Difference between revisions of "Williams Students Online"

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[[Category:Groups]] [[Category:Computers]]
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{{Outdated}}
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[[Category:Computers]] [[Category:WSO]]
 
{{Group|
 
{{Group|
−
| name=WSO
+
| name = WSO
−
| type=Service
+
| image = Poweredges.jpeg
−
| selective=No way!
+
| type = Service
−
| membership=12
+
| selective = No.
−
| meeting-time=Tuesdays 6:30 PM
+
| membership = 12
−
| meeting-place=[[TPL]] 203
+
| meeting-time = 9:00pm Tuesdays
−
| office=Jesup Basement
+
| meeting-place = TCL or TPL 2nd floor
−
| contact=[[Evan Miller]]
+
| office = Transient
−
| listserver-url=http://wso.williams.edu/mailman/listinfo/wso-staff
+
| contact-name = Steve Rubin
−
| website=http://wso.williams.edu/
+
| contact-unix = ssr2
−
| established=1995
+
| wso-listserver = wso-staff
 +
| website = http://wso.williams.edu/
 +
| established = 1995
 
}}
 
}}
 
'''Williams Students Online''', or WSO, is a student computer group that offers several computer- and internet-related services to members of the [[College community]]. Current projects include a multi-featured [http://wso.williams.edu/ web site], [[Main Page|this Wiki]], [http://wso.williams.edu/mailman/listinfo listservers], Linux parties, and web hosting for students, student organizations, and alumni.
 
'''Williams Students Online''', or WSO, is a student computer group that offers several computer- and internet-related services to members of the [[College community]]. Current projects include a multi-featured [http://wso.williams.edu/ web site], [[Main Page|this Wiki]], [http://wso.williams.edu/mailman/listinfo listservers], Linux parties, and web hosting for students, student organizations, and alumni.
  
−
Many people often confuse WSO with the college run [[Office for Information Technology]].
+
Many people often confuse WSO with the college-run [[Office for Information Technology]].
  
−
See also: [[Stuff WSO Definitely Should Do]]
+
==Services==
−
 
 
−
Also see: [[Stuff WSO Administrators Should Know]]
 
−
 
 
−
==Meetings==
 
−
WSO meets in Physics 203-ish at 10 pm on Tuesdays. Stop by if you're excited about the possibilities of computers.
 
  
−
==Services==
+
'''For more information on WSO services, projects, policies, and staff, please see [http://wso.williams.edu/wso About WSO].
  
 
===Web Hosting===
 
===Web Hosting===
−
WSO lets students and alumni put their web pages on our servers. To apply for an account, email Scott Tamura (stamura@wso). Please supply a williams.edu email address to send the password to. Organizations can also get web pages through WSO.
+
WSO lets students and alumni put their web pages on our servers. To apply for an account, email Richard Oot (root@wso). Please supply a williams.edu email address to send the password to. Organizations can also get web pages through WSO.
  
−
Our web hosting supports PHP and server-side includes by default. If you want more advanced features, such as CGI, MySQL, or PostgreSQL, contact a [[Root]].
+
Our web hosting supports PHP and server-side includes by default. If you want more advanced features, such as CGI, MySQL, or PostgreSQL, contact a Richard Oot (root@wso).
  
 
See also: [[How to make a web page on WSO]]
 
See also: [[How to make a web page on WSO]]
  
 
===http://wso.williams.edu===
 
===http://wso.williams.edu===
−
This is our fancy web site, featuring blogs, a calendar, a campus facebook, photos, floor plans, choose your own adventure, and surveys. We wrote it all ourself with the help of Apache PageKit. If you have ideas for it, please come to a meeting (above). Or scribble something on [[Stuff WSO Definitely Should Do]].
+
This is our fancy web site, featuring blogs, a calendar, a campus facebook, photos, floor plans, choose your own adventure, and surveys. We wrote it all ourself with the help of Ruby on Rails and, formerly, Apache PageKit. If you have ideas for it, please come to a meeting (above). Or scribble something on [[Stuff WSO Definitely Should Do]].
  
 
===Linux Parties===
 
===Linux Parties===
Line 42: Line 41:
 
A listserver is an email address that distributes messages to a bunch of people. WSO hosts listservers for student groups broadly defined, and other organizations around campus/Williamstown. You can apply for a listserver at http://wso.williams.edu/lists/create, and we'll try to get to the request in a few days. A complete list of WSO listservers is available from http://wso.williams.edu/mailman/listinfo.
 
