache child, /etc/init.d/httpd reload is  
> sufficient as that reloads all of the Apache children.
> 
> Stuart Raeburn
> MSU LON-CAPA group
> 
> Quoting Mark Lucas <lucasm at ohio.edu>:
> 
> > Stuart,
> >
> > Does that really reload the spare table into the appropriate places? If
> > so, great!
> >
> > Mark
> > On Thu, 2008-09-11 at 09:34 -0400, Stuart Raeburn wrote:
> >> Mark,
> >>
> >> /etc/init.d/httpd reload is what I use.
> >>
> >> Stuart Raeburn
> >> MSU LON-CAPA group
> >>
> >> Quoting Mark Lucas <lucasm at ohio.edu>:
> >>
> >> > Hi,
> >> >
> >> > I'm playing around with my spare.tab for lonbalancer.
> >> >
> >> > What's the least intrusive way of handling the reload?
> >> >
> >> > Will /sbin/service loncontrol reload do this without interrupting
> >> > services?
> >> >
> >> > Thanks,
> >> > Mark
> >> > --
> >> > Mark Lucas                                      email: lucasm at ohiou.edu
> >> > 252D Clippinger Lab                             phone: (740)597-2984
> >> > Department of Physics and Astronomy             fax:   (740)593-0433
> >> > Ohio University
> >> > Athens, OH 45701
> >> >
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> >> > LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> >> > http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> >> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> >> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> > LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> > http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin
> >
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin



From batchelo at sfu.ca  Wed Sep 17 13:18:00 2008
From: batchelo at sfu.ca (Ray Batchelor)
Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:18:00 -0700
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] lonmaxima??
Message-ID: <f57ef3410809171018x2b8a9b7end676c8de916c0e05@mail.gmail.com>

Anyone else seeing looped lonmaxima processes on their library server?
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From truskell at mines.edu  Thu Sep 18 12:59:51 2008
From: truskell at mines.edu (Todd Ruskell)
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 10:59:51 -0600
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] filesystem permissions question
Message-ID: <48D28907.9060509@Mines.EDU>

Hi,

I just did a library server migration from Suse 9.3/LON-CAPA 2.6.3 to
CentOS 5/LON-CAPA 2.7.  On the old server, we had a "dummy" user which
contained a library of problems, and there was an actual username with a
local login account on that server.

I decided that the local login account was no longer needed on the new
server, so didn't create it.  So when I copied files over via rsync,
that directory tree is now owned by UID 2136, but that UID is no longer
attached to a specific user.

Now, when I log into LON-CAPA on the new system as either author or
co-author, I could not enter construction space, due to a lack of
permissions.  This actually happens even for users who have local
accounts on the new system:

"Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /~username/ on this server."

Further investigation revealed that a directory listing of the home
directory on the filesystem of the new server reveals the following:

# ls -al
total 40
drwx--x---  3 2136 2136 4096 Jul 20  2003 .
drwxr-xr-x 54 root root 4096 Aug 15 11:19 ..
-rw-------  1 2136 2136  123 Jul 20  2003 .bash_history
-rw-r--r--  1 2136 2136   24 Jul 20  2003 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r--  1 2136 2136  191 Jul 20  2003 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r--  1 2136 2136  124 Jul 20  2003 .bashrc
-rw-r--r--  1 2136 2136  854 Jul 20  2003 .emacs
-rw-r--r--  1 2136 2136  118 Jul 20  2003 .gtkrc
drwxrwsr-x 35 www  www  4096 Jan 23  2008 public_html

Note that the home directory is *not* executable by all.  Doing a chmod
a+x to the home directory seems to fix all access problems.  At one
level this makes sense to me, but is it something I should be doing?  Or
does access need to be granted in some other way?

Thanks,

Todd

-- 
Dr. Todd Ruskell
Senior Lecturer, Department of Physics       Office:  Meyer Hall 326
Colorado School of Mines                     Phone: 303-384-2080
1523 Illinois Street                         Fax: 303-273-3919
Golden, CO 80401


From knab2ar at jmu.edu  Thu Sep 18 13:42:50 2008
From: knab2ar at jmu.edu (Andreas Knab)
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:42:50 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] Error message when accessing a course
Message-ID: <b8cf37a60809181042m52bbbe47x6f8a55f32cca8d2c@mail.gmail.com>

Hello!

we are having a problem with one of the LON-CAPA courses here at JMU.
One of the professors can get into all but one of his courses as
Course Coordinator, on that particular course he gets this error:

"Not Acceptable

An appropriate representation of the requested resource /adm/navmaps
could not be found on this server.

Additionally, a 406 Not Acceptable error was encountered while trying
to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache/2.2.8 (Fedora) Server at lc.cit.jmu.edu Port 443"

I googled the error message but only found references to the Apache
mod_security module, which does not seem to be installed on our server
(unless I'm looking in the wrong place).

As domain coordinator I can select his course and get in fine.

Has anyone seen this problem before? Any ideas on how to fix it?

Thank you,

Andreas


From lucasm at ohio.edu  Thu Sep 18 14:12:55 2008
From: lucasm at ohio.edu (Mark Lucas)
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:12:55 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] Error message when accessing a course
In-Reply-To: <b8cf37a60809181042m52bbbe47x6f8a55f32cca8d2c@mail.gmail.com>
References: <b8cf37a60809181042m52bbbe47x6f8a55f32cca8d2c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1221761575.29217.2.camel@lucas.phy.ohiou.edu>

Andreas,

I've never quite had that happen before, but let me ask a couple quick
questions -

Was the course cloned from another course?

If it was not cloned, was the first resource listed as blank, navmaps,
or the syllabus?

If there is no content in the course, does adding a simple page or
uploading something to add dummy content help?

Mark

On Thu, 2008-09-18 at 13:42 -0400, Andreas Knab wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> we are having a problem with one of the LON-CAPA courses here at JMU.
> One of the professors can get into all but one of his courses as
> Course Coordinator, on that particular course he gets this error:
> 
> "Not Acceptable
> 
> An appropriate representation of the requested resource /adm/navmaps
> could not be found on this server.
> 
> Additionally, a 406 Not Acceptable error was encountered while trying
> to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
> Apache/2.2.8 (Fedora) Server at lc.cit.jmu.edu Port 443"
> 
> I googled the error message but only found references to the Apache
> mod_security module, which does not seem to be installed on our server
> (unless I'm looking in the wrong place).
> 
> As domain coordinator I can select his course and get in fine.
> 
> Has anyone seen this problem before? Any ideas on how to fix it?
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Andreas
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin



From knab2ar at jmu.edu  Thu Sep 18 15:05:53 2008
From: knab2ar at jmu.edu (Andreas Knab)
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:05:53 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] Error message when accessing a course
In-Reply-To: <1221761575.29217.2.camel@lucas.phy.ohiou.edu>
References: <b8cf37a60809181042m52bbbe47x6f8a55f32cca8d2c@mail.gmail.com>
	 <1221761575.29217.2.camel@lucas.phy.ohiou.edu>
Message-ID: <b8cf37a60809181205t29fc6f87x520ed6707ce71e2a@mail.gmail.com>

Mark -

Resetting the first resource seems to have fixed the problem.

