UC Digital Services are having a major drive to increase security of UC Systems. As part of this, Kā Kohika is now running as an https site rather than as http.

This is a good thing but has led to one problem. When you login, you get redirected to a blank screen. We will try and get this fixed as soon as possible.

The workaround – when this happens – is to keep the browser open and to re-navigate to Kā Kohika again (whether from a bookmark, or via our Library page). When you get back you will find you are logged-in.

We’re sorry about this and it is a bit ironic as it is the login aspect that benefits the most from enhanced security. I’m hoping we’ll find the cause quickly.

If you are working on Saturday you may lose connection to the networked drives at different times during the day (P: drive, K: drive, U: drive). You may see error messages relating to connectivity.

This is because Digital Services is upgrading the underlying storage systems.

They recommend not using the networked drives if you can avoid doing so, but if you do get disconnected, logging off then back on again should reconnect your drives.

EndNote connection files use an old library protocol called Z39.50 – it is little used now, offers poor search functionality and often does not return a full set of results.  I’ve felt for a couple of years that we should abandon it – we have a connection file to our catalogue called ‘U Canterbury.enz’ which seems little used.

I’ve been prompted to revisit this because Digital Services have identified our Z39.50 server as a security risk. Working with (the then ITS) a couple of years ago, we tried to improve its security but were unable to do so.  So we can’t fix this and the server will be shut down. Our EndNote connection file will no longer work from the end of August.

Out of interest I have just checked all other NZ Universities. None offer connection files to their catalogues – all just rely on same export, download and import method we recommend for Multisearch. Actually, none of them offer custom connection files to anything.

I also checked the 16 connectors we have on our N: drive, and that we offer as a downloadable package on our EndNote guide. None of these, except for Project Muse, still work.  So I’d like to remove this package from our EndNote guide. I have removed the EndNote guide page for Te Puna which used Z39.50 years ago but hasn’t been available since they moved their catalogue to OCLC.

Any concerns or questions, let me know.

Peter

From Digital Services:

This is to let you know, Ricoh technician, Justin Beyer will be onsite  at UC from 27-28 June 2022 to carry out work on all of the printers in the library (staff and student).

It will take the Ricoh technician 30mins to install per device, downtime limited to users accessing that specific device but other devices will be available to be used.

If you connect to Camelot using a wireless connection (e.g. Laptop, tablet, phone), note that this will no longer work. Digital Services have turned-off wireless access to the Wiki because of a security risk.

Wired connections will still be fine. Docked laptops (where the dock is connected to a wired connection) should also be OK.

If you use Assyst then we’d be grateful if you could work to close off any finished jobs in the queues. This is because the last day for using Assyst will be the 28th June. From the 29th June we’ll be using the new tool Service Now.

A small number of people will receive training in this, but for most of us it will be relying on online guides and tutorials

For those of you (e.g.  Interloans, MDLs and Standards users) who need the FileOpen plugin when reading DRM protected pdf documents – it is now available to install via the Software Center

We have a potential data corruption issue in Horizon which we need to fix soon. Horizon, RFID and HIP will become unavailable from 10 am for about 30 minutes.

From the 8th March – this from ITS

We will be turning on a security setting update for all Zoom meetings due to a Zoom account being compromised.

This will require all Zoom meetings to be secured with one of the following security options:

• A passcode
• Only authenticated users can join meetings
• Waiting room

If no security options are enabled, Zoom will secure all meetings with ‘Waiting Room’.

If the person has been invited to the meeting and is signed in under @canterbury@pg.canterbury or @uclive, they should be able to access the Meeting.

As well as the problems we saw earlier in the week with Wylie Online, some other vendors who share the same platform (Atypon) have also had problems. For those interested, this is a useful explanation from ACS. Our move to Open Athens next year should help reduce this sort of problem.

We are aware of some recent disruption experienced by EZProxy users attempting to access the ACS Publications website.  Last week the ACS Publications site experienced what was likely a malicious attack that generated an extraordinarily high number of automated requests.  Since dramatic spikes in usage can consume finite computing resources and cause an entire site to go offline, we take measures to ensure continued availability to as many users of our site as possible.

At that time our site was put into “Under Attack” mode, a countermeasure available to us from Cloudflare, the security provider available to sites hosted by Atypon.  The “Under Attack” mode is intended to prevent malicious, automated usage from consuming computing resources, while allowing legitimate users to continue to access the site.

Unfortunately, we have come to understand that EZProxy usage is disrupted by Cloudflare’s “Under Attack” mode.  EZProxy requests apparently share some of the same attributes that Cloudflare considers as potentially malicious.

We are working with Atypon to see if a solution is available, but nothing has been identified so far.  We are also in touch with our Wiley colleagues, as some on this list have noted that the same Cloudflare message occurred on the Wiley Online Library recently for the same reason.