Computing Services

• Students will be provided with Windows accounts. 
• Haas graduate students will be provided with IMAP/POP  Email accounts. 
• Undergraduate students are required to pay account fees for full access to HCS services
• All students need to pay printing a faxing fees.
• Student accounts will expire at the end of each semester, except for students in Haas degree programs, whose accounts expire three months after graduation.

• Monday to Friday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm
• Enter Helpdesk Requests at http://helpdesk.haas.berkeley.edu
• Mail requests to: helpdesk@haas.berkeley.edu
• Call at:(510) 642-0434
  

The HelpDesk Service Priorities and Escalation Procedure

• #0 Enterprise Failure Production service or server down. Events affecting a department or the entire school. Events at this level will be immediately addressed and followed through until resolution. This Call Priority supersedes all other service tasks, assignments, and projects. (All available resources utilized pending resolution) 
• #1 Urgent System Down, Customer or reported equipment unable to operate or perform tasks, No alternate procedure available. (Selected resources utilized pending resolution) 
• #2 High Priority situation critical, key functions not operable, time sensitive. (resources assigned at a level to expect one hour resolution)
• #3 Priority customer able to work at acceptable level awaiting service appointment (24 hour problem resolution expected) 
• #4 Scheduled Service, new installs, upgrades, adjustments (3 day completion expected) 
• #5 Pending Service, awaiting approvals, third parties, system availability. (estimated completion date and status updates to be provided Service

Technical Support Troubleshooting Procedure

• The Desktop Support technician will inform the customer of any and all changes to be performed before doing the work. 
• The technician will inform the customer of any known potential risks associated with the changes and will give the customer the option to accept or decline the proposed changes before performing the work. 
• The customer must be available and willing to answer the technicians questions before the work will proceed. 
• The customer does not need to be physically present in order to have the work performed. 
• The technician has the right to decline a request of changes or modifications from a customer when it is the technicians professional opinion that the requested work has too great a potential risk of failure or loss of data.
• The technician will ensure that the customers data is adequately backed up before performing any changes that have associated potential risk. This includes, but limited to, a verified HCS server backup, a copy of the affected directories or files, etc. The technician may defer the proposed changes until after such precautions have been taken.

• Software installations
• Installation instructions
• Walkup assistance in the lab for standard features of the software
• Orientation classes for newly admitted students
• Classes scheduled as required
• A Web accessible list of supported lab software, with scheduled adds and deletes, as well as proposed changes to the list
• Notification to customers as new versions are made available and at least 90 days notice before a previous version is removed

• Routine maintenance is performed Sunday morning from 6am to 12pm. File servers, email systems, and other network services may not be available. Before routine maintenance, HCS will provide 48 hours notice in the Helpdesk Message of the Day.
   
• Corrective maintenance will be performed as required with prior notification to the customer community as the urgency of the problem dictates. HCS is permitted to bring servers down in the event of an emergency situation (e.g., building power failure) or critical security threat (e.g., root compromise). Approval for this action is made by the Associate Director of Systems and/or the Director of Computing and Information Systems. Notification of server down will be made immediately to the Deans office. Announcements of system security events will be made after the vulnerability has been mitigated.
   
• It is important to remember that the Business School is not a self-contained computing environment, and is linked to other networks within the University and to the Internet. In some cases, you may experience system delays or interruptions due to causes beyond the control of HCS, for example when a main campus network connector (router) has problems. In such cases, HCS will work with University computing groups (IST, CNS, etc...) to help identify and correct problems in a timely manner. We will continue to provide updates to the school on an hourly basis.
   
• Server Uptime: minimum 99.0% system uptime per month (approximately 404 minutes reserved for planned maintenance activities).
   
• All Production servers are monitored by an automated detection system on a 24 x 7 basis. In the event of an e-mail services disruption, the automated detection system pages the System Administration group. A System Administrator must respond to the page within 30 minutes.
   
• If a disruption is caused by a software problem, the outage will be resolved within four hours. If caused by hardware failure, the outage will be resolved within the terms of the Vendor Service Agreement. For example, the SUN Service Agreement (mail server) provides 5 day x 8 hour on-site assistance and 5 day x 12 hour software support for SUN products. An eight-business-hour turnaround time for parts replacement applies.

• Windows XP/2000
• Windows and Office installations/ Restores
• Symantec Anti-virus/Firewall software installation
• Machine Security (check local admin accounts, passwords, windows/office/anti-virus updates, etc...) 
• Internet Access (HIP/ SHIPs, Cable Modem, DSL, etc... on a limited basis)
• Drive mapping to Haas network servers
• Printer Mapping
• Laptop Docking (Adding to the Haas domain)
• Virus Detection/Removal
• E-mail Client configurations

• Graduate students are provided POP or IMAP e-mail services only. No shell accounts are provided for e-mail services.
   