Thank you,

Andreas


On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 2:12 PM, Mark Lucas <lucasm at ohio.edu> wrote:
> Andreas,
>
> I've never quite had that happen before, but let me ask a couple quick
> questions -
>
> Was the course cloned from another course?
>
> If it was not cloned, was the first resource listed as blank, navmaps,
> or the syllabus?
>
> If there is no content in the course, does adding a simple page or
> uploading something to add dummy content help?
>
> Mark
>
> On Thu, 2008-09-18 at 13:42 -0400, Andreas Knab wrote:
>> Hello!
>>
>> we are having a problem with one of the LON-CAPA courses here at JMU.
>> One of the professors can get into all but one of his courses as
>> Course Coordinator, on that particular course he gets this error:
>>
>> "Not Acceptable
>>
>> An appropriate representation of the requested resource /adm/navmaps
>> could not be found on this server.
>>
>> Additionally, a 406 Not Acceptable error was encountered while trying
>> to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
>> Apache/2.2.8 (Fedora) Server at lc.cit.jmu.edu Port 443"
>>
>> I googled the error message but only found references to the Apache
>> mod_security module, which does not seem to be installed on our server
>> (unless I'm looking in the wrong place).
>>
>> As domain coordinator I can select his course and get in fine.
>>
>> Has anyone seen this problem before? Any ideas on how to fix it?
>>
>> Thank you,
>>
>> Andreas
>> _______________________________________________
>> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
>> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
>> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin
>
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin
>


From raeburn at msu.edu  Fri Sep 19 10:39:28 2008
From: raeburn at msu.edu (Stuart Raeburn)
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2008 10:39:28 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] lonmaxima??
In-Reply-To: <f57ef3410809171018x2b8a9b7end676c8de916c0e05@mail.gmail.com>
References: <f57ef3410809171018x2b8a9b7end676c8de916c0e05@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20080919103928.uywr5q1uswowcww0@loncapa.org>

Yes.
This week one of the MSU access servers was running a lonmaxima child  
which had been processing a request for an excessively long time.  I  
killed the process and the lonmaxima parent process started a new  
child, as expected.  I'm investigating what caused the lonmaxima child  
to get into a "looped" state.

Stuart Raeburn
MSU LON-CAPA group

Quoting Ray Batchelor <batchelo at sfu.ca>:

> Anyone else seeing looped lonmaxima processes on their library server?
>



From p.riegler at fh-wolfenbuettel.de  Fri Sep 19 12:44:39 2008
From: p.riegler at fh-wolfenbuettel.de (Peter Riegler)
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:44:39 +0200
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] lonmaxima??
In-Reply-To: <20080919103928.uywr5q1uswowcww0@loncapa.org>
References: <f57ef3410809171018x2b8a9b7end676c8de916c0e05@mail.gmail.com>
 <20080919103928.uywr5q1uswowcww0@loncapa.org>
Message-ID: <48D3D6F7.7010502@fh-wolfenbuettel.de>

Was the job on the MSU machine accompanied by a bomb to a problem using 
maxima?

Peter

Stuart Raeburn wrote:

> Yes.
> This week one of the MSU access servers was running a lonmaxima child  
> which had been processing a request for an excessively long time.  I  
> killed the process and the lonmaxima parent process started a new  
> child, as expected.  I'm investigating what caused the lonmaxima child  
> to get into a "looped" state.
> 
> Stuart Raeburn
> MSU LON-CAPA group
> 
> Quoting Ray Batchelor <batchelo at sfu.ca>:
> 
>> Anyone else seeing looped lonmaxima processes on their library server?
>>
> 
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin

-- 
Peter Riegler
Fachhochschule Braunschweig/Wolfenb?ttel
Salzdahlumer Str. 46/48, 38302 Wolfenb?ttel
Tel. +49 5331 939 6314, Fax. +49 5331 939 6002
email: p.riegler at fh-wolfenbuettel.de
http://public.rz.fh-wolfenbuettel.de/~riegler


From rgonzal at binghamton.edu  Sat Sep 20 14:55:27 2008
From: rgonzal at binghamton.edu (Bob Gonzales)
Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2008 14:55:27 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] lonLoadLim value
Message-ID: <007f01c91b52$72351740$569f45c0$@edu>

How do I determine a good value for lonLoadLim?  It's
at the default 2 right now.  I've got a quad-core
xeon at 1.8Ghz and 8GB of ram.

Thanks,
Bob Gonzales
Binghamton University	
Chemistry Dept




From hkng at fsu.edu  Mon Sep 22 10:08:47 2008
From: hkng at fsu.edu (H.K. Ng)
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 10:08:47 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] Computer not Returning Feedback
In-Reply-To: <4926B50C.4090300@ohio.edu>
References: <f57ef3410809171018x2b8a9b7end676c8de916c0e05@mail.gmail.com>
 <20080919103928.uywr5q1uswowcww0@loncapa.org>
 <4926B50C.4090300@ohio.edu>
Message-ID: <7.0.0.16.2.20080922094535.0243fc18@fsu.edu>

Hi Mark,

Once in a while I hear from instructors saying that their students 
submitted something and got no response. Seems that when they try 
later it works, so my reaction is that it is some kind of network 
problem.  I haven't come across a case when the student says that it 
still doesn't work, after a while. This is for pre-2.7.0 version.

-hk



At 09:18 AM 11/21/2008, you wrote:
>Hi,
>
>We've had a rash of complaints that the computer is not accepting answers.
>
>I had a problem for which the second answer could be entered, but 
>when submit answer was hit, it wouldn't do anything.
>No incorrect box, no correct, no tries deducted. Nothing. This was 
>observed by two instructors and a student.

Just a thought, what are the id's of the two parts?





