How come I have only just received this message (allegedly sent on Tuesday) this morning and there's no invite in my Teams calendar? I can't make the meeting if it's this morning nor tomorrow if before 11:30am but here's my tupp'orth: the Apple DEP (Device Enrollmenrt Program) has scuppered a project in Maths where we bought some Mac Mini M1s from the offcial College Apple supplier to be rack-mounted for use as build farm servers for software development. This farm would use a local LAN and not be connected directly to the College network, with access via ssh only from a build master server. But as soon as they are powered on, the DEP client starts up asking for an ICT username, etc and they are completely useless to us. I have pointed out to ICT that they cannot remote-manage these systems anyway if they're not on a College network etc, etc. but to no avail. It seems the best we can do is redeploy these systems to Maths users as desktops and go & buy Mac Minis from PC World in Kensington High St. Otherwise they're just expensive paperweights. Andy On Tue, 6 Sep 2022, French, Paul (PHOT) M W wrote:

Sorry David,

I am away. I could suggest Mark Neil to represent PHOT - he is a Mac user and does a lot of computing

Best wishes,

Paul

(If I email you out of normal working hours, I would not expect any response before your next working day)

-----Original Message----- From: David Colling <d.colling@imperial.ac.uk> Sent: 06 September 2022 14:32 To: physics-departmental-computing <physics-departmental-computing@imperial.ac.uk> Cc: Bresme, Fernando <f.bresme@imperial.ac.uk>; Pearse, Will <will.pearse@imperial.ac.uk>; Keaveny, Eric E <e.keaveny@imperial.ac.uk>; Sternberg, Michael J E <m.sternberg@imperial.ac.uk>; French, Paul (PHOT) M W <paul.french@imperial.ac.uk>; Mortlock, Daniel J <d.mortlock@imperial.ac.uk>; Jaffe, Andrew H <a.jaffe@imperial.ac.uk>; Staffell, Iain L <i.staffell@imperial.ac.uk> Subject: 11am this Thursday - Meeting with ICT to discuss issues with college policy on Apple devices

Dear FoNS and Physics Computing people,

A number of people raised issues concerning how college now "take over" new Apple computers. My apologies for the short notice but we are having a meeting with ICT in their operations slot this Thursday to discuss these issues and how we can progress in a constructive way.

All are welcome to this meeting and ICT will be represented at the highest level. Please circulate this message to anybody who you think will be interested as this issue seems to have been a pain in the neck for quite a number of people.

If you cannot make it then please send me details of how this has caused you problems so that I can relay them - please make these simple as I am not really a Mac user.

I hope that this meeting also addresses the wider subject of how ICT tries to bring in changes of this sort.

Best, david _______________________________________________ Physics-Departmental-Computing mailing list Physics-Departmental-Computing@imperial.ac.uk https://mailman.ic.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/physics-departmental-computing

