Indico Platform and 3.3.2 Upgrades
On Wed, 6/19, at 9am EST the Indico service here at BNL will enter a maintenance window for 8 hours.
We will be migrating from our older 3.1.1 version to the new 3.3.2 version. All account profiles, events and permissions will be preserved during this process. But, the Indico service will be temporarily unavailable during the window to lock the data. We apologize for any inconvenience.
3.3.2 may come with some new features (from 3.3.x and the 3.2.x series): https://getindico.io/indico/release/2023/12/05/indico-3-3-news.html and https://getindico.io/indico/release/2022/06/10/indico-3-2-news.html respectively. A full changelog for those interested can be found here: https://docs.getindico.io/en/latest/changelog/#version-3-3-2 . ITD will evaluate features and integrate them into our site as relevant.
Along with Indico upgrade we are also upgrading the hosting platform for Indico here at BNL. The host platform for Indico will be getting upgraded from RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) 7 to RHEL 9 because of security updates and support reaching End-of-Life for RHEL 7. There will be no major user facing changes expected from this upgrade.
Indico Platform Migration
Overnight on Wed (starting 8/16 - 1700hrs/5pm EST) the Indico server will be undergoing a migration to new upgraded infrastructure. The server and the events are not being altered. However, in order to preserve the service and data, Indico may be unavailable at times during that period. This is to ensure the event data is locked in for the migration. If you have any issues with this please contact indico@bnl.gov with you’re event information and reasons for needing the service that evening.
Indico 3.x (Update: the maintenance is now complete)
On Wed, 8/17, at 5pm EST the Indico service here at BNL will enter a maintenance window for 4 hours. We will be migrating from our older 2.3.2 version to the new 3.1.1 version. All account profiles, events and permissions will be preserved during this process. But, the Indico service might be temporarily unavailable during part of the window. We apologize for any inconvenience.
3.1.1 comes with some noticeable improvements such as a new integrated search feature, better avatar support, mixed category support, and various other quality of life improvements.
You can find out some more about some of the upgraded features of the 3.x series in general here: https://getindico.io/blog/ .
(Please note that not all features listed may be available yet or even applicable to the BNL instance of Indico. i.e. features relating to local accounts… etc.)
REMINDER! Transition to Federated logins Phase 3 begins on June 1, 2022
Upcoming Target dates
Phase three will start on June 1, 2022 with local account logins being turned off entirely. The option to merge an account with an existing local profile will continue to be available upon successful login to Indico. If you do not have a federated account, please follow the directions provided in our December 1, 2021 announcement, under the "Requesting support" section.
REMINDER! Transition to Federated logins Phase 2 begins on March 8, 2022
Starting on March 8, 2022, new Local account creations will be disabled. Local account access will continue until Phase 3 in June.
Upcoming Target dates
Phase two will begin on March 8, 2022 and the ability to create new Local accounts will be disabled. This phase will run for another three months.
Phase three will start on June 1, 2022 with local account logins being turned off entirely. The option to merge an account with an existing local profile will continue to be available upon successful login to Indico.
IMPORTANT! Transition to Federated logins starting in December
What is changing
In the coming months, the BNL Indico platform will begin phasing in the use of federated logins for Indico account access. This means that Indico accounts not linked to a federated identity through InCommon and its partner federations in eduGain will lose access after the final phase of this migration. Users of those accounts will need to migrate to a new federated account with an email address that is verified by an appropriate institution.
Transition overview
The transition to federated logins will be implemented in three phases. The first phase will be adding a "Federated authentication" option to the Indico login page. Once selected, users will be able to choose a Federated authentication source to authenticate to Indico. Upon successful authentication, an email address search is performed and Indico will prompt the user to link their accounts if a User profile match is found.Target dates
Starting on December 1, 2021, users will have 6 months to fully migrate to using Federated authentication for Indico access at BNL. Phase one will go live and users can start using Federated authentication and auto-merging their accounts.
Phase two will begin on March 1, 2022 and the ability to create new Local accounts will be disabled. This phase will run for another three months.
Phase three will start on June 1, 2022 with local account logins being turned off entirely. The option to merge an account with an existing local profile will continue to be available upon successful login to Indico.
User account merges
If an email address match is found upon successful login using federated authentication, users will be prompted to merge their accounts. This is intended behavior and will result in a user having just one account in the end. Users can still add additional email addresses to their profile under My profile settings - Emails.
If an email address match is not found, users will end up with a new Indico profile. In this case, a user may want to re-associate their new profile with an existing (non-federated) email address. This process must be done by an Indico administrator as Indico will just assume that it is a new account and a separate account already exists with the non-federated email address.
User resources
To ensure if your organization is federated or if you have a federated identity, you can visit the following links:
Requesting support
Please contact the ITD Helpdesk at itdhelp@bnl.gov and open a support ticket. When opening a support request for a manual account merge, please include the following information:
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Local account email address
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Federated account email address
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Indicate which account should be the primary account (account with existing permissions)
For all other Indico requests, please contact the ITD helpdesk and open a support ticket or contact the BNL Indico support team at indico@bnl.gov.
For users without an InCommon identity but who are associated to research programs supported by the SDCC, please go to https://www.sdcc.bnl.gov/information/getting-started to request accounts. This must be done well in advance of the June 1st deadline to ensure uninterrupted access to Indico at BNL.
