[Macpartners] MIT personal certificates - Time to Renew

[Deb Bowser]

Date:   June 10, 2008

To:     Members of the MIT Community

From:   Information Services and Technology (IS&T)

Subj:  MIT personal certificate renewal time and Web Browser  
Recommendations for FY 2009

--------------------

As many colleagues experience at this time of year, MIT's personal Web  
certificates will soon require renewal.  Certificates obtained in the  
past year are set to expire on July 31st, 2008.

Renewal of personal Web certificates is not automatic.  To ensure  
continued access to MIT's secure Web applications, such as, Benefits,  
SAPweb, WebSIS, etc., plan to renew in the coming weeks.  Acquire your  
own new personal certificates now at:

       <http://ca.mit.edu/>

In preparation for this renewal cycle, Information Services and  
Technology, (IS&T), and colleagues who maintain and support websites  
across MIT have developed the following browser recommendations.   
These browser recommendations help simplify IT support and provide a  
consistent set of standards for MIT web site maintainers.  Web site  
providers can use these standards to ensure delivery of quality web  
services to our community.    It is important that the web browser  
version be current with the operating system and all critical web  
browser patches be current.

For instructions on how to install certificates, please see the  
Installing Certificates at MIT page:
         http://web.mit.edu/ist/topics/certificates/guide.html#install

NOTE: If after installing your new certificate, you continue to  
experience problems accessing certificate-protected sites, you may  
want to try deleting your expired certificates, as documented here:  http://web.mit.edu/ist/topics/certificates/delete.html 
.   Do not delete an expired certificate if you have used it to sign  
or receive encrypted email.  For more information on what to do in  
that case, please see: http://web.mit.edu/ist/topics/certificates/export.html 
.

On Windows, Internet Explorer and Firefox are the recommended and  
supported web browsers for the upcoming fiscal year.
	  Vista Enterprise: IE 7 or Firefox 2.0.0.x
           Windows XP SP2 or higher:  IE 7 or Firefox 2.0.0.x
           It is recommended that 64-bit machines run the 32-bit  
version of Internet Explorer.

On Macintosh, Safari and Firefox are the recommended and supported web  
browsers for the upcoming fiscal year.
          MacOS X 10.4.11:           Safari 3.1.1 or Firefox 2.0.0.x
          MacOS X 10.5.2:             Safari 3.1.1 or Firefox 2.0.0.x

On Linux, Firefox is the recommended and supported web browser for the  
upcoming fiscal year.
        Linux RHEL 4.6 and earlier and RHEL 5.1 and earlier:      
Firefox 1.5.0.x
        Linux RHEL 4.7 and later and RHEL 5.2 and later:     Firefox  
3.0.x
        The RedHat Linux update service provides security updates to  
these web browsers

On Athena Solaris or Linux, Firefox is the recommended and supported  
web browser for the upcoming fiscal year.
             Athena on Linux:            Firefox 2.0.0.x
             Athena on Solaris 10:    Firefox 2.0.0.x
             Security updates provided by Athena update.

As a reminder, if you use certificates on multiple machines, you will  
need to get a new certificate for each machine.  Please encourage  
those you work with to renew as well.  More complete information and  
documentation is available at:  <http://web.mit.edu/ist/help/cert/>.

We hope that providing this information and these recommendations now  
will allow our colleagues to plan accordingly.  We remain confident  
that these web browser recommendations will be effective for the  
upcoming year and lessen the burden on software release efforts and  
desktop maintenance.  Please feel free to share this announcement with  
colleagues who may be interested and should you have any pressing  
questions or concerns, please feel free to contact Software Release  
team at <swrt at mit.edu>.


Deb Bowser
Team Leader - Software Release Team
Client Support Services
Information Services and Technology (IS&T)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room N42-250k
Cambridge, MA 02139
617-253-3879
bowser at mit.edu
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