A listserver is an email address that distributes messages to a bunch of people. WSO hosts listservers for student groups broadly defined, and other organizations around campus/Williamstown. You can apply for a listserver at http://wso.williams.edu/lists/create, and we'll try to get to the request in a few days. A complete list of WSO listservers is available from http://wso.williams.edu/mailman/listinfo.
  
−
WSO uses Mailman to power its listservers.  
+
WSO uses Mailman to power its listservers. [[Steven Rubin]] (srubin@wso) is our list admin. Contact him with list administration questions.
  
−
===campus@wso===
+
===Secure Instant Messaging===
−
This is a listserver with basically all students subscribed. It has information about campus happenings. See [http://wso.williams.edu/mailman/listinfo/campus] for info about subscribing or unsubscribing, and see [http://wso.williams.edu/lists/campus] about sending messages.
+
WSO users can communicate with each other using the [[WSO Secure iChat Service]].
  
 
===wso/wiki===
 
===wso/wiki===
−
You're reading it now. We host, hack, and prune the wiki.
+
You're reading it now. We host Willipedia.
  
 
==Servers==
 
==Servers==
Line 54: Line 53:
 
The current roster:
 
The current roster:
  
−
'''Ursula''' is the latest addition to the cage. Lean and sleek, she's an Xserve with dual G5 processors and 2 gigs of RAM. Don't bump into her, though, unless you're a deaf person in need of a metronome. Ursula runs shell logins, email forwarding, and listservers.
+
'''Emma''' is Nancy's replacement.
 +
 
 +
'''Ursula''', lean and sleek, is an Xserve with dual G5 processors and 2 gigs of RAM. Don't bump into her, though, unless you're a deaf person in need of a metronome. Ursula runs shell logins, email forwarding, and lists.
  
 
[[Image:Ursula.jpeg]]
 
[[Image:Ursula.jpeg]]
Line 68: Line 69:
 
[[Image:Spiker.jpeg]]
 
[[Image:Spiker.jpeg]]
  
−
Spiker is currently hosting POP and IMAP connections.
+
Spiker is currently taking up space in the cage, having been Officially Unplugged after a long stint in Non-booting Purgatory. It's quieter in the cage now.
  
−
'''Olga and the Firewall''' are nearly identical Dell PowerEdge 300's running at 800 MHz. Olga has much more hard disk space (600 GB), though, because she's our backup server. The Firewall is the only machine in the Cage without a scary aunt name. As you might guess, she acts as a firewall, connecting incoming traffic to the proper machine in the cluser, and protecting the machines from requests on ports that we don't run official services on. Here the are pictured together. The Firewall is on the left, identifiable by the red FreeBSD demon sticker:
+
'''Olga and the Firewall''' are nearly identical Dell PowerEdge 300's running at 800 MHz. Olga has much more hard disk space (600 GB), though, because she's (was) our backup server. The Firewall is the only machine in the Cage without a scary aunt name. As you might guess, she acts as a firewall, connecting incoming traffic to the proper machine in the cluser, and protecting the machines from requests on ports that we don't run official services on. Here the are pictured together. The Firewall is on the left, identifiable by the red FreeBSD demon sticker:
  
 
[[Image:Poweredges.jpeg]]
 
[[Image:Poweredges.jpeg]]
  
 
[http://wso.williams.edu/about/servers Read about the retired aunts.]
 
[http://wso.williams.edu/about/servers Read about the retired aunts.]
−
 
−
 
  
 
==Choice excerpts from WSO files==
 
==Choice excerpts from WSO files==
  
−
Most of the following examples are taken from files and scripts which were written long ago but are somehow still in use. Organized thematically.
+
See [[code comments]].
  
−
===Self-deprecation===
+
==History==
  
−
  # Note, Apr. 2005: This is unspeakably shitty.
+
WSO was founded in January of 1995 by [[DeWitt Clinton]] and [[John Kim]], with help from [[Jon Zeppieri]], [[Jason Gladstone]], [[Jessica Mintz]], and others. Originally, the first server was an Apple Powermac 7100 running WebStar, on loan from the [[College Council]].  The original mandate from the CC was to create an online version of the daily advisor.  John and DeWitt successfully ignored this mandate for serveral years.
−
   
 
−
  # This is ghetto.
 
