[PLUG] The lion in Salem

[Ken Barber]

On Tuesday 26 August 2003 08:08, david pool wrote:

> After bcc:ing that last e-mail to the Speaker, I got her
> auto-responder sending the e-mail you see below. I'm asking for
> your assistance in analyzing the headers.

[snip]

> Equally, the "Microsoft Exchange" bits are probably from the
> State's end. Am I reading it right to see "lion" as the name of
> the server that is doing the auto-responding?

Yes.

> I'm curious about how much of the state's e-mail is being
> served off of "lion". 

The legislature is using an Exchange Server for its email (even 
though they swear they're using Groupwise), and because of 
organizational issues I doubt that anyone besides the Legislature 
is using lion.  ODOT also uses Exchange, or did as recently as a 
year ago.  

Most of the State is using either Groupwise or 'nix-based email 
servers (Sendmail, I presume, but I don't remember if they ever 
told us.  If Cooper Stevenson is reading this, maybe he'll 
remember).  DAS is sick of Exchange and wants to wean agencies 
away from it as soon as they can.  

> Also, is that machine doing anything else
> (serving up web-pages with IIS perhaps)?

I seriously doubt it.  Every Exchange admin (I am one of them) 
knows that Exchange is a HOG, and it's foolish to run anything on 
an Exchange server except Exchange (and maybe IIS for serving 
web-based email).

> Finally, is "lion"
> fully patched?

Be careful.  Be very careful.

> Obviously, if they are
> running un-registered proprietary software, well, that would be
> worth mentioning.

I can guarantee you that any software the State of Oregon is 
running is 100% legal.  They employ more people than you can 
imagine (at our expense, of course) just to ensure license 
compliance.  The bureaucratic paperwork involved in installing 
one simple piece of software on a State computer is... uh, 
interesting.

CC'ing your message to the Speaker of the House was not a good 
move.

Ken
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