Tufts Network Engineering, TUNIS rollout

Network Engineering

UIT » Network Engineering » Tufts Network Engineering, TUNIS rollout

On Monday, July 23rd, NOC rolled out the long-awaited upgrade of the DHCP registration system. Highlights of its many changes include:

It's simpler: instead of Pelican's 4-step intro_page -> login_page -> verify_page -> success_page sequence, TUNIS shows a login page that explains what's going on and then a success page. People with proxy privs will also see an intermediate page allowing you to select the client's class (tufts-user or tufts-asset), set the number of days before the client expires, and include a comment. These are all optional fields: type nothing and they'll default to tufts-user and 365 days and no comment.
It's faster: the lease and update times are being dropped to 3 minutes (2 if the database engine can tolerate the load) and the warning to wait 15 minutes and reboot is being retired. Instead, the TUNIS pages force the browser to reload content every 45 seconds and detects whether the client's IP starts with 172.16 or 130.64. When the client receives a real 130.64 address, TUNIS automatically refers the browser to www.tufts.edu, providing the user with an automatic visual indication that they're on the public network.
The "help" instructions are simpler: all explanatory and error messages instruct the user to call the UITSC if they have questions or problems.