  
−
  # Yes, this method is mentally handicapped.
+
1996 saw the beginning of the Internet boom, and the arrival of many new recruits to WSO.  With the strong [[Unix]] background of Jon Zeppieri, [[Iein Valdez]], [[Geoff Hutchison]], and DeWitt Clinton and a blazingly-fast Pentium I 100MHz machine, WSO was migrated to a FreeBSD-based server.  Meanwhile, WSO attracted the artistic talents of [[Kate Tan]], [[Eric Smith]], and [[Kenric Taylor]].  Others lending their computer expertise and love for technology included [[Matt Garland]], [[Ken Fowler]], and [[Christine Soarse]].  Finally, [[Jonah Wittkamper]] served as general all-around cheerleader for WSO.
  
−
  # Our comments system is a total hack.
+
The fall of 1996 saw the arrival of a new crop of freshmen, including [[Chuck Hagenbuch]] (would would go on to design [[IMP|Horde/IMP]], the Williams College Webmail system), [[Dan Mason]] ([[HTML]] coder extrordinaire), [[Chris Richards]] (security and [[FSH]] enthusiast), [[David Ramos]] (designer and typographer), and [[Jason Healy]] (future all-campus listserver nazi).  By winter, the website had been overhauled (sporting a scan of Chuck's right hand), and new services were cropping up like crazy: the online [[Facebook]], all-campus and dorm [[listserver]]s, online [[Daily Advisor]] and calendar announcements, and a small software archive.
  
−
  # The worst firewall ever.
+
WSO continued to grow at a rapid pace, as new services were added and members signed on for web and e-mail accounts.  [[Free University]] HTML courses were taught to students and members of the community by [[David Ramos]], [[Ben Isecke]], and [[Jacob Eisler]], and several clubs and organizations at the college created web pages about themselves.
  
−
  # This SQL is so nasty I can't explain it.
+
As the use of technology grew, WSO acquired more and better equipment.  Better funding was provided by the IT department of the college, and WSO soon got a new server.  A new naming scheme was conceived for the servers: [[Scary Aunt Names]].  The new machine was christented "Ethel", and replaced the aging Pentium I ("Mabel").  In the years that followed, several new servers came on board: Gertrude, Spiker, Olga, Nancy (and others?).
  
−
  #this makes me cringe, but oh well
+
In the fall of 2002, abuse of the [[WSO Forums]] continued. A thread entitled "Gays Suck" prompted the [[Queer Student Union]] to print out the thread and post it in [[Baxter Hall]], inviting responses with paper and pen. Abuse escalated at the end of October, at which time there were several pornographic images, violent threats, and racist, sexist, and homophobic posts to be found in the forums. On October 30, the forums were removed.
  
−
===Self-aggrandizement===
+
But they were to return. [[Shimon Rura]] led a site re-write in the spring and summer of 2003. One goal of the re-write was to authenticate users, so that their postings and doings could be identified. The site was written with [http://www.pagekit.org Apache PageKit].  Shimon wrote the authentication system and the [[WSO Ride Board]], [[Josh Ain]] wrote a new menu feed, [[Tom White]] re-wrote the WSO Forums, [[Evan Miller]] re-wrote some screen scrapers, and [[Topher Cyll]] re-wrote the WSO Facebook and wrote WSO Blogs from a hole in Scotland. The site went live in July of 2003 and has grown in features and popularity since then.
  
−
  # Who's a pimp.
+
In January 2004, [[Tom White]] and [[Steve Winslow]] noticed the timestamp on a system file on WSO servers with a shared user base reflected a date and time that was inconsistent with that of the same file on independent WSO servers.  Their further investigation showed that WSO had been compromised.  They notified the rest of WSO and temporarily took systems off-line.  Over the next seventy-two hours, Tom led the response team which rebuilt all WSO machines and services and tightened security.  By this time, WSO was supporting thousands of users and over a hundred student organizations.  Not a single piece of email was lost.  [[Chris Douglas]] reported the incident to the WSO community of users on behalf of WSO; [[Tom White]] and [[Jacob Eisler]] reported the incident to College Council.
  
−
  # In case there was confusion, this is *hot*.
+
Toph, Tom, Brent, Jacob, and Steve graduated in the spring of 2004, and around that time [[Ben Cohen]] and [[Dan Weintraub]] were given [[root]]. During the summer, Evan and Dan converted [[WSO Plans]] from its standalone PHP/MySQL incarnation over to PageKit, so that students could access it from off-campus without [[setting up a proxy server]]. Also, they converted the Postgres database and the website over to UTF-8/Unicode. With the help of [[Masha Lifshin]] and [[Sam Dreeben]], the duo made much-envied but never-imitated Quicktime VRs for their [[Facebook picture]]s.
  
−
  # You can try to understand it,
+
In the fall of 2004, [[Kai Steverson]] rewrote [[Factrak]] on hire by College Council, to enhance the abilities of the admin, make comments expire, and allow raters to "agree" with comments left about professors. Kai also wrote [[My Survey]] that semester. Evan re-wrote the WSO Facebook (again) to include faculty and more information fields.  The new Factrak's interface pulled entries and faces from the new Facebook.
−
  # but I would regard it as holy writ.
 
−
   
 
−
===Self-defense===
 
  
−
  #yeah, i know there isn't a whole lot of reason to abstract this,
+
In February 2005, WSO was hacked by a group of Brazilians calling themselves Simiens Crew 2005.
−
  #but you know what, suck it.
 
  
−
  # This took me 15 minutes.
+
===Migration to Ursula: October 2005===
−
  # 15 minutes don't buy documentation.
 
  
−
===Threats of Violence===
+
In 2005, WSO bought Ursula to replace Spiker. Migrating a 3000-user FreeBSD system to Mac OS X Server is not, in the end, recommended. The play-by-play was delivered on the old WSO announcements system. Copies of the posts are stored here.
  
−
  # bwahahaha -- take these away and I'll lower your quota.
+
* [[Media:WSO Announcement - Email and SSH will be down today - 2 Oct 2005.txt|Initial Oct. 2 announcement]]
 +
* [[Media:WSO_Announcement_-_Progress_report_-_2_Oct_2005.txt|Progress report]], later that day. So close!
 +
* [[Media:WSO_Announcement_-_Regress_report_-_3_Oct_2005.txt|Regress report]], posted at 3 AM after a few... mishaps.
 +
* [[Media:WSO Announcement - Migration Party Take 2 - 3 Oct 2005.txt|Post-mortem and admission of failure]] the next morning.
  
−
  ## Change these and I'll rip your fucking balls off
+
Things actually went smoothly the next time (a week later), with Jason Healy '01 scoring an assist by providing some migration scripts.
  
−
  # These arguments are passed to us
+
===Spring 2006===
−
  # by /usr/sbin/adduser.  Do not
 
−
  # change them, unless you would
 
−
  # please to put my TV in your butt.
 
  
−
===Miscellaneous===
+
[[Ben Wood]], [[James Ritterpusch]], and [[Jessica Chung]] were made [[root]] over WSO dinner at [[Guide to Off-Campus Dining#Coyote Flaco|Coyote Flaco]] in the spring of 2006.
  
−
  # whoever commented this out is a dumbass
+
===2011 - 2012===
  
−
  # So if you've read the past two functions, you're probably
+
In the spring of 2011, former root president Steven Rubin '11 passed his title on to Chuan Ji '12 and also made [[Ian Nesbitt]] and Ben Seiler (both '13s) roots. Soon, Chuan Ji '12 also made Qiao Zhang '13 root. In the fall, the root group had a successful bout of recruiting at the Purple Key Fair, convincing a number of promising '15s to sign up for the WSO listserve. Chuan showed off his [http://wso.williams.edu/test/facebook/ new Facebook interface] which is coded in Python and includes instant suggestions and a better search function.
−
  # wondering, why the fuck I'm passing parameters for the unix
 
−
  # pkit_component via the model output instead of using
 
−
  # component parameters.
 
−
 
−
  if($unix eq '06cks'){return 1;}  #super, super admin, i.e. me.  
 
