 home > publishing > incite > 1999 > 12 > inCite article |
|||
A very important message to users of the ALIAnet websiteSome web users have reported that they are unable to connect to ALIA's website, ALIAnet, and receive a 'permission denied' screen. This is not unusual, since we have had to block access to ALIAnet by some users, and for very good reason. Some users have also experienced significant delays in material downloading, for reasons unknown. The two issues are related, and require identification and remediation. We have denied access to a number of domains and IP addresses, on the basis of the damage that they (innocently) cause to ALL users of ALIAnet at the time of access. These users have been identified as being users on a network 'protected' by Novell's BorderManager 3.x or greater, and we urge the systems administrators responsible for these domains and IP addresses to get in touch with us promptly for information on how to modify their configuration settings to prevent this problem crippling ALIAnet, and to allow users to access the site once more. Incidentally, this problem will also affect other websites, to the extent that users who are controlled by BorderManager may experience general web access performance difficulties across a range of sites, instead of the intended performance gain (the settings that require changing involve the read-ahead caching ability of BorderManager - a function that is by default set to 'yes' when it should be set to 'no'). The following IP addresses and domains have been identified as the culprits, and no doubt there are others as well that will be added to the list:
Once identified and remedied, it is possible to reverse the block by providing assurances that the read-ahead cache settings are turned 'off', or that a patch has been applied. A patch is available from Novell or from ALIA. This issue will affect many sites, and is not related to ALIAnet alone. It is therefore in the interests of the blocked site to implement this patch. Please contact ALIanet's manager, Ivan Trundle, on 02 6215 8232 or via ivan.trundle@alia.org.au.nospam (please remove '.nospam' from address) for further information or advice.
|
|
