CAS Upgrade this week
The CAS authentication service at login.middlebury.edu is currently scheduled to be upgraded on Thursday morning, June 14th. We plan to upgrade our CAS server to the latest release and new high-availability clustered hardware. During the transition and DNS switch-over period, authentication to applications authenticating via CAS will be impacted.  Affected applications include: Canvas, Course Catalog, CRFAccess, Course Hub (courses.middlebury.edu), Drupal sites (www.middlebury.edu, forms.middlebury.edu, etc), online Directory, GO, Lynda, MediaWiki, Omeka, MiddLink, Project Dashboard, SANSSpace, StudioAbroad, and WordPress (sites.middlebury.edu, etc). A likely cause if issues on the user-end will be cached DNS entries pointing at the old CAS servers. While it maybe be possible for users to flush their computer’s DNS cache, misconfigured DNS caching in home routers and ISPs may cause lingering problems for off-campus users for much of the day.

Updates

• Drupal 8.5.4
• Drupal – Entity 8.x-1.0-beta4
• Drupal – Entity Browser 8.x-1.5
• WordPress infrastructure — migrated to new VMs running PHP 7.1.
• WordPress – JetPack 6.2
• WordPress – MetaSlider 3.8.1
• WordPress – The Events Calendar 4.6.18
• WordPress – Wiget Shortcode 0.3.3
• WordPress – Academica theme 2.0.4
• WordPress – Accelerate theme 1.3.5
• WordPress – Hemingway theme 1.65

Fixes and Tweaks

Ongoing Work

• Fixes and tweaks for the new Institute site https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/
• Upgrading applications to run on PHP 7.1.
• Upgrading the Drupal sites for the Davis programs, Dining Menus, and Museum of Art to Drupal 8.
• Upgrading CAS to 5.2.9
• Creating a photo sharing platform for the Breadloaf Writer’s Conference

We have added a new plugin to WordPress, Middlebury REST API Whitelist, that is now network active.  It addresses issues accessing the WordPress API that allows us to now upgrade some other plugins to their most current version.

CAS Upgrade this week
The CAS authentication service at login.middlebury.edu is currently scheduled to be upgraded on Thursday morning, June 7th. We plan to upgrade our CAS server to the latest release and new high-availability clustered hardware. During the transition and DNS switch-over period, authentication to applications authenticating via CAS will be impacted.  Affected applications include: Canvas, Course Catalog, CRFAccess, Course Hub (courses.middlebury.edu), Drupal sites (www.middlebury.edu, forms.middlebury.edu, etc), online Directory, GO, Lynda, MediaWiki, Omeka, MiddLink, Project Dashboard, SANSSpace, StudioAbroad, and WordPress (sites.middlebury.edu, etc). A likely cause if issues on the user-end will be cached DNS entries pointing at the old CAS servers. While it maybe be possible for users to flush their computer’s DNS cache, misconfigured DNS caching in home routers and ISPs may cause lingering problems for off-campus users for much of the day.

Updates

• WordPress Liveblog 1.8.2
• WordPress Redirection 3.2
• WordPress Akismet 4.0.7
• WordPress Appointments 2.3.0
• WordPress Foogallery 1.4.31
• WordPress Editorial Calendar 3.6.7
• WordPress Garfunkel 1.13
• WordPress Hemingway 1.64
• Drupal Address 8.x-1.4
• Drupal Entity Reference Revisions 8.x-1.5
• Drupal Paragraphs 8.x-1.3
• Drupal Telephone Validation 8.x-2.1
• Drupal Token 8.x-1.3

Fixes and Tweaks

Ongoing Work

• Fixes and tweaks for the new Institute site https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/
• Upgrading applications to run on PHP 7.1.
• Upgrading the Drupal sites for the Davis programs, Dining Menus, and Museum of Art to Drupal 8.
• Upgrading CAS to 5.2.9
• Creating a photo sharing platform for the Breadloaf Writer’s Conference

We have set the data retention policy in Google Analytics for the 58 properties we manage to “Do Not Automatically Expire“.

Updates

• Drupal inline_entity_form 8.x-1.0-rc1
• Drupal link_attributes 8.x-1.3
• WordPress CM Tooltip Glossary 3.6.4
• WordPress Jetpack 6.1.1
• WordPress Restricted Site Access 6.2.1

Fixes and Tweaks

• We’ve removed some of the redundancies in the Institute site’s use of events and now have only one (down from four) component to list related events and one fewer display mode for events.
• The “List of Programs” and “List of Centers” components on the Institute site can now only be added by the admin user. These components are only needed on a single page and have already been added to the site, so this de-clutters the editing UI slightly.
• Users with the Web Editors role can now edit Newsroom content on the Institute site.

Ongoing Work

• Fixes and tweaks for the new Institute site https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/
• Upgrading applications to run on PHP 7.1.
• Upgrading the Drupal sites for the Davis programs, Dining Menus, and Museum of Art to Drupal 8.
• Upgrading CAS to 5.2.9
• Creating a photo sharing platform for the Breadloaf Writer’s Conference

The WordPress project has just provided a new release focused on Privacy and GDPR compliance. Read all about it.