  
−
  # This is where WSO staff enter personal hacks
+
==Former WSOers==
  
−
  ####################################
+
* Josh Ain
−
  #  JOSE (Judicious Online Secure Elections) Admin Module
+
* Kashif Akthar
−
  #  (Make no mistake; this system is named after Tequila)
+
* Francisco Alarcon
 +
* Ben Birney
 +
* Beth Budwig
 +
* Jason Busch
 +
* Jing Cao
 +
* DeWitt Clinton
 +
* Michael Chanin
 +
* Jessica Chung
 +
* Ben Cohen
 +
* Christopher Cyll
 +
* Chris Douglas
 +
* Jacob Eisler
 +
* Matt Garland
 +
* Mike Gnozzio
 +
* Geoff Guile
 +
* Chuck Hagenbuch
 +
* Jason Healy
 +
* Cheng Hu
 +
* Geoff Hutchison
 +
* Brian Hwang
 +
* Ben Isecke
 +
* Ayesha Johnson
 +
* Jason Law
 +
* Mari Lliguicota
 +
* Joe Masters
 +
* Evan Miller
 +
* Steve Moore
 +
* David Ramos
 +
* Jeremy Redburn
 +
* Chris Richards
 +
* James Ritterpusch
 +
* Todd Rogers
 +
* Shimon Rura
 +
* Jess Scott
 +
* Josh Solomon
 +
* Fritz Stabenau
 +
* Kai Steverson
 +
* Robin Stewart
 +
* Mandy Stockley
 +
* Bartley Tablante
 +
* Kate Tan
 +
* Kenric Taylor
 +
* Ken-ichi Ueda
 +
* Iein Valdez
 +
* Dan Weintraub
 +
* Tom White
 +
* Wayne Wight
 +
* Steve Winslow
 +
* Jonah Wittkamper
 +
* Steve Wollkind
 +
* Brent Yorgey
 +
* Ben Wood
 +
* Jon Zeppieri
 +
* Chuan Ji
 +
* Qiao Zhang
 +
* Ben Seiler
 +
* Ian Nesbitt
  
−
 
+
==See also==
−
==History==
+
*[[Stuff WSO Definitely Should Do]]
−
 
+
*[http://wso.williams.edu/about/ About WSO] -- documentation, help, policy, etc.
−
WSO was founded in January of 1995 by [[DeWitt Clinton]] and [[John Kim]], with help from [[Jon Zeppieri]], [[Jason Gladstone]], [[Jessica Mintz]], and others. Originally, the first server was an Apple Powermac 7100 running WebStar, on loan from the College Council.  The original mandate from the CC was to create an online version of the daily advisor.  John and DeWitt successfully ignored this mandate for serveral years.
+
*[https://www.eukhost.com web hosting] -- Student Host your blog.
−
 
 
−
1996 saw the beginning of the Internet boom, and the arrival of many new recruits to WSO.  With the strong UNIX background of [[Jon Zeppieri]], [[Iein Valdez]], [[Geoff Hutchison]], and [[DeWitt Clinton]] and a blazingly-fast Pentium I 100MHz machine, WSO was migrated to a FreeBSD-based server.  Meanwhile, WSO attracted the artistic talents of [[Kate Tan]], [[Eric Smith]], and [[Kenric Taylor]].  Others lending their computer expertise and love for technology included [[Matt Garland]], [[Ken Fowler]], and [[Christine Soarse]].  Finally, [[Jonah Wittkamper]] served as general all-around cheerleader for WSO.
 
−
 
 
−
The fall of 1996 saw the arrival of a new crop of freshman, including [[Chuck Hagenbuch]] (would would go on to design [[Horde/IMP]], the Williams College Webmail system), [[Dan Mason]] (HTML coder extrordinaire), [[Chris Richards]] (security and FSH enthusiast), [[David Ramos]] (designer and typographer), and [[Jason Healy]] (future all-campus listserver nazi). By winter, the website had been overhauled (sporting a scan of Chuck's right hand), and new services were cropping up like crazy: the online Facebook, all-campus and dorm listservers, online DA and calendar announcements, and a small software archive.
 
−
 
 
−
WSO continued to grow at a rapid pace, as new services were added and members signed on for web and e-mail accounts.  [[Free University]] HTML courses were taught to students and members of the community by [[David Ramos]], [[Ben Isecke]], and [[Jacob Eisler]], and several clubs and organizations at the college created web pages about themselves.
 
−
 
 
−
As the use of technology grew, WSO acquired more and better equipment.  Better funding was provided by the IT department of the college, and WSO soon got a new server.  A new naming scheme was conceived for the servers: [[Scary Aunt Names]].  The new machine was christented "Ethel", and replaced the aging Pentium I ("Mabel").  In the years that followed, several new servers came on board: Gertrude, Spiker, Olga, Nancy (and others?).
 