>I poked at the problem in construction space (where it worked), 
>tweaked a few things and republished. It then worked for me and the 
>other instructor, but the student still says it doesn't work.
>
>We've had another question (one from msuchemlib) that is 
>optionresponse. A couple students have had issues with it not accepting
>answers. It took the first answer, but then complains that the 
>answer is one of a previous try or doesn't provide any feedback.
>
>I also had a student who had issues with a feedback question. No response.
>
>(1) Have other people had issues like this? I'm using 2.7.0
>
>(2) Are there browser issues with new versions of IE, Vista, 
>Firefox? Does anyone know of a standard 'operator error' that could 
>cause this? (browser configuration, etc...)
>
>(3) Any bugs that have been fixed?
>
>Later,
>Mark
>_______________________________________________
>LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
>LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
>http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin



From lucasm at ohio.edu  Mon Sep 22 10:19:35 2008
From: lucasm at ohio.edu (Mark Lucas)
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 10:19:35 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] Computer not Returning Feedback
In-Reply-To: <7.0.0.16.2.20080922094535.0243fc18@fsu.edu>
References: <f57ef3410809171018x2b8a9b7end676c8de916c0e05@mail.gmail.com>
	 <20080919103928.uywr5q1uswowcww0@loncapa.org> <4926B50C.4090300@ohio.edu>
	 <7.0.0.16.2.20080922094535.0243fc18@fsu.edu>
Message-ID: <1222093175.19075.13.camel@lucas.phy.ohiou.edu>

On Mon, 2008-09-22 at 10:08 -0400, H.K. Ng wrote:

> Just a thought, what are the id's of the two parts?

14 and 16 were the part IDs

We're on 2.7.0.

It's one of these things that's happening just often enough that I'm
leery and would dearly love to know a mechanism by which this can
happen.

What has to happen on the network for this to happen? Essentially, it
seems like they are getting their original page reloaded. This could
also explain the case where a student was unable to change a trailing
answer in a problem (though this was supposedly replicated in front of
Chuck and an instructor).

How does LON-CAPA keep a browser from caching a page, and are there
situations in which a browser will cache it anyway?

Later,
Mark
-- 
Mark Lucas                                      email: lucasm at ohiou.edu
252D Clippinger Lab                             phone: (740)597-2984
Department of Physics and Astronomy             fax:   (740)593-0433
Ohio University
Athens, OH 45701



From st.bisitz at fh-wolfenbuettel.de  Mon Sep 22 10:46:15 2008
From: st.bisitz at fh-wolfenbuettel.de (Stefan Bisitz)
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:46:15 +0200
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] Computer not Returning Feedback
In-Reply-To: <0K7J00E5DOY2NE@mail.fh-wolfenbuettel.de>
References: <f57ef3410809171018x2b8a9b7end676c8de916c0e05@mail.gmail.com>
 <20080919103928.uywr5q1uswowcww0@loncapa.org>
 <0K7J00E5DOY2NE@mail.fh-wolfenbuettel.de>
Message-ID: <1222094775.18832.10.camel@localhost.localdomain>

Mark Lucas wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> We've had a rash of complaints that the computer is not accepting answers.
> 
> I had a problem for which the second answer could be entered, but when 
> submit answer was hit, it wouldn't do anything.
> No incorrect box, no correct, no tries deducted. Nothing. This was 
> observed by two instructors and a student.

Just out of curiosity:
Are you using
a) LON-CAPA style files (.sty)
or/and
b) CSS files (cascading style sheet)
in your course?

There might be a relation. I'm still working on a bug concerning this
kind of combination.

Stefan Bisitz



> I poked at the problem in construction space (where it worked), tweaked 
> a few things and republished. It then worked for me and the other 
> instructor, but the student still says it doesn't work.
> 
> We've had another question (one from msuchemlib) that is optionresponse. 
> A couple students have had issues with it not accepting
> answers. It took the first answer, but then complains that the answer is 
> one of a previous try or doesn't provide any feedback.
> 
> I also had a student who had issues with a feedback question. No response.
> 
> (1) Have other people had issues like this? I'm using 2.7.0
> 
> (2) Are there browser issues with new versions of IE, Vista, Firefox? 
> Does anyone know of a standard 'operator error' that could cause this? 
> (browser configuration, etc...)
> 
> (3) Any bugs that have been fixed?
> 
> Later,
> Mark
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin



From rgonzal at binghamton.edu  Mon Sep 22 11:05:43 2008
From: rgonzal at binghamton.edu (Bob Gonzales)
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 11:05:43 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] access server joining the cluster
Message-ID: <001801c91cc4$af75f200$0e61d600$@edu>

I've just brought up a new access server.  I
can view resourses in my own domain but not
resourses from other domains.  I'm guessing
that I have to either have the machine linked to the 
cluster by sending a note to lon-capa at lon-capa.org,
or I have to have my computer center allow access to 
the proper ports for the access server's IP address.

Any idea which one (or both) that I need to do?

Bob Gonzales
Binghamton University
Chemistry Dept





From raeburn at msu.edu  Mon Sep 22 11:25:37 2008
From: raeburn at msu.edu (Stuart Raeburn)
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 11:25:37 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] access server joining the cluster
In-Reply-To: <001801c91cc4$af75f200$0e61d600$@edu>
References: <001801c91cc4$af75f200$0e61d600$@edu>
Message-ID: <20080922112537.36697v4c6s8k0okw@loncapa.org>

Bob,

You'll certainly need to send information (hostname/IP and lonHostID)  
for your new access server to lon-capa at lon-capa.org so an entry can be  
added to the hosts tables maintained on the library servers run by the  
members of the LON-CAPA Academic Consortium.  Once the centrally  
maintained tables are updated you'll be able to view resources in  
other domains when logged into your new access server.

As regards ports ... inbound and outbound traffic to port 5663 needs  
to be permitted if your new server is to able to view resources in  
other domains, and if other servers in the cluster are to be able to  
run sessions for users from your domain in cases where your server is  
temporarily overloaded.

Stuart Raeburn
MSU LON-CAPA group

Quoting Bob Gonzales <rgonzal at binghamton.edu>:

> I've just brought up a new access server.  I
> can view resourses in my own domain but not
> resourses from other domains.  I'm guessing
> that I have to either have the machine linked to the
> cluster by sending a note to lon-capa at lon-capa.org,
> or I have to have my computer center allow access to
> the proper ports for the access server's IP address.
>
> Any idea which one (or both) that I need to do?
>
> Bob Gonzales
> Binghamton University
> Chemistry Dept
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin
>






From lucasm at ohio.edu  Mon Sep 22 11:49:21 2008
From: lucasm at ohio.edu (Mark Lucas)
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 11:49:21 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] Computer not Returning Feedback
In-Reply-To: <1222094775.18832.10.camel@localhost.localdomain>
References: <f57ef3410809171018x2b8a9b7end676c8de916c0e05@mail.gmail.com>
	 <20080919103928.uywr5q1uswowcww0@loncapa.org>
	 <0K7J00E5DOY2NE@mail.fh-wolfenbuettel.de>
	 <1222094775.18832.10.camel@localhost.localdomain>
Message-ID: <1222098561.21726.0.camel@lucas.phy.ohiou.edu>

Stefan,

I do use a very simple style file that puts the due date and the title
on each problem. Could you enlighten me as to the nature of the bug?
I do not use css files.