Hi David Yes there is also Teams. It is on the meeting invite that you should have received and below for others. ________________________________________________________________________________ Microsoft Teams meeting Join on your computer or mobile app Click here to join the meeting<https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_N2VhZjZlZWUtNTA2Zi00NDAxLTk4MGYtOTQ5NDYzOGU0MTk5%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%222b897507-ee8c-4575-830b-4f8267c3d307%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22cf35391d-347b-4114-839e-382591addc9c%22%7d> Meeting ID: 385 754 117 39 Passcode: X8oCiq Download Teams<https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/download-app> | Join on the web<https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-teams/join-a-meeting> Or call in (audio only) +44 20 7660 8164,,582812543#<tel:+442076608164,,582812543#> United Kingdom, London Phone Conference ID: 582 812 543# Find a local number<https://dialin.teams.microsoft.com/f9f35326-5b0f-4124-8774-bbda5b88462e?id=582812543> | Reset PIN<https://dialin.teams.microsoft.com/usp/pstnconferencing> [https://www.imperial.ac.uk/ict/assets/imperial_blue_small_logo.jpg] Learn More<https://aka.ms/JoinTeamsMeeting> | Meeting options<https://teams.microsoft.com/meetingOptions/?organizerId=cf35391d-347b-4114-839e-382591addc9c&tenantId=2b897507-ee8c-4575-830b-4f8267c3d307&threadId=19_meeting_N2VhZjZlZWUtNTA2Zi00NDAxLTk4MGYtOTQ5NDYzOGU0MTk5@thread.v2&messageId=0&language=en-US> | Legal<https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/administration-and-support-services/secretariat/public/ICL---Events-privacy-notice---10-October-2018.pdf> Thanks Andy ________________________________ From: David Colling <d.colling@imperial.ac.uk> Sent: Wednesday, September 7, 2022 6:08:31 PM To: physics-departmental-computing <physics-departmental-computing@imperial.ac.uk>; Richards, Andrew <a.j.richards@imperial.ac.uk> Cc: Bresme, Fernando <f.bresme@imperial.ac.uk>; Pearse, Will <will.pearse@imperial.ac.uk>; Keaveny, Eric E <e.keaveny@imperial.ac.uk>; Sternberg, Michael J E <m.sternberg@imperial.ac.uk>; French, Paul (PHOT) M W <paul.french@imperial.ac.uk>; Mortlock, Daniel J <d.mortlock@imperial.ac.uk>; Jaffe, Andrew H <a.jaffe@imperial.ac.uk>; Staffell, Iain L <i.staffell@imperial.ac.uk>; Jaffe, Andrew H <a.jaffe@imperial.ac.uk> Subject: Re: 11am this Thursday - Meeting with ICT to discuss issues with college policy on Apple devices Thank you for all the useful emails on this subject - they are very helpful. For those in college tomorrow the meeting will physically be in Sherfield 419. Andy, will there also be a teams channel that people can join? Best, david On 06/09/2022 14:31, David Colling wrote:

Dear FoNS and Physics Computing people,

A number of people raised issues concerning how college now "take over" new Apple computers. My apologies for the short notice but we are having a meeting with ICT in their operations slot this Thursday to discuss these issues and how we can progress in a constructive way.

All are welcome to this meeting and ICT will be represented at the highest level. Please circulate this message to anybody who you think will be interested as this issue seems to have been a pain in the neck for quite a number of people.

If you cannot make it then please send me details of how this has caused you problems so that I can relay them - please make these simple as I am not really a Mac user.

I hope that this meeting also addresses the wider subject of how ICT tries to bring in changes of this sort.

Best, david

Thanks for the update, I had wondered what transpired at that meeting since I wasn't able to attend it myself. Further to the comments I emailed to you on that day, as I understand it the College's quest for Cyber Essentials certification applies to systems hosted within ICT data centres or at the offsite co-location facility in Slough. Almost all of the Maths research IT infrastructure is hosted in a Maths server room so my reading of this it doesn't apply to systems that are (a) not in an ICT data centre, (b) not connected to a College network and (c) not directly accessible from outside College. So our four off-network Mac Minis in the Huxley building should not be part of the College's implementation of Apple's DEP. Good luck with your ongoing negotiations with ICT and in the meantime, our project remains stalled. Andy -------------------------- Andy Thomas Research Computing Manager Department of Mathematics Imperial College London On Fri, 16 Sep 2022, David Colling wrote:

Thank you again for all your replies, I have been meaning to send a summary all week so my apologies for the delay.

Basically, I am going to work with ICT in the next weeks to resolve these issues.

College is very keen to once again become Cyber Essentials certified. However, this must not get in the way of research. So we will look at exactly what this really means (which may well differ from how it is being interpreted). This may well be different for people with different levels of sensitive data for example. We will also look at whether all of college needs to be Cyber Essentials certified.

Ultimately, the CIO has made it very clear in the meeting (and personally to me outside of this meeting) that this will not be allowed to hinder research and that a solution will be found (which may be to remove this software for most research users or might be something else).

So I am afraid that the current answer is to watch this space for the moment but change will happen on a timescale of weeks.

In the meantime please do continue to send me the problems that you are encountering and let me know if you have raised them with ICT.

Best, david

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