−
 
 
−
In the fall of 2002, abuse of the [[WSO Forums]] continued. A thread entitled "Gays Suck" prompted the [[Queer Student Union]] to print out the thread and post it in [[Baxter Hall]], inviting responses with paper and pen. Abuse escalated at the end of October, at which time there were several pornographic images, violent threats, and racist, sexist, and homophobic posts to be found in the forums. On October 30, the forums were removed.
 
−
 
 
−
But they were to return. [[Shimon Rura]] led a site re-write in the spring and summer of 2003. One goal of the re-write was to authenticate users, so that their postings and doings could be identified. The site was written with [http://www.pagekit.org Apache PageKit].  Shimon wrote the authentication system and the [[WSO Ride Board]], [[Josh Ain]] wrote a new menu feed, [[Tom White]] re-wrote the [[WSO Forums]], [[Evan Miller]] re-wrote some screen scrapers, and [[Topher Cyll]] re-wrote the [[WSO Facebook]] and wrote [[WSO Blogs]] from a hole in Scotland. The site went live in July of 2003 and has grown in features and popularity since then.
 
−
 
 
−
Toph, Tom, Brent, Jacob, and Steve graduated in the spring of 2004, and around that time [[Ben Cohen]] and [[Dan Weintraub]] were given [[root]]. During the summer, Evan and Dan converted [[WSO Plans]] from its standalone PHP/MySQL incarnation over to PageKit, so that students could access it from off-campus without [[setting up a proxy server]]. Also, they converted the Postgres database and the website over to UTF-8/Unicode. With the help of [[Masha Lifshin]] and [[Sam Dreeben]], the duo made much-envied but never-imitated Quicktime VRs for their [[Facebook pictures]].
 
−
 
 
−
In the fall of 2004, [[Kai Steverson]] rewrote [[Factrak]] for [[College Council]] to enhance the ability of the admin, make comments expire, and allow raters to "agree" with comments left about professors. Kai also wrote [[My Survey]] that semester. Evan re-wrote the [[WSO Facebook]] (again) to include faculty and more information fields.
 
−
 
 
−
In February 2005, WSO was hacked by a group of Brazilians calling themselves Simiens Crew 2005.
 

Latest revision as of 19:53, May 5, 2019

WSO
Type of groupService
SelectiveNo.
Membership12
Meeting time9:00pm Tuesdays
Meeting placeTCL or TPL 2nd floor
OfficeTransient
Established1995
Websitehttp://wso.williams.edu/

Williams Students Online, or WSO, is a student computer group that offers several computer- and internet-related services to members of the College community. Current projects include a multi-featured web site, this Wiki, listservers, Linux parties, and web hosting for students, student organizations, and alumni.

Many people often confuse WSO with the college-run Office for Information Technology.

Services

For more information on WSO services, projects, policies, and staff, please see About WSO.

Web Hosting

WSO lets students and alumni put their web pages on our servers. To apply for an account, email Richard Oot (root@wso). Please supply a williams.edu email address to send the password to. Organizations can also get web pages through WSO.

Our web hosting supports PHP and server-side includes by default. If you want more advanced features, such as CGI, MySQL, or PostgreSQL, contact a Richard Oot (root@wso).

See also: How to make a web page on WSO

http://wso.williams.edu

This is our fancy web site, featuring blogs, a calendar, a campus facebook, photos, floor plans, choose your own adventure, and surveys. We wrote it all ourself with the help of Ruby on Rails and, formerly, Apache PageKit. If you have ideas for it, please come to a meeting (above). Or scribble something on Stuff WSO Definitely Should Do.

Linux Parties

See Migrate to Linux

Listservers

A listserver is an email address that distributes messages to a bunch of people. WSO hosts listservers for student groups broadly defined, and other organizations around campus/Williamstown. You can apply for a listserver at http://wso.williams.edu/lists/create, and we'll try to get to the request in a few days. A complete list of WSO listservers is available from http://wso.williams.edu/mailman/listinfo.

WSO uses Mailman to power its listservers. Steven Rubin (srubin@wso) is our list admin. Contact him with list administration questions.

Secure Instant Messaging

WSO users can communicate with each other using the WSO Secure iChat Service.

wso/wiki

You're reading it now. We host Willipedia.

Servers

The current roster:

Emma is Nancy's replacement.

Ursula, lean and sleek, is an Xserve with dual G5 processors and 2 gigs of RAM. Don't bump into her, though, unless you're a deaf person in need of a metronome. Ursula runs shell logins, email forwarding, and lists.

