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On Thursday, December 10, 2015, CTS will perform maintenance on several services. Beginning at 10:00 P. M., the following services will experience interruption: SOGo calendar/email, DNS*, EMR, Print server, WebWork, the campus web site, Firebug, PACES time clock.
*While we are performing maintenance on our DNS servers, users may experience brief difficulty in getting to any campus services.
A post will be made to the Announcements and Systems Status blog when this maintenance window is closed. ( https://blogs.potsdam.edu/network ) If you have questions or are experiencing problems with any of these services after the maintenance window, please contact the CTS Helpdesk: helpdesk@potsdam.edu or 267-4444. If no one is available to answer your call, leave a message including your name and contact info and a support ticket will be created for you.

On December 21st 2015, CTS will discontinue Potsdam’s legacy VPN services. Both VPN and the limited use OpenVPN solutions have been replaced with an updated and more secure service.

To continue to use VPN the new system requires a straightforward installation of the “Global Protect” VPN software. Instructions on downloading and installing it are located here: https://www.potsdam.edu/cts/services/vpn/.

If you have any questions, please contact the CTS Helpdesk: helpdesk@potsdam.edu

E-Mail service as been restored.

E-mail is currently unavailable. Technicians are working to isolate the issue and restore service.

On November 16th 2015, CTS will discontinue Potsdam’s support for Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) service to Helios. AFP is Apple’s legacy file sharing protocol that is being phased out of OS X in favor of the more common Server Message Block (SMB).
Connecting to Helios with SMB is almost exactly the same as AFP. Instead of connecting with afp://helios.potsdam.edu, simply use smb://helios.potsdam.edu instead. Detailed connection instructions can be found here: https://www.potsdam.edu/cts/services/helios/windowsosx.cfm
Why the change? Over the last four years Apple has steadily migrated OS X away from using AFP as the default protocol, instead standardizing on SMB. SMB has been the default connection method for the last two Mac OS X operating systems, Yosemite (10.10) & El Capitan (10.11). All OS X versions have been able to utilize SMB effectively since OS X 10.7. With this change, Helios will now use a single protocol to communicate with all campus computers. This simplification will improve the maintainability and security of Helios.
If you use AFP to connect to Helios, please change to SMB at your earliest convenience. If you encounter problems, as always please contact the CTS Helpdesk: helpdesk@potsdam.edu or extension 4444.

As announced on October 20, ftp access to helios has been retired.
The supported method for connecting to file shares when off campus is to use the College’s upgraded VPN service. This requires a straightforward installation of the Global Protect VPN software. Instructions on downloading and installing it are located here: https://www.potsdam.edu/cts/services/vpn/. VPN stands for “Virtual Private Network”. VPN software allows off-campus computers to securely connect to our network and act as if they were on-campus. As such, once you have “VPN’ed in” to campus, connecting to Helios (or any other service) is exactly the same as connecting when on campus.
Instructions for connecting to helios from various operating systems may be found here: https://www.potsdam.edu/cts/services/helios/ As always, if you have any questions please contact the CTS Helpdesk: helpdesk@potsdam.edu

Have a Happy & Safe Halloween from all of us at CTS!

-Carved by CTS’ own Don Burgoyne

The Helpdesk is receiving a large influx of calls this morning from users having problems authenticating to various services. We have been able to duplicate these issues. We are awaiting confirmation from our Host Services team of the exact problem and restoration.

On November 1st 2015, CTS will discontinue Potsdam’s FTP service to Helios. FTP is an old and insecure connection method from the early days of the Internet.

The preferred method for connecting to file shares when off campus is to use the College’s upgraded VPN service. This requires a straightforward installation of the “Global Protect” VPN software. Instructions on downloading and installing it are located here: https://www.potsdam.edu/cts/services/vpn/.

When off campus, VPN allows your computer to connect to our network as if it were on-compus. As such, once you have “VPN’ed in” to campus, connecting to Helios (or any other service) is exactly the same as on campus. Instructions for connecting to helios from various operating systems may be found here: https://www.potsdam.edu/cts/services/helios/

If you have any questions, please contact the CTS Helpdesk: helpdesk@potsdam.edu