• Undergraduates are not entitled to Haas E-mail accounts and must secure e-mail services from the campus Calmail service. However, undergraduates are eligible to obtain a Haas@cal alumni account as soon as they are admitted to a program.
   
• Students are permitted to have a maximum of two mailing lists per organization (e.g., a general list and an officers list, or a general list and an alumni list, etc.).
   
• Mailing lists must be owned by a person with a campus  e-mail address (i.e., ending in ".berkeley.edu" , user@haas.berkeley.edu, user@berkeley.edu, user@econ.berkeley.edu, etc...), and an active Haas Computing account.
   
• Mailing lists expire at the end of the school year (June 30). It is the students responsibility to transfer ownership of a list to another person when he/she graduates or leaves U.C. Berkeley.
   
• The person or group requesting the list must provide contact information, a brief narrative that explains the purpose of the list, and list configuration parameters in order for the list to be created.
   
• Mailing lists without an owner will be deleted two weeks after notifying list members, if no one on the list assumes ownership.
   
• Mailing list requests must be submitted to the Haas Helpdesk.

• Any compromised computer will not be returned to service or reconnected to the network until the security compromise has been removed.
• Any disruption of an HCS-owned server due to security compromise must be documented and the users of the affected server will be notified as soon as it is safe to provide the information (there are cases where disclosure can complicate the security problem).
• No shell access is provided for students.
• Remote access is provided for servers only.
• No .rhosts files are permitted on any HCS server. Any and all .rhosts files are removed by automated process.
• No .netrc files are permitted on any system. Any and all .netrc files are removed by automated process.
• No "r" commands are permitted on the Haas E-mail/Web server.
• No X-based login (CDE or OpenLook) connectivity or applications are permitted on the Haas E-mail/Web Server.

• Guidelines for good passwords are found at http://groups.haas.berkeley.edu/hcs/howdoi/Password%20Guidelines.pdf
• Password length must be a minimum of  nine characters.
• Passwords must contain a minimum of one character from at least three of the following four classes:
  
   Lower case letters
   Upper case letters
   Numbers
   Special characters (*, &, %, etc...)
  
• Passwords may not have more than 2 repeated characters -- thus "Kaaa7fg" would be rejected.
• Passwords must not match anything in your account information, such as your name, login name, or office phone number.
• Passwords must not match or resemble any word found in various cracking dictionaries.
• Passwords must not be reused.
  

• The initial list password is set at the time the list is created.
• The list owner may also change configuration and security settings for a list by logging in as the administrator to the list via the Mailman Admin website. It is the responsibility of the customer to understand how Mailman configuration settings work and how they affect the operating characteristics of a mailing list. It is the responsibility of the HCS Help Desk to provide initial set up and configuration of a list and to provide technical support for new and existing lists. For instructions on how to manage your mailing lists please see the Haas Mailing Lists (Mailman) section of How do I.

• Training classes are provided through HCS for supported software and hardware. For a group of five or more participants, a training session can be set up for supported software for your individual group or department. Please contact the Director of Student Computing Phil Mahoney, or Kathleen Valerio (Training Operations Manager).
• Formal training sessions will be set up for new supported software products as needed. Announcement of upcoming sessions will be posted around the school and sent out via email.
• How Do I?, installation and configuration procedures for select applications, and How-To documents are available on the HCS web site. The content of the HCS web site is to include support for the current HCS-installed version of supported software and hardware. Documents describing legacy versions are provided on a best-effort basis
• Customers are also advised to take advantage of the web site support provided by most vendors of hardware and software. Most commonly encountered problems and their solutions are readily available at these web sites. These sites also have "chat groups" that raise and solve each other’s idiosyncratic problems.

• Report all computer problems promptly to the HelpDesk (510-642-0434).
• Be available to identify the problem to the HCS representative and work with her/him.
• Contact the HelpDesk before making any changes to your system hardware or software
• Keep informed of all planned network, hardware, and software changes.
• Take responsibility for educating yourself on a continuing basis about basic computer-related skills.  Check our How do I website for solutions to common problems.
• Maintain an updated version of virus protection software on your system by following the HCS guidelines. See How do I document: Security Precautions
• Communicate any computing concerns to Computing Committee members.
• Students are expected to be proficient in using Personal Computers, which includes familiarity with the Windows operating system, Internet, Web, FTP, POP/IMAP email packages, and applications in the Microsoft Office suite of products, primarily Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
• You need to ensure that you have basic skills in these core computing applications in order to best take advantage of and participate in the technological infrastructure. You may find it difficult to complete necessary classroom assignments if you are unable to meet these minimum requirements.  For training opportunities at Haas or on campus please contact Kathleen Valerio: valerio@haas.berkeley.edu