Ursula.jpeg


Nancy houses dual P4-Xeons at 2.7GHz a pop, and due to a hyperthreading kernel she's faking another two. With over fifty Gigs of RAID-5 storage and 2GB of ram, she can handle pretty much anything we ask her to. Also, there's a cool quadruply redundant power supply that lets her operate even if two (three?) power supplies break down, and a neat blue LCD on the front that turns orange when something's wrong. Nancy is currently doing all of our web and database serving. Here's a picture of Nancy:

Nancy.jpeg


Spiker has dual Pentium III 500MHz processors under the hood, 1024 MB of ram, and over 100 GB of RAID storage, plus another hundred in a shameful IDE drive running at 33 MHz that's hanging out of her front side. See:

Spiker.jpeg

Spiker is currently taking up space in the cage, having been Officially Unplugged after a long stint in Non-booting Purgatory. It's quieter in the cage now.

Olga and the Firewall are nearly identical Dell PowerEdge 300's running at 800 MHz. Olga has much more hard disk space (600 GB), though, because she's (was) our backup server. The Firewall is the only machine in the Cage without a scary aunt name. As you might guess, she acts as a firewall, connecting incoming traffic to the proper machine in the cluser, and protecting the machines from requests on ports that we don't run official services on. Here the are pictured together. The Firewall is on the left, identifiable by the red FreeBSD demon sticker:

Poweredges.jpeg

Read about the retired aunts.

Choice excerpts from WSO files

See code comments.

History

WSO was founded in January of 1995 by DeWitt Clinton and John Kim, with help from Jon Zeppieri, Jason Gladstone, Jessica Mintz, and others. Originally, the first server was an Apple Powermac 7100 running WebStar, on loan from the College Council. The original mandate from the CC was to create an online version of the daily advisor. John and DeWitt successfully ignored this mandate for serveral years.

1996 saw the beginning of the Internet boom, and the arrival of many new recruits to WSO. With the strong Unix background of Jon Zeppieri, Iein Valdez, Geoff Hutchison, and DeWitt Clinton and a blazingly-fast Pentium I 100MHz machine, WSO was migrated to a FreeBSD-based server. Meanwhile, WSO attracted the artistic talents of Kate Tan, Eric Smith, and Kenric Taylor. Others lending their computer expertise and love for technology included Matt Garland, Ken Fowler, and Christine Soarse. Finally, Jonah Wittkamper served as general all-around cheerleader for WSO.

The fall of 1996 saw the arrival of a new crop of freshmen, including Chuck Hagenbuch (would would go on to design Horde/IMP, the Williams College Webmail system), Dan Mason (HTML coder extrordinaire), Chris Richards (security and FSH enthusiast), David Ramos (designer and typographer), and Jason Healy (future all-campus listserver nazi). By winter, the website had been overhauled (sporting a scan of Chuck's right hand), and new services were cropping up like crazy: the online Facebook, all-campus and dorm listservers, online Daily Advisor and calendar announcements, and a small software archive.

WSO continued to grow at a rapid pace, as new services were added and members signed on for web and e-mail accounts. Free University HTML courses were taught to students and members of the community by David Ramos, Ben Isecke, and Jacob Eisler, and several clubs and organizations at the college created web pages about themselves.

As the use of technology grew, WSO acquired more and better equipment. Better funding was provided by the IT department of the college, and WSO soon got a new server. A new naming scheme was conceived for the servers: Scary Aunt Names. The new machine was christented "Ethel", and replaced the aging Pentium I ("Mabel"). In the years that followed, several new servers came on board: Gertrude, Spiker, Olga, Nancy (and others?).

In the fall of 2002, abuse of the WSO Forums continued. A thread entitled "Gays Suck" prompted the Queer Student Union to print out the thread and post it in Baxter Hall, inviting responses with paper and pen. Abuse escalated at the end of October, at which time there were several pornographic images, violent threats, and racist, sexist, and homophobic posts to be found in the forums. On October 30, the forums were removed.

But they were to return. Shimon Rura led a site re-write in the spring and summer of 2003. One goal of the re-write was to authenticate users, so that their postings and doings could be identified. The site was written with Apache PageKit. Shimon wrote the authentication system and the WSO Ride Board, Josh Ain wrote a new menu feed, Tom White re-wrote the WSO Forums, Evan Miller re-wrote some screen scrapers, and Topher Cyll re-wrote the WSO Facebook and wrote WSO Blogs from a hole in Scotland. The site went live in July of 2003 and has grown in features and popularity since then.

