Did you know that Microsoft regularly releases security patches for its software products on the second Tuesday of every month? How frequently do you update your computer?

This month, Microsoft introduces patches for critical flaws and vulnerabilities that require you to patch as soon as possible.

Here is some guidance to keep your device secure and your Microsoft software up to date and running smoothly.

Do I need to make changes on my computer?

• Not if you use a Partners standard Windows computer (those with the asset tag, yellow lock and Partners' screensaver). The updates are run for you and devices are usually patched the Friday following Patch Tuesday. Both Microsoft and Adobe products are typically updated at this time. This can change if there is a significant freeze in place. 
• Yes, you need to run updates if you use a non-standard Windows, Macintosh or personally-owned device for Partners' business. ​It is your responsibility to keep your device and software up to date. 

See HOWTO: Run Windows Updates for additional instructions.

Applies to:        Staff and Visitors at Assembly Row

The Network Access Control (NAC) program updates scheduled for Assembly Row on Tuesday, August 13 are canceled at this time. 

Partners HealthCare continues to enhance the Network Access Control (NAC) program at Assembly Row, strengthening visibility and security of data and devices connected to the Partners network.  

Please review the security requirements and guidance for your device, by visiting rc.partners.org/computer. 

Thank you in advance.

Jigar Kadakia
Partners Chief Information Security & Privacy Officer
CISPO@partners.org

This is an update on the ERIS Infrastructure teams efforts to move all databases off of mysql3.research.partners.org and restore them on mysql4.research.partners.org. The team has worked through 50% of the efforts needed to complete this effort and is working diligently on all remaining tasks. We will share another update later tonight and will provide more detail concerning availability.

The final step in this process belongs to the database owners who need to change their MySQL Data Source reference from mysql3.research.partners.org to mysql4.research.partners.org.

Please send a note to rcc@partners.org with any questions.

Research IS & Computing website maintenance completed on Wednesday, July 17 from 7-7:30a.m. EDT. The https://rc.partners.org website was offline from 7:13-7:20a.m. EDT for a database migration. Please see Mysql3 Shutdown and Retirement for details.

The ERIS Infrastructure team had to reboot rfanfs.research.partners.org on Saturday morning July 13th. The team started at 10:00am and the reboot and maintenance was completed by 11:00am. All applications and systems using a storage device from rfanfs.research.partners.org are asked to double check their storage device and should there be a problem, please send a note to rcc@partners.org.

On July 11, 2019 the GitLab service experienced a significant outage. The service was unavailable between 7:15AM and 12:20PM.

What lead to the outage:
An upgrade to GitLab 11.11.5 was scheduled. As part of the upgrade tasks, we apply OS-level patches before beginning the application upgrade process. Some OS-level patches require a restart. In this case, a restart was required. After the patches were installed and reported as having completed successfully, the server was restarted. After the restart, the server was never able to come back up fully and on-screen messages indicated a drive failure/issue.

NOTE: The drive failure did not affect the storage location where the GitLab/Git repositories are stored!

How we recovered:
As part of our recovery procedure, we created a new Virtual Machine, applied all relevant configuration and re-attached the storage where all GitLab/Git repositories are hosted.

NOTE: The drive failure did not affect the storage location where the GitLab/Git repositories are stored! We used the nightly backup of the GitLab database and supporting services to recover the additional configuration needed to bring the service back up.

What You should look out for:
Our backup process runs at midnight. Therefore, and data entered within the User Interface of GitLab (issues, Wikis, etc) between Midnight and 7:15 AM may have been lost. This does NOT apply to code committed to the remote repositories. Any code that has been committed to GitLab should not have been affected and no data should have been lost.

Since we are operating on a new Virtual Server, those of you who use SSH in order to interact with the server will have to update your "known_hosts". In a lot of cases, you will be prompted with a message along the lines of "Remote Host Identification Has Changed" with some additional text regarding a possible Man-in-the-middle attack. This is an expected side-effect of the migration to a new host - please do not be alarmed. To resolve this issue, please refer to the message that you see on the screen and take note of what "known_hosts" file you are being prompted for. These are typically located in your home folder under the ".ssh" hidden folder, but they can be stored elsewhere. Once you know where the know_hosts (or known_hosts2 on some MACs) is located, open that file with a text editor, find any line that has "gitlab.partners.org" or "gitlab.dipr.partners.org" in it and remove it - remove the whole line of text. Then save the file. NOTE: by modifying this file you do NOT risk damaging any configurations you may have for connections to other servers. This file simply contains the fingerprints of servers you have connected to previously.

Please check any automated processes and runners to ensure that they are working as expected. If you experience any issues, please feel free to contact us for assistance at rcc@partners.org with the words GitLab in the somewhere in the subject line.