Thanks!
Mark

On Mon, 2008-09-22 at 16:46 +0200, Stefan Bisitz wrote:
> Mark Lucas wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > We've had a rash of complaints that the computer is not accepting answers.
> > 
> > I had a problem for which the second answer could be entered, but when 
> > submit answer was hit, it wouldn't do anything.
> > No incorrect box, no correct, no tries deducted. Nothing. This was 
> > observed by two instructors and a student.
> 
> Just out of curiosity:
> Are you using
> a) LON-CAPA style files (.sty)
> or/and
> b) CSS files (cascading style sheet)
> in your course?
> 
> There might be a relation. I'm still working on a bug concerning this
> kind of combination.
> 
> Stefan Bisitz
> 
> 
> 
> > I poked at the problem in construction space (where it worked), tweaked 
> > a few things and republished. It then worked for me and the other 
> > instructor, but the student still says it doesn't work.
> > 
> > We've had another question (one from msuchemlib) that is optionresponse. 
> > A couple students have had issues with it not accepting
> > answers. It took the first answer, but then complains that the answer is 
> > one of a previous try or doesn't provide any feedback.
> > 
> > I also had a student who had issues with a feedback question. No response.
> > 
> > (1) Have other people had issues like this? I'm using 2.7.0
> > 
> > (2) Are there browser issues with new versions of IE, Vista, Firefox? 
> > Does anyone know of a standard 'operator error' that could cause this? 
> > (browser configuration, etc...)
> > 
> > (3) Any bugs that have been fixed?
> > 
> > Later,
> > Mark
> > _______________________________________________
> > LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> > LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> > http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin
> 
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin



From st.bisitz at fh-wolfenbuettel.de  Mon Sep 22 14:05:36 2008
From: st.bisitz at fh-wolfenbuettel.de (Stefan Bisitz)
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:05:36 +0200
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] Computer not Returning Feedback
In-Reply-To: <0K7L00H46TDX54@mail.fh-wolfenbuettel.de>
References: <f57ef3410809171018x2b8a9b7end676c8de916c0e05@mail.gmail.com>
 <20080919103928.uywr5q1uswowcww0@loncapa.org>
 <0K7J00E5DOY2NE@mail.fh-wolfenbuettel.de>
 <1222094775.18832.10.camel@localhost.localdomain>
 <0K7L00H46TDX54@mail.fh-wolfenbuettel.de>
Message-ID: <1222106736.18832.31.camel@localhost.localdomain>

Am Montag, den 22.09.2008, 11:49 -0400 schrieb Mark Lucas:
> Stefan,
> 
> I do use a very simple style file that puts the due date and the title
> on each problem. Could you enlighten me as to the nature of the bug?

http://bugzilla.lon-capa.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5782


> I do not use css files.
> 
> Thanks!
> Mark
> 
> On Mon, 2008-09-22 at 16:46 +0200, Stefan Bisitz wrote:
> > Mark Lucas wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > We've had a rash of complaints that the computer is not accepting answers.
> > > 
> > > I had a problem for which the second answer could be entered, but when 
> > > submit answer was hit, it wouldn't do anything.
> > > No incorrect box, no correct, no tries deducted. Nothing. This was 
> > > observed by two instructors and a student.
> > 
> > Just out of curiosity:
> > Are you using
> > a) LON-CAPA style files (.sty)
> > or/and
> > b) CSS files (cascading style sheet)
> > in your course?
> > 
> > There might be a relation. I'm still working on a bug concerning this
> > kind of combination.
> > 
> > Stefan Bisitz
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > > I poked at the problem in construction space (where it worked), tweaked 
> > > a few things and republished. It then worked for me and the other 
> > > instructor, but the student still says it doesn't work.
> > > 
> > > We've had another question (one from msuchemlib) that is optionresponse. 
> > > A couple students have had issues with it not accepting
> > > answers. It took the first answer, but then complains that the answer is 
> > > one of a previous try or doesn't provide any feedback.
> > > 
> > > I also had a student who had issues with a feedback question. No response.
> > > 
> > > (1) Have other people had issues like this? I'm using 2.7.0
> > > 
> > > (2) Are there browser issues with new versions of IE, Vista, Firefox? 
> > > Does anyone know of a standard 'operator error' that could cause this? 
> > > (browser configuration, etc...)
> > > 
> > > (3) Any bugs that have been fixed?
> > > 
> > > Later,
> > > Mark
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> > > LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> > > http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> > LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> > http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin
> 
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin



From raeburn at msu.edu  Mon Sep 22 16:24:58 2008
From: raeburn at msu.edu (Stuart Raeburn)
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:24:58 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] filesystem permissions question
In-Reply-To: <48D28907.9060509@Mines.EDU>
References: <48D28907.9060509@Mines.EDU>
Message-ID: <20080922162458.upi9s38eoc0w8c08@loncapa.org>

Todd,

The key thing here is to ensure that user www is a member of the  
groups created for each of the filesystem authenticated users.

What does the following report?
groups www

The default permissions for filesystem-authenticated users:
/home/$username drwx--x--- (with ownership: $username:$username)
/home/$username/public_html drwxrws---  (with ownership: $username:$username)

allow access to Construction Space for filesystem-authenticated users  
in a test instance of LON-CAPA which I run on Centos 5.

I did get access forbidden if I changed permissions to:
/home/$username drwx------ (with ownership: $username:$username)

I don't see too much of a problem in changing permissions to:
/home/$username drwx--x--x (with ownership: $username:$username)

as the diffence between this and drwx--x--- is that any user on the  
system (not just $username and members of the $username group) will  
now be able to list the contents of /home/$username.

As noted in a caveat included on the LON-CAPA hardware upgrade page  
(http://loncapa.org/hardwareupgrade.html) when transitioning from SuSE  
to Red Hat/Fedora/CentOS and vice versa it is recommended that  
filesystem-based users are created from the command line on the new  
system because the different distributions use different encryption  
algorithms, so transferring /etc/passwd etc. will be unsuccessful.

In order to preserve uids and gids between the old system and the new  
system, you'd need to use the -g and -u options with useradd when  
creating the new users to force use of the corresponding uids and gids  
from the old system.

Starting with LON-CAPA 2.5, the ability to add new filesystem  
authenticated users was eliminated except when using perl  
make_domain_coordinator.pl from the command line.  For the future,  
webDAV access to user directories is being considered as a replacement  
for login to accounts on the server for filesystem-authenticated users  
who need to achieve tasks which are not easy to carry out using the  
current Construction Space GUI provided as part of LON-CAPA.