Updates

• Drupal – Link 7.x-1.5
• WordPress 4.9.6
• WordPress  – Appointments 2.2.7
• WordPress – CM Tooltip Glossary 3.6.3
• WordPress – NextGen Gallery 3.0.1
• WordPress – Restricted Site Access 6.2.0
• WordPress – The Events Calendar 4.7.13
• WordPress – WPtouch 4.3.28
• WordPress – Avata theme 1.5.3
• WordPress – Portfolio Press theme 2.7.3
• WordPress – RokoPhoto Lite theme 1.1.21
• WordPress – TwentyTen theme 2.5
• WordPress – TwentyEleven theme 2.8
• WordPress – TwentyTwelve theme 2.5
• WordPress – TwentyThirteen theme 2.4
• WordPress – TwentyFourteen theme 2.2

Fixes and Tweaks

• Fixed content-caching for the Institute site that broke last week and was preventing edits from being visible to anonymous users.

Ongoing Work

• Fixes and tweaks for the new Institute site https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/
• Upgrading applications to run on PHP 7.1.
• Upgrading the Drupal sites for the Davis programs, Dining Menus, and Museum of Art to Drupal 8.
• Upgrading CAS to 5.2.9
• Creating a photo sharing platform for the Breadloaf Writer’s Conference

Updates

• WordPress Foogallery 1.4.30
• WordPress The Events Calendar 4.6.15
• WordPress WP Custom Fields Search 1.2.9
• Drupal Views Bulk Operations 7.x-3.5
• Drupal block_field 8.x-1.0-alpha6
• Drupal easy_breadcrumb 8.x-1.8
• Drupal media_entity_image 8.x-1.3
• Drupal pathauto 8.x-1.2
• Drupal redirect 8.x-1.2

Fixes and Tweaks

• Reorganized the Institute site’s file structure for easier updates and improved security.

Ongoing Work

• Fixes and tweaks for the new Institute site https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/
• Upgrading applications to run on PHP 7.1.
• Upgrading the Drupal sites for the Davis programs, Dining Menus, and Museum of Art to Drupal 8.
• Upgrading CAS to 5.2.3
• Creating a photo sharing platform for the Breadloaf Writer’s Conference

Changes to the Google Maps API Licensing

Google has announced that after June 11 they will require additional verification and possibly cost for using the Google Maps API. If you signed up for an API key you should have received an email with information about this change. We recommend moving to the OpenStreetMap (OSM) plugin in our WordPress environment.

If you are using the Google Maps API and will need it to continue working after June 11, please contact us with the URL of the site where you’re using it.

Uploading Large Images to WordPress

We’ve recently received reports from several people having trouble uploading large images to our WordPress sites. If your image is larger than 4500×4500 pixels in dimension, our WordPress sites may not be able to generate a thumbnail of it with the resource limits we allow. The image will still appear in your media library and can be used in posts, but some features may not work without a thumbnail, like image gallery plugins.

After the end of the current semester, we’ll be working on some performance improvements to WordPress that may allow us to increase the resources available. Until then, we recommend resizing your image to less than 4500×4500 pixels in dimension before uploading it to WordPress.

Updates

• Drupal file_entity 7.x-2.21
• WordPress Appointments+ 2.2.6
• WordPress CommentPress Core 3.9.11
• WordPress Instagram Feed 1.8.3
• WordPress Jetpack 6.1
• WordPress Sydney Toolbox 1.02

These updates were applied in development, put are waiting until Thursday, May 10 for a database update to be applied to production.

• Drupal block_field 8.x-1.0-alpha6
• Drupal easy_breadcrumb 8.x-1.8
• Drupal media_entity_image 8.x-1.3
• Drupal pathauto 8.x-1.2
• Drupal redirect 8.x-1.2

Fixes and Tweaks

• MediaWiki was moved to a new server with PHP 7.1 installed.
• SiteImprove had trouble crawling our site on Tuesday, April 17 and has had intermittent crawling since then. We’ve worked with them to increase their crawl rate and fix issues. SiteImprove reports should be going out as normal now.
• We’ve fixed a glitch that was preventing course groups in the Course Hubs from updating from Banner so add/drops should be flowing through to the Hubs again.
• Added CAS support for PeopleGrove.

Ongoing Work

• Fixes and tweaks for the new Institute site https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/
• Upgrading applications to run on PHP 7.1.
• Upgrading the Drupal sites for the Davis programs, Dining Menus, and Museum of Art to Drupal 8.
• Upgrading CAS to 5.2.3

This week we applied another round of critical security updates to both Drupal 7 and Drupal 8.  There is more information about the upgrades here.

This week we experienced issues with the printable course catalog going offline.  A temporary fix has been issued but we are waiting for the end of class registration to tamper with the live version.

Updates

• Drupal 8.5.3
• Drupal 7.59
• Drupal Webform 7.x-4.17
• Drupal Menu Entity Index – applied patch
• WordPress Commentpress Core 3.9.10
• WordPress Foogallery 1.4.29

Ongoing Work

• Fixes and tweaks for the new Institute site https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/
• Upgrading applications to run on PHP 7.1.
• Upgrading the Drupal sites for the Davis programs, Dining Menus, and Museum of Art to Drupal 8.
• Upgrading CAS to 5.2.3

Thank you for your patience as we applied this critical security update. Technical details are available on the Drupal project website. All sites now have this update applied and should be considered stable.