The 1st minor update to ScientificLinux 6 (which is based on RHEL6) is now ready for deployment to the Informatics SL6 DICE office machines. A minor update like this provides us with the opportunity to update important software and fix any bugs which are not security issues (we apply security updates as soon as they […]

For DICE office desktop machines any user may power-off or reboot when they are on the console (i.e. logged into the machine which is sat in front of them). Beyond this (e.g. when logged in via ssh) we have traditionally required root access for a reboot or power-off operation. This is particularly inconvenient for a […]

The 6th minor update to the, now slightly venerable, ScientificLinux 5 (based on RHEL5 which was first released on 2007-03-15) is now ready for deployment to the Informatics SL5 DICE office machines with the updates to the servers following over the next few weeks. A minor update like this provides us with the opportunity to […]

The weekly update to DICE which went out yesterday (Wednesday 4th May 2011) saw the introduction of VirtualBox version 4.0.4 to replace, the now rather ancient, versions 3.1 and 3.2. If you are using an SL5 or SL6 based desktop machine then this new version will be automatically installed the next time the machine is […]

The machine hosting the staff.ssh service (rydell) crashed on the evening of Tuesday 12th April. This was caused by a runaway process which consumed all available memory. The machine was rebooted at 6:30am on Wednesday 13th April and is now working normally. For those interested in the details, the Linux kernel Out-Of-Memory (OOM) killer did […]