Stuart Raeburn
MSU LON-CAPA group

Quoting Todd Ruskell <truskell at mines.edu>:

> Hi,
>
> I just did a library server migration from Suse 9.3/LON-CAPA 2.6.3 to
> CentOS 5/LON-CAPA 2.7.  On the old server, we had a "dummy" user which
> contained a library of problems, and there was an actual username with a
> local login account on that server.
>
> I decided that the local login account was no longer needed on the new
> server, so didn't create it.  So when I copied files over via rsync,
> that directory tree is now owned by UID 2136, but that UID is no longer
> attached to a specific user.
>
> Now, when I log into LON-CAPA on the new system as either author or
> co-author, I could not enter construction space, due to a lack of
> permissions.  This actually happens even for users who have local
> accounts on the new system:
>
> "Forbidden
> You don't have permission to access /~username/ on this server."
>
> Further investigation revealed that a directory listing of the home
> directory on the filesystem of the new server reveals the following:
>
> # ls -al
> total 40
> drwx--x---  3 2136 2136 4096 Jul 20  2003 .
> drwxr-xr-x 54 root root 4096 Aug 15 11:19 ..
> -rw-------  1 2136 2136  123 Jul 20  2003 .bash_history
> -rw-r--r--  1 2136 2136   24 Jul 20  2003 .bash_logout
> -rw-r--r--  1 2136 2136  191 Jul 20  2003 .bash_profile
> -rw-r--r--  1 2136 2136  124 Jul 20  2003 .bashrc
> -rw-r--r--  1 2136 2136  854 Jul 20  2003 .emacs
> -rw-r--r--  1 2136 2136  118 Jul 20  2003 .gtkrc
> drwxrwsr-x 35 www  www  4096 Jan 23  2008 public_html
>
> Note that the home directory is *not* executable by all.  Doing a chmod
> a+x to the home directory seems to fix all access problems.  At one
> level this makes sense to me, but is it something I should be doing?  Or
> does access need to be granted in some other way?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Todd
>
> --
> Dr. Todd Ruskell
> Senior Lecturer, Department of Physics       Office:  Meyer Hall 326
> Colorado School of Mines                     Phone: 303-384-2080
> 1523 Illinois Street                         Fax: 303-273-3919
> Golden, CO 80401
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin
>




From truskell at mines.edu  Mon Sep 22 18:29:39 2008
From: truskell at mines.edu (Todd Ruskell)
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:29:39 -0600
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] filesystem permissions question
In-Reply-To: <20080922162458.upi9s38eoc0w8c08@loncapa.org>
References: <48D28907.9060509@Mines.EDU> <20080922162458.upi9s38eoc0w8c08@loncapa.org>
Message-ID: <48D81C53.7050408@Mines.EDU>

Thanks Stuart,

Adding user www to all the new groups was the piece I was missing.

Todd

Stuart Raeburn wrote:
> Todd,
> 
> The key thing here is to ensure that user www is a member of the groups
> created for each of the filesystem authenticated users.
> 
> What does the following report?
> groups www
> 
> The default permissions for filesystem-authenticated users:
> /home/$username drwx--x--- (with ownership: $username:$username)
> /home/$username/public_html drwxrws---  (with ownership:
> $username:$username)
> 
> allow access to Construction Space for filesystem-authenticated users in
> a test instance of LON-CAPA which I run on Centos 5.
> 
> I did get access forbidden if I changed permissions to:
> /home/$username drwx------ (with ownership: $username:$username)
> 
> I don't see too much of a problem in changing permissions to:
> /home/$username drwx--x--x (with ownership: $username:$username)
> 
> as the diffence between this and drwx--x--- is that any user on the
> system (not just $username and members of the $username group) will now
> be able to list the contents of /home/$username.
> 
> As noted in a caveat included on the LON-CAPA hardware upgrade page
> (http://loncapa.org/hardwareupgrade.html) when transitioning from SuSE
> to Red Hat/Fedora/CentOS and vice versa it is recommended that
> filesystem-based users are created from the command line on the new
> system because the different distributions use different encryption
> algorithms, so transferring /etc/passwd etc. will be unsuccessful.
> 
> In order to preserve uids and gids between the old system and the new
> system, you'd need to use the -g and -u options with useradd when
> creating the new users to force use of the corresponding uids and gids
> from the old system.
> 
> Starting with LON-CAPA 2.5, the ability to add new filesystem
> authenticated users was eliminated except when using perl
> make_domain_coordinator.pl from the command line.  For the future,
> webDAV access to user directories is being considered as a replacement
> for login to accounts on the server for filesystem-authenticated users
> who need to achieve tasks which are not easy to carry out using the
> current Construction Space GUI provided as part of LON-CAPA.
> 
> Stuart Raeburn
> MSU LON-CAPA group
> 
> Quoting Todd Ruskell <truskell at mines.edu>:
> 
>> Hi,
>>
>> I just did a library server migration from Suse 9.3/LON-CAPA 2.6.3 to
>> CentOS 5/LON-CAPA 2.7.  On the old server, we had a "dummy" user which
>> contained a library of problems, and there was an actual username with a
>> local login account on that server.
>>
>> I decided that the local login account was no longer needed on the new
>> server, so didn't create it.  So when I copied files over via rsync,
>> that directory tree is now owned by UID 2136, but that UID is no longer
>> attached to a specific user.
>>
>> Now, when I log into LON-CAPA on the new system as either author or
>> co-author, I could not enter construction space, due to a lack of
>> permissions.  This actually happens even for users who have local
>> accounts on the new system:
>>
>> "Forbidden
>> You don't have permission to access /~username/ on this server."
>>
>> Further investigation revealed that a directory listing of the home
>> directory on the filesystem of the new server reveals the following:
>>
>> # ls -al
>> total 40
>> drwx--x---  3 2136 2136 4096 Jul 20  2003 .
>> drwxr-xr-x 54 root root 4096 Aug 15 11:19 ..
>> -rw-------  1 2136 2136  123 Jul 20  2003 .bash_history
>> -rw-r--r--  1 2136 2136   24 Jul 20  2003 .bash_logout
>> -rw-r--r--  1 2136 2136  191 Jul 20  2003 .bash_profile
>> -rw-r--r--  1 2136 2136  124 Jul 20  2003 .bashrc
>> -rw-r--r--  1 2136 2136  854 Jul 20  2003 .emacs
>> -rw-r--r--  1 2136 2136  118 Jul 20  2003 .gtkrc
>> drwxrwsr-x 35 www  www  4096 Jan 23  2008 public_html
>>
>> Note that the home directory is *not* executable by all.  Doing a chmod
>> a+x to the home directory seems to fix all access problems.  At one
>> level this makes sense to me, but is it something I should be doing?  Or
>> does access need to be granted in some other way?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Todd
>>
>> -- 
>> Dr. Todd Ruskell
>> Senior Lecturer, Department of Physics       Office:  Meyer Hall 326
>> Colorado School of Mines                     Phone: 303-384-2080
>> 1523 Illinois Street                         Fax: 303-273-3919
>> Golden, CO 80401
>> _______________________________________________
>> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
>> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
>> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin
>>
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin

-- 
Dr. Todd Ruskell
Senior Lecturer, Department of Physics       Office:  Meyer Hall 326
Colorado School of Mines                     Phone: 303-384-2080
1523 Illinois Street                         Fax: 303-273-3919
Golden, CO 80401


From michael.dugdale at johnabbott.qc.ca  Tue Sep 23 13:08:22 2008
From: michael.dugdale at johnabbott.qc.ca (Michael Dugdale)
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:08:22 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] Auto-enrollment
Message-ID: <A3D081AF-0901-4F06-B0E0-801337989374@johnabbott.qc.ca>

Greetings,

I'm currently setting up a LON-CAPA installation at John Abbott  
College in Montreal, Quebec.  I'm currently trying to convince the  
powers-that-be here that using the autoenrollment feature would be a  
good idea.

While I think my technical arguments have been sound, they can seem a  
bit dry.  I would like to add a section to my proposal called "Well,  
all the cool schools are doing it..." to drive home the point that  
this isn't a radical idea.

So I was just wondering, how many institutions are using auto- 
enrolment for LON-CAPA?


Many thanks for your time,

Michael Dugdale
Department of Physics
John Abbott College
Ste. Anne de Bellevue,
Qu?bec, Canada


From lucasm at ohio.edu  Tue Sep 23 14:18:40 2008
From: lucasm at ohio.edu (Mark Lucas)
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:18:40 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] Auto-enrollment
In-Reply-To: <A3D081AF-0901-4F06-B0E0-801337989374@johnabbott.qc.ca>
References: <A3D081AF-0901-4F06-B0E0-801337989374@johnabbott.qc.ca>
Message-ID: <1222193920.18250.2.camel@lucas.phy.ohiou.edu>

Michael,

Ohio University uses it. It's the only practical way to handle classes
of any significant size without impacting faculty too much.

Later,
Mark 


On Tue, 2008-09-23 at 13:08 -0400, Michael Dugdale wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> I'm currently setting up a LON-CAPA installation at John Abbott  
> College in Montreal, Quebec.  I'm currently trying to convince the  
> powers-that-be here that using the autoenrollment feature would be a  
> good idea.
> 
> While I think my technical arguments have been sound, they can seem a  
> bit dry.  I would like to add a section to my proposal called "Well,  
> all the cool schools are doing it..." to drive home the point that  
> this isn't a radical idea.
> 
> So I was just wondering, how many institutions are using auto- 
> enrolment for LON-CAPA?
> 
> 
> Many thanks for your time,
> 
> Michael Dugdale
> Department of Physics
> John Abbott College
> Ste. Anne de Bellevue,
> Qu?bec, Canada
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin



From batchelo at sfu.ca  Tue Sep 23 16:12:16 2008
From: batchelo at sfu.ca (Ray Batchelor)
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:12:16 -0700
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] Auto-enrollment
In-Reply-To: <1222193920.18250.2.camel@lucas.phy.ohiou.edu>
References: <A3D081AF-0901-4F06-B0E0-801337989374@johnabbott.qc.ca>
	 <1222193920.18250.2.camel@lucas.phy.ohiou.edu>
Message-ID: <f57ef3410809231312j714d6e58l70b02decb58f87b@mail.gmail.com>

SFU ditto.


On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 11:18 AM, Mark Lucas <lucasm at ohio.edu> wrote:
> Michael,
>
> Ohio University uses it. It's the only practical way to handle classes
> of any significant size without impacting faculty too much.
>
> Later,
> Mark
>
>
> On Tue, 2008-09-23 at 13:08 -0400, Michael Dugdale wrote:
>> Greetings,
>>
>> I'm currently setting up a LON-CAPA installation at John Abbott
>> College in Montreal, Quebec.  I'm currently trying to convince the
>> powers-that-be here that using the autoenrollment feature would be a
>> good idea.
>>
>> While I think my technical arguments have been sound, they can seem a
>> bit dry.  I would like to add a section to my proposal called "Well,
>> all the cool schools are doing it..." to drive home the point that
>> this isn't a radical idea.
>>
>> So I was just wondering, how many institutions are using auto-
>> enrolment for LON-CAPA?
>>
>>
>> Many thanks for your time,
>>
>> Michael Dugdale
>> Department of Physics
>> John Abbott College
>> Ste. Anne de Bellevue,
>> Qu?bec, Canada
>> _______________________________________________
>> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
>> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
>> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin
>
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin
>



-- 
Raymond J. Batchelor, Ph.D.
Department of Chemistry
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, BC
Canada
V5A 1S8



From mwedward at uiuc.edu  Tue Sep 23 16:20:44 2008
From: mwedward at uiuc.edu (Edwards, Michael W)
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:20:44 -0500
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] Auto-enrollment
In-Reply-To: <A3D081AF-0901-4F06-B0E0-801337989374@johnabbott.qc.ca>
References: <A3D081AF-0901-4F06-B0E0-801337989374@johnabbott.qc.ca>
Message-ID: <BA128EF759255149A84C634806EBCE02150C76939A@DSMAILBOX.ad.uiuc.edu>

UIUC is using it as well.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: lon-capa-admin-admin at mail.lon-capa.org [mailto:lon-capa-admin-
> admin at mail.lon-capa.org] On Behalf Of Michael Dugdale
> Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 12:08 PM
> To: lon-capa-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] Auto-enrollment
>
> Greetings,
>
> I'm currently setting up a LON-CAPA installation at John Abbott
> College in Montreal, Quebec.  I'm currently trying to convince the
> powers-that-be here that using the autoenrollment feature would be a
> good idea.
>
> While I think my technical arguments have been sound, they can seem a
> bit dry.  I would like to add a section to my proposal called "Well,
> all the cool schools are doing it..." to drive home the point that
> this isn't a radical idea.
>
> So I was just wondering, how many institutions are using auto-
> enrolment for LON-CAPA?
>
>
> Many thanks for your time,
>
> Michael Dugdale
> Department of Physics
> John Abbott College
> Ste. Anne de Bellevue,
> Qu?bec, Canada
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin



From raeburn at msu.edu  Thu Sep 25 11:20:33 2008
From: raeburn at msu.edu (Stuart Raeburn)
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:20:33 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] LON-CAPA version 2.7.1
Message-ID: <20080925112033.3ow9dbmj48k48so8@loncapa.org>

New Version 2.7.1 Released

This is primarily a bug fix release for version 2.7.0
It is highly recommended to update 2.7.0 installations with 2.7.1

To use this release you need to have version 1-12 of LONCAPA-prerequisites
installed.