In January 2004, Tom White and Steve Winslow noticed the timestamp on a system file on WSO servers with a shared user base reflected a date and time that was inconsistent with that of the same file on independent WSO servers. Their further investigation showed that WSO had been compromised. They notified the rest of WSO and temporarily took systems off-line. Over the next seventy-two hours, Tom led the response team which rebuilt all WSO machines and services and tightened security. By this time, WSO was supporting thousands of users and over a hundred student organizations. Not a single piece of email was lost. Chris Douglas reported the incident to the WSO community of users on behalf of WSO; Tom White and Jacob Eisler reported the incident to College Council.

Toph, Tom, Brent, Jacob, and Steve graduated in the spring of 2004, and around that time Ben Cohen and Dan Weintraub were given root. During the summer, Evan and Dan converted WSO Plans from its standalone PHP/MySQL incarnation over to PageKit, so that students could access it from off-campus without setting up a proxy server. Also, they converted the Postgres database and the website over to UTF-8/Unicode. With the help of Masha Lifshin and Sam Dreeben, the duo made much-envied but never-imitated Quicktime VRs for their Facebook pictures.

In the fall of 2004, Kai Steverson rewrote Factrak on hire by College Council, to enhance the abilities of the admin, make comments expire, and allow raters to "agree" with comments left about professors. Kai also wrote My Survey that semester. Evan re-wrote the WSO Facebook (again) to include faculty and more information fields. The new Factrak's interface pulled entries and faces from the new Facebook.

In February 2005, WSO was hacked by a group of Brazilians calling themselves Simiens Crew 2005.

Migration to Ursula: October 2005

In 2005, WSO bought Ursula to replace Spiker. Migrating a 3000-user FreeBSD system to Mac OS X Server is not, in the end, recommended. The play-by-play was delivered on the old WSO announcements system. Copies of the posts are stored here.

Things actually went smoothly the next time (a week later), with Jason Healy '01 scoring an assist by providing some migration scripts.

Spring 2006

Ben Wood, James Ritterpusch, and Jessica Chung were made root over WSO dinner at Coyote Flaco in the spring of 2006.

2011 - 2012

In the spring of 2011, former root president Steven Rubin '11 passed his title on to Chuan Ji '12 and also made Ian Nesbitt and Ben Seiler (both '13s) roots. Soon, Chuan Ji '12 also made Qiao Zhang '13 root. In the fall, the root group had a successful bout of recruiting at the Purple Key Fair, convincing a number of promising '15s to sign up for the WSO listserve. Chuan showed off his new Facebook interface which is coded in Python and includes instant suggestions and a better search function.

Former WSOers

  • Josh Ain
  • Kashif Akthar
  • Francisco Alarcon
  • Ben Birney
  • Beth Budwig
  • Jason Busch
  • Jing Cao
  • DeWitt Clinton
  • Michael Chanin
  • Jessica Chung
  • Ben Cohen
  • Christopher Cyll
  • Chris Douglas
  • Jacob Eisler
  • Matt Garland
  • Mike Gnozzio
  • Geoff Guile
  • Chuck Hagenbuch
  • Jason Healy
  • Cheng Hu
  • Geoff Hutchison
  • Brian Hwang
  • Ben Isecke
  • Ayesha Johnson
  • Jason Law
  • Mari Lliguicota
  • Joe Masters
  • Evan Miller
  • Steve Moore
  • David Ramos
  • Jeremy Redburn
  • Chris Richards
  • James Ritterpusch
  • Todd Rogers
  • Shimon Rura
  • Jess Scott
  • Josh Solomon
  • Fritz Stabenau
  • Kai Steverson
  • Robin Stewart
  • Mandy Stockley
  • Bartley Tablante
  • Kate Tan
  • Kenric Taylor
  • Ken-ichi Ueda
  • Iein Valdez
  • Dan Weintraub
  • Tom White
  • Wayne Wight
  • Steve Winslow
  • Jonah Wittkamper
  • Steve Wollkind
  • Brent Yorgey
  • Ben Wood
  • Jon Zeppieri
  • Chuan Ji
  • Qiao Zhang
  • Ben Seiler
  • Ian Nesbitt

See also

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