---------------------

Additional Notes:
Q: Why did it take so long?
A: The outage was prolonged for a number of reasons. Chief among which was the fact that we had not done a full-scale disaster recovery of the service and had to take careful steps to ensure that no data was lost or corrupted.

Q: Are there any up-sides to this crash?
A: Actually, yes. We are now running on new-er Operating System and have more resources provisioned to the machine. We can also now use ED25519 keys for SSH communication with GitLab (as opposed to RSA only previously).

Q: Would the upgrade to GitLab 11.11.5 take place soon?
A: Yes. The upgrade to 11.11.5 will be re-scheduled. A separate notification will be sent out for that when we are sure that the new system is fully validated by you - the users.

All database passwords on mysql3.research.partners.org will expire on June 26, 2019 at 10:30am which will impact all applications that use mysql3.research.partners.org as a database server. Please send a note to rcc@partners.org and identify your database, the database owner, and the mysql UserID's needed and we will coordinate a updated password for your team.

Please send all comments and questions to rcc@partners.org

Research IS & Computing website maintenance completed on Wednesday, June 26. The https://rc.partners.org website was offline during from 7:15-7:45a.m. EDT to apply security patches and bug fixes.

Security vulnerabilities fixed in Firefox 67.0.3 and Firefox ESR 60.7.1

Please update your Firefox web browser.

1. Open Firefox
2. Select About Firefox
3. Select Update

Announced: June 18, 2019
Impact: critical
Products
Firefox, Firefox ESR

Fixed in
Firefox 67.0.3
Firefox ESR 60.7.1

Learn More

REDCap (https://redcap.partners.org/redcap) upgrades to v8.10.18 scheduled for Tuesday June 18th, 6:30AM EST are complete. REDCap was offline from 6:28 to 6:44 AM EST. 

This upgrade will include a number of new features and bug fixes. These include:

• New feature: REDCap Messenger
  • REDCap Messenger is a communication platform built directly into REDCap. It allows REDCap users to communicate easily and efficiently with each other in a secure manner. At its core, REDCap Messenger is a chat application that enables REDCap users to send one-on-one direct messages or to organize group conversations with other REDCap users. REDCap Messenger is also the best and easiest way to share documents with other REDCap users, in which you can upload documents and embed pictures inside any given conversation.
  • Watch 10-minute video on REDCap Messenger
• Improvement: Performance boost – Certain pages in projects with thousands or more records should now load much faster in most cases. This includes the Record Status Dashboard, various pages utilizing Data Access Groups, and certain reports. Reports A and B should especially see significantly faster loading (excluding when viewing “all” pages in report A or B).
• Change: Changed the text "Manage Survey Participants" to "Survey Distribution Tools," which more clearly describes the pages in that section.
• New feature: Report Folders - Reports can now be organized into folders in any given project. If a user has "Add/Edit Reports" privileges, they will see an "Organize" link on the left-hand project menu above the project’s reports. They will be able to create folders and then assign their reports to a folder, after which the project's reports will be displayed in collapsible groups on the left-hand menu.
• New feature: “Edit Access” for reports - In addition to setting "View Access" when creating or editing a report, users can now set the report's "Edit Access" (under Step 1) to control who in the project can edit, copy, or delete the report. This setting will be very useful if one wishes to prevent certain users from modifying or deleting particular reports.
• Improvement: A project's Record ID field can now be used as a Live Filter in any given report, thus allowing users to easily view the report for a single record.
• Improvement: New optional parameters added to the API Export Records method to filter data returned based on when a record was created or modified
  • dateRangeBegin – To return only records that have been created or modified *after* a given date/time, provide a timestamp in the format YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS (e.g., '2017-01-01 00:00:00' for January 1, 2017 at midnight server time). If not specified, it will assume no begin time.
  • dateRangeEnd – To return only records that have been created or modified *before* a given date/time, provide a timestamp in the format YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS (e.g., '2017-01-01 00:00:00' for January 1, 2017 at midnight server time). If not specified, it will use the current server time.

Full REDCap 8.10.18 release notes

New Features and Major Bug Fixes

If you have any concerns about REDCap being offline at this time or any questions about these new features, please email edcsupport@partners.org

The authentication server backup01.partners.org is up and running.  All services are green.  If you are having any issues email us at rcc@partners.org.

Currently, our CrashPlan authentication system (backup01.partners.org) is not functioning correctly.  We are in the process of rebuilding the system.  During this time you will not be able to backup or restore files.  Your backup client might report we are out of space, but that is a false message.   We will up this alert when everything is resolved.