If you are upgrading directly from 2.6.3 or earlier, the next  
paragraph applies to you:

   One of the changes for 2.7 affects scantronformat.tab. After you  
have installed 2.7.1 on the primary library server in your domain,  
log-in, select the Domain Coordinator role, and go to "Domain  
Configuration". Check the box for "Scantron format file", click "Go",  
and if you currently use a customized scantronformat.tab file it will  
be copied (behind the scenes) from its current location to a new  
location where it will be available for selection whenever scantron  
grading is used in a course in your domain.  Refer to the 2.7.0  
release notes -  
http://mail.lon-capa.org/pipermail/lon-capa-announce/2008/000061.html  
- for information about changes between 2.6.3 and 2.7.0.

Changes from 2.7.0

Bug fixes for 2.7.0-specific bugs

- Dynamically generated plots are rendered again where a value has  
been included for the minorfreq in the ytics tag.
- Resources in a folder are available again for selection when  
printing the contents of a folder in Construction Space.
- Generation of printouts works again for vector problems for which  
multiple answers are required, but some have not been submitted.
- Domain Coordinators can again select co-author roles assigned to  
them in other domains.
- Spaces included in submissions to stringresponse problems are again  
retained when grading.
- Stringresponse problems, for which a type (cs, ci, mc or re) has not  
been set, are again graded correctly in cases where the first or  
second character in the submitted string is a number.
- A list of accessible portfolio files can again be reached from a  
user's personal web page ("aboutme" page).

Bug fixes for other general bugs

- Complete breadcrumb trail now provided to students viewing  
Supplemental Documents, thereby allowing access to top level items,  
once items deeper in the hierarchy have been viewed.
- Pasting an item from Supplemental Documents to Main Documents no  
longer results in artifacts from HTML tags in the item title.
- More comprehensive format checking is used for usernames of  
collaborators in problems allowing submission by teams of students.
- Parameter Helper and Slot Manager now include current time zone when  
setting dates/times.
- Testbank importer in Construction space now displays an error  
message (including type of file uploaded) if the file was not plain  
text, RTF or HTML.
- Problems set to type "Practice" are available for selection when  
printing just problems from a folder.
- The broadcast e-mail utility for Domain Coordinators will now  
convert usernames for locally authenticated users to e-mail addresses  
if a generic suffux (e.g., msu.edu) is provided.
- Automatic offloading of sessions from an overloaded server to a  
server listed in spare.tab now supported where the destination server  
uses SSL, if https has been included as an additional entry in the  
dns_hosts.tab for that server (send updates to loncapa at loncapa.org).
- Access to submissions for problems with encrypted URLs from links in  
the course assessment progress chart (CHRT) now works for TAs.
- Display of problems with encrypted URLs now works for TAs when using  
"View" links available for some items in "course assessment  
statistics" (STAT).


Enhancements
- "Edit Answer" button used to open a pop-up DragMath, JME Editor, or  
Chemical reaction Editor pop-up window replaced with a pencil icon to  
the right of the text box used to enter the answer.
- A new parameter is provided to hide the DragMath WYSIWYG Math Editor  
(default is for the icon to be visible) for Mathresponse and  
Formularesponse items.
- Access control based on IP address extended to other resources in a  
course besides problems.
- Algebra tag can include a display attribute to dictate which math  
rendering (tth, jsMath, mimetex) is to be used.
- Disply of events in the calendar now consistent with current time  
zone (included in Calendar header line).
- Instructional staff can generate printouts from the entire course  
for selected people.
- Launch Remote Control (RC) link moved from inline navigation menu to  
reduce congestion (all users not currently using the RC will launch it  
from User Preferences).
- Authors can assign more than one target language for a particular  
<lang> block when creating multilingual resources.

To install this update:

1) You will need to be running Fedora Core 6, 7, 8, or 9, RHEL (AS|ES) 4 or 5,
     SUSE 10.1 10.2 or 10.3, SLES 9 or 10, CentOS 5, Scientific Linux 5
       (Fedora Core 5 should continue to work but is deprecated.)

2) Update to the latest LONCAPA-prerequisites (1-12)
    (skip if upgrading from 2.7.0)

(a) Fedora
yum update

(b) RedHat Enterprise 4

up2date -u LONCAPA-prerequisites

Note: LONCAPA-prerequisites for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 includes
a dependency on perl-libxml-enno-1.03.  If you already have perl-libxml-enno
installed on your system it will be version 1.02 unless already updated.
If the update to LONCAPA-prerequisites 1-12 fails to update  
perl-libxml-enno to 1.03, you should update that package directly:

up2date -u perl-libxml-enno

(c) Red Hat 5/Centos 5/Scientific Linux 5

yum update

(d) SuSE/SLES

Use yast-> Installation Source to refresh the LON-CAPA repository
Use yast->Software Management->Search to update LONCAPA-prerequisites (to
version  1-12).

For SLES9, use yast->Software Management->Search to also update latex-ucs
(to version 20041017-31) after refreshing the LON-CAPA repository.

On all distributions, it is recommended that you check that you have the
correct versions of LONCAPA-prerequisites installed before proceeding.

rpm -q LONCAPA-prerequisites

should report:
LONCAPA-prerequisites-1-12.X

(where X is a distro identifier e.g., fc7.lc)

If you are using Red Hat 4, also check that you have
perl-libxml-enno version 1.03

rpm -q perl-libxml-enno

should report:
perl-libxml-enno-1.03-1.rhel4.lc

3) Download the new LON-CAPA tarball from
wget http://install.lon-capa.org/versions/loncapa-2.7.1.tar.gz

and untar it

tar xzvf loncapa-2.7.1.tar.gz

4) stop the LON-CAPA system services

/etc/rc.d/init.d/loncontrol stop

5) stop the webserver:

Fedora/RHEL/Centos/Scientific Linux
/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd stop

SLES 9:
/etc/init.d/apache stop

SUSE 10.1/SLES 10:
/etc/init.d/apache2 stop


6) Run the UPDATE script as root
cd loncapa-2.7.1
su
./UPDATE



7) restart the LON-CAPA system services
/etc/rc.d/init.d/loncontrol start


8) restart the webserver:

Fedora/RHEL/Centos/Scientific Linux
/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd start

SLES 9:
/etc/init.d/apache start

SUSE 10.1,2/SLES 10:
/etc/init.d/apache2 start



----NOTES
1) Many questions are answered at http://help.lon-capa.org
2) Defects reports, and enhancements requests can be entered at
     http://bugs.lon-capa.org
3) Mailing lists can be joined and left at http://mail.lon-capa.org

Stuart Raeburn
MSU LON-CAPA group






From lucasm at ohio.edu  Thu Sep 25 22:14:51 2008
From: lucasm at ohio.edu (Mark Lucas)
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:14:51 -0400
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] [Fwd: Re: LON-CAPA clustering]
Message-ID: <48DC459B.7040802@ohio.edu>

Glen MacLachlan wrote:
> Dear Mark--
>
> I have been thinking about setting up a LON CAPA cluster for GWU and I've
> done some googling and read the admin help pages,
> http://help.loncapa.org/cgi-bin/fom?_recurse=1&file=1
>
> but I'm wondering if there is any actual documentation on the topic. I
> haven't done an exhaustive search so I apologize if it is highly visible
> but I just missed it. Are there any pitfalls or special requirements? My
> primary goal is redundancy and it seemed this would be the best way to
> achieve that. What does the system at OU look like? What happens if your
> machine goes down?
>
> Regards, Glen
Glen,

I'm going to reply here on loncapa-admin so that others can correct me 
and add to my answers.

