CNS Upgrading GatorLink Authentication System Sunday, 08/19/2007

On Sunday, August 19, 2007, from 5:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m., CNS will be upgrading the underlying hardware behind the GatorLink Authentication (GLAuth) system (login.gatorlink.ufl.edu), in preparation for the start of Fall semester. In addition to the hardware upgrade, we will be making various minor improvements to make the system more robust.

During this time, any application that uses "GL Cookie Auth" or "GL Web Auth" for sign-on will be unavailable. Some programs/applications that require you to supply your GatorLink userid and password to log in may be unavailable for a short time.

For the past 7 years, all of UF's GatorLink authentication services have been provided by a single system. The system currently in use -- hardware and software -- has not been replaced nor upgraded in that entire time. However, UF's use of GLauth services has steadily increased to the point where, in recent months, there have been some noticeable delays in processing authentication requests, due to the load on this server. Unfortunately, the existing system is not horizontally scalable; we cannot simply "add more boxes" to increase its capacity.

In addition to the upgrade of the primary GLAuth server, we will also be making some changes to the way WebCT authenticates. Analysis has shown that approximately 1/3 of the load on the current GLAuth server is from WebCT log-ins. To help address the load-issues impacting the GLAuth server, WebCT authentication will be moved to a server dedicated to serving those requests. As a result, WebCT services will also be impacted during the Sunday morning maintenance window.

If you have any questions regarding this change, please contact Iain Moffat <ipm@ufl.edu>.

We welcome your comments and suggestions on this and all CNS documentation. Please send your comments to: