During the Tuesday, March 1st maintenance window, maintenance work affecting a number of services will occur, starting at 5:30 PM and being completed before midnight. The following will occur:
  • Wi-Fi controllers: software on the controllers managing Wi-Fi access points on campus will be updated. Wi-Fi access across campus will be unavailable for around ten minutes.
  • Hill campus sector distribution: the distribution switches serving the hill campus sector will be replaced.  This will result in network outages of up to an hour for buildings within the hill campus sector.  However, the certain residences can not be migrated during the maintenance window, and will be migrated on Wednesday morning so will experience an outage then.  The affected buildings will be:
    • Tuesday night
      • AMM
      • Botany orchard research site
      • Calata House
      • Catering and Housekeeping Headquarters
      • Chris Hani House
      • Continuing Education Centre
      • Cullen Bowles House
      • Furniture and Equipment Stores
      • Fine Art
      • Gavin Relly Postgraduate Village
      • The Hangar
      • Highway Africa
      • Joe Slovo House
      • Kimberley Dining Hall
      • Margaret Smith House
      • New House
      • Rosa Parks House
      • Vice Chancellor's Lodge
      • Waainek research site
    • Wednesday morning
      • Amina Cachalia House
      • De Beers House
      • Ellen Kuzwayo House
      • Goldfields House
      • Piet Retief House
      • Sisulu House
      • Thomas Pringle House
      • Walker House
  • Access switches:software on a number of access switches will be updated, causing a network outage (including Wi-Fi and IP telephones) of up to ten minutes in the following buildings:
    • AMM
    • Barratt
    • Bangor
    • Botany
    • DIFS
    • Dingemans
    • Drostdy Lodge
    • Geography
    • Geology
    • Highway Africa
    • HKE
    • Life Sciences
    • New Arts
    • Physics
  • Server software updates:software on the servers which provide the following services will be updated, resulting in outages of up to 15 minutes per server:
    • DNS
    • DHCP
    • NTP
    • RT
    • Web proxies
    • Registration system
    • Incoming e-mail
    • Outgoing e-mail
    • E-mail mailboxes
    • Webmail
    • Mailing lists
    • SMS
    • Apple Software Update Server
    • Provisioning (web proxy autodiscovery, telephone provisioning)
    • Wi-Fi and VPN authentication
    • CHERTL Evaluation Assistant
    • Network graphs
    • Guest network access
    • Network monitoring
    • Terminal Four content management system
    • RU Single Sign-On system
    • Main web server (www.ru.ac.za, etc)
    • University administration and meal booking systems
    • SEALS Library consortium services
    • Network printing services (iPrint / PaperCut)
    • Home directories (Gnu, Jackal)
  • Outgoing e-mail: a change in policy will result in any e-mail messages which are sent from Rhodes addresses but not via mail.ru.ac.za being rejected.  More details
  • files.ru.ac.za discontinued: the files.ru.ac.za file transfer service will be discontinued.  The SANReN FileSender service is recommended as an alternative.
  • Firewalls: software on the firewalls which connect the Internet to the campus, SEALS and public networks will be updated. As the firewalls operate as a redundant pair, no noticeable outages are expected during this maintenance.
  • VPN service: software on the router which provides VPN services will be updated. An outage of up to an hour is expected.

While we try to publish a list of all service-affecting work here in advance, the list should not be considered exhaustive and other low impact work may also be undertaken during the maintenance window.

This maintenance work is being undertaken in the ITSC-approved scheduled maintenance window. More information about maintenance windows and maintenance periods.