I do not know of any real manual regarding the creating of multiple 
machines in a domain. You'll find bits of accumulated wisdom throughout 
the loncapa-admin mailing list.

As you probably know, a machine is either a library server or access 
server. The library server holds all of the definitive records for a 
domain: student records, published work, course information. If your 
library server goes down, the best you can do is just get it up as fast 
as possible. I do not know of anything simple one can do to run a quick 
failover mode here. There may be some fancy solutions with a Networked 
attached storage and a second machine. Stuart gets to weigh in here with 
any ideas 8)
My solution is to have two machines that are configured in the exact 
same way. If oucapa2 goes belly up, ohioua6 (capa10) has the exact same 
hardware. As long as the disks are okay, I can plug them into capa10 and 
turn it into capa2 with not too much hassle. It's a lot easier to find a 
smaller machine to take the place of capa10.

Access servers are a 'generic install'. There is no permanent data 
stored on an access server. If one of my access servers goes down for 
good, I'm fond of saying I just dropkick it across the room and can set 
up another server fairly quickly.

Typically a domain will have one library server. If there is a load 
problem, the accepted policy is to bring in two access servers as the 
next step. Pulling in one access server and continuing to have students 
log in to the library server as well isn't really recommended as the 
library server gets bogged down and doesn't do that good of a job 
serving. You don't really gain that much supposedly.

If you are having load problems, there are several things you can do:

* If it's a periodic peak load issue, you can make sure your spare.tab 
has access to access servers from other domains. In a pinch, students 
should be able to log into any access server on the network and work on 
their course from GWU. MSU places one or two of their machines in the 
default spare.tab as does Colorado School of Mines. An access server 
from Ohio University could also be placed in there. You may want to 
check with the domain coordinator as a courtesy. You also want to be a 
little careful to make sure the machines (and your machine) are fairly 
up to date.

* If it's a significant enough load issue, you can get a couple of 
access servers.

One simple way to load balance is to have the local DNS table set up a 
round robin on some alias. I typically ask students to log into 
http://loncapa.phy.ohiou.edu. Until just this summer, I would then have 
this alias point to capa7, capa8 and capa10. Each of these will spill 
over to capa6 as a spare. During summers when the load is lighter and I 
might be working on the access servers, I can point the alias to my 
library server and let everyone use that one machine. (Just beware that 
students, even if told not to, will bookmark individual machines).

This summer we took the dive and set up a balancing machine. MSU and FSU 
use a balancer. You can dedicate a fairly small machine whose sole task 
is to act as a gateway. It runs a complete LON-CAPA installation, but it 
simply authenticates, determines what machines are available, and 
switches the students to one of these machines. Right now I'm holding my 
breath and using an old Poweredge 1550 - 800ish MHz with only 512 Mb (I 
should really have more memory. Even though it is lobotomized on this 
machine, LON-CAPA wants to start up the maxima servers, etc.... Is there 
any way to keep this down?). So far so good.

There are a couple of advantages. A round robin simply rolls through the 
list regardless of the actual load. Once a student is sent to a 
particular machine, they stay on it. Lonbalancer at least pays attention 
to the load on the machine and is more intelligent about which machine 
is switches people to. With DNS round robin, if one of three machines is 
down or LON-CAPA is not working on that one machine, a third of the 
students don't get logged in. With the balancer, students are never sent 
to that machine. Additionally, you have control over the spare table on 
the balancer. I doubt any of us have direct control over our own DNS 
information. It also takes a day or two for all the DNS servers to 
refresh their caches in the outside world.

So, in answer to your question about redundancy, I'm not sure there's 
much to help a failure of your library server besides making sure it has 
RAID and perhaps other redundancies. Be prepared to roll it over to 
another machine in an emergency.

Adding access servers will help if one of your access servers go down. 
The safest thing is to set up a balancing machine, which will make 
failures in an access server mostly transparent to the students (unless 
they were logged into the server at the time). So my suggestion would be 
to add two access servers and a third, low power machine as a balancer. 
You may want to make sure one of the access servers could fairly quickly 
turn into your library server in the case of an emergency.

Does this help, Glen?

Anyone else have words of advice about building up redundancy and capacity?


Later,
Mark
Ohio University





From p.riegler at fh-wolfenbuettel.de  Fri Sep 26 03:44:20 2008
From: p.riegler at fh-wolfenbuettel.de (Peter Riegler)
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2008 09:44:20 +0200
Subject: [LON-CAPA-admin] [Fwd: Re: LON-CAPA clustering]
In-Reply-To: <0K7S005ZA69S5H@mail.fh-wolfenbuettel.de>
References: <0K7S005ZA69S5H@mail.fh-wolfenbuettel.de>
Message-ID: <48DC92D4.1030000@fh-wolfenbuettel.de>

> This summer we took the dive and set up a balancing machine. MSU and FSU 
> use a balancer. You can dedicate a fairly small machine whose sole task 
> is to act as a gateway. It runs a complete LON-CAPA installation, but it 
> simply authenticates, determines what machines are available, and 
> switches the students to one of these machines. Right now I'm holding my 
> breath and using an old Poweredge 1550 - 800ish MHz with only 512 Mb (I 
> should really have more memory. Even though it is lobotomized on this 
> machine, LON-CAPA wants to start up the maxima servers, etc.... Is there 
> any way to keep this down?). So far so good.
> 
Well, I guess, the cruel way would be editing loncontrol and commenting 
out corresponding lines.
-- 
Peter Riegler
Fachhochschule Braunschweig/Wolfenb?ttel
Salzdahlumer Str. 46/48, 38302 Wolfenb?ttel
Tel. +49 5331 939 6314, Fax. +49 5331 939 6002
email: p.riegler at fh-wolfenbuettel.de
http://public.rz.fh-wolfenbuettel.de/~riegler