SLAC WWW-Tech Mtg 7/2/97

Attendees: Tony Johnson, Les Cottrell, Andrea Chan, John Halperin, Laurie Gennari, Nina Adelman, Edgar Whipple, Joan Winters, Dennis Wisinski, Brian Lalor, Charlotte Hee, Paul Raines, Ruth McDunn.

Agenda:

Calendaring discussion (follow on from Nina's query at the last meeting)
Reverse Proxy server discussion (followup from last meeting)
AOB

Calendaring discussion - Tony Johnson

There are 3 proposed products. Continue with Meeting Maker, use Netscape Calendar, use the Reserve Enterprises which costs about $5K for a site license.

Meeting Maker has been used extensively for about 2 years at the Lab for scheduling meeting rooms, it does not have a Web interface at the moment and also only runs on Macs and PCs. There is a Solaris client which could be used via Xwindows.They claim they are working on a Web interface but it will be read only. Also Meeting Maker has a problem with incremental costs (e.g. each user needs a license) and keeping all versions current (if they are not current then different versions do not interwork well). To upgrade to the latest version would cost the Lab about $5K, i.e. about the same cost as Reserve Enterprises.
Netscape Calendar is similar to Meeting Maker, it has a central server, there are clients for Windows, Macs (Unix ?), it is free to SLAC, but there is minimal integration with Netscape. We may expect a more powerful version of Netscape in the next 3 to 6 months. Whether this would give us what we need is of course unclear.
Reserve Enterprises has a Web interface. There is a problem with using it for printing at the moment. It can be downloaded for testing / evaluation.

Doing nothing would presume we stay with Meeting Maker, which would mean people would buy more licenses, plus there is installation and training required. The consensus was that it is not worth pursuing Reserve Enterprises at this time. They may be worth following if somebody volunteers. SLD are willing to try out the new Netscape Calendar to see if it is appropriate.

Proxy server status/update - Dennis

Tony presented a description of the two types of firewall "blocking" we are considering for Web servers at SLAC. One (the original proposal) blocks port 80 at the firewall for all apart from a registered set of Web servers. The second uses a proxy server that is the only machine that is allowed access at port 80. All requests are made to the proxy server (at www.slac.stanford.edu:80) and it passes the requests to the actual servers. He also gave a list of pros and cons. Though there are many advantages for the proxy server (second method), it is less clear how exactly it works and what are the side issues (administration, ongoing support etc.)

John pointed out that we have a commitment to the ADCC & the WWW-CC which goes back a few months to insert the blocking. Ifwe cannot get model 2 to work and get into production within 2 weeks, we should go with method 1. Otherwise risks will continue to grow, credibility will decay, more and more people will be more committed to the status quo etc.

It was agreed to go ahead ASAP with model 1. John is prepared to write the memo. It will be sent out under Pat's name on Wednesday 9th July 1997. We will target imposing the blocking 14 days after the memo goes out. John will make another scan. The extra nodes will be added to the database by Tony. The selection of who should be the ongoing registrar will be taken to the WWW-CC.

Post meeting addendum:

After talking with Pat Kreitz the above time table is too optimistic. There are several points in the Web Security Policy that the WWW-CC will need to flesh out (e.g. who is the registrar, what are the procedures etc.).

Erroneous Email to WWW-ADMIN

There are a few items a week posted to this list which come from various forms. This creates noise which hides the main use of the list, i.e. request for administrative requests, typically for space. Edgar agreed to simply log these items and not post to the list.

Spamming of WWW-L

This is bidirectionally linked to a news group, this causes quite a lot of spam. Dennis pointed out that the strategic direction is towards using Alta Vista forum. There is no blanket policy for how this should be handled at SLAC. Dennis kindly agreed to moderate the www-l cross posted news group. The list will be unmoderated and open to all.

Les Cottrell