As announced last Spring, we replaced the underlying infrastructure for Cornell's Bear Access package of services. What was previously called SALSA is now BASIL.  This change was made to allow Bear Access to work with newer Macintosh operating systems and Windows Vista. The biggest groups of users affected by this decision are those who are still using Runway under Windows (the Macintosh version has not been supported for several years), followed by those users using the old Bear Access channel in uPortal.Cornell.

The target date for dropping support for Sidecar and SALSA is June 10, 2008 and the SALSA server will be turned off June 30, 2008.  Users will need to switch to uPortal.Cornell by the end of June, or they may experience a disruption of service.  Both the BASIL and SALSA infrastructures can co-exist in Bear Access Fall 2007 but that may not be possible once Bear Access Fall 2008 is installed.  If you wish to continue to use Runway you will need to go under Salsa Preferences and turn off updates, otherwise you will receive an error that the server can not be contacted.

Time Line

Infrastructure Issues

The switch from using SALSA to using BASIL for launching Bear Access services will be completed during the Spring semester. The following infrastructure changes are planned: 

• Replacing SALSA links with BASIL links: (Jan'08->May'08)
  Work is progressing to replace SALSA based links in uPortal.Cornell with BASIL based links. To make this transition transparent users will need to install the Bear Access 2007 Infrastructure. 
  
  Both BASIL and SALSA infrastructure can coexist though Spring 2008. Following the June 10 release of Bear Access Fall 2008, this may no longer be true.
   
• Removing Kerberos 4 dependency:
  The goal is to remove all Kerberos 4 dependencies from Bear Access Fall 2008 services. (Jun'08)
   
  • Macintosh:
    Kerberos 4 is not supported under Macintosh Leopard which means that SALSA and Sidecar are not supported under Leopard. Runway has not been supported on the Macintosh platform for several years.
     
  • Windows:
    Kerberos for Windows is presently planned for the Fall'08 Bear Access release. This version of the Kerberos libraries is compatible with Kerberos 4, but they will not obtain Kerberos 4 tickets unless necessary. As a result, there may be a secondary NetID and Password prompt if you encounter a service that still requires Kerberos 4 credentials even if you already have Kerberos 5 credentials.
    
    
  • Sidecar:
    Sidecar relies on Kerberos 4 so it is also scheduled to be retired with the new release of Bear Access.  Services that rely on the Out-Of-Band port 913 call-back function (News and Net-Print) will be updated to no longer require it.
     
  • Kerberos Viewer:
    A new application will be released to replace the Kerberos Ticket Viewer function currently embedded into the Sidecar application.

• Switch to uPortal.Cornell: (Jan'08)
  By switching to uPortal.Cornell now, the retirement of Runway and SALSA in June will be transparent to most users.  Users need to install the Bear Access Fall 2007 Infrastructure.
   
• Bear Access Tab: (Jun'08)
  The new version of Bear Access will be released on June 10. On that date the Bear Access tab on uPortal.Cornell will only contain BASIL-based links and the old Bear Access 2006 channel will no longer be available. There are no plans to disable SALSA and Runway until the end of June but it is possible that services may have been changed since June 2007 so you may not be using the latest version of software if you have not already installed BASIL.  That will allow almost three (3) weeks to migrate to uPortal.Cornell. 
   
• SALSA server shutdown: (Jul'08)
  At the end of June CIT's plan is to power down the SALSA server. This will cause Runway (and Agent Harry requests via the Web browser) to display warning messages that they are unable to contact the server.
  
  

Client Issues

Several of the existing services will be updated in the Spring so they will no longer be dependent on Kerberos 4. 

• Colts II should be replaced by Colts III.
   
• Just the Facts, Faculty Advisor, and other student services will be replaced by STARS in the March/April time frame.
   
• SES, PEDL, and WTL will be updated before June 2008 so they will no longer require Kerberos 4.
   

Other Issues

• Links to SALSA-based services from other channels and tabs on uPortal.Cornell:
  CIT will work with the channel owners to convert links that rely on the SALSA/Agent Harry infrastructure to the BASIL infrastructure before the end of June.
   
• If you know of other issues please pass them along to us at ba-feedback@cornell.edu.