noticeboard.ru.ac.za

During the Tuesday, April 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:

• Wireless & VPN authentication: the RADIUS server that provides authentication for the wireless network and for VPN access will be upgraded. This will likely take several hours, during which time new connections cannot be made to either the wireless network (including Rhodes users using eduroam on other campuses) or the VPN. Existing connections will likely continue to work until periodic re-authentication is required.
  
• Web proxy servers: the software running on the web proxy servers will be updated. There are two proxy servers, and only one will be affected at a time. You may experience slow web browsing, and occasional connection errors. Correctly configured web browsers will automatically fail onto the remaining working proxy. Non-web traffic should be largely unaffected.
  
• Server software updates: software on the servers which provide the following services will be updated, resulting in outages of approximately five minutes per server:
  • DNS
  • DHCP
  • Incoming e-mail
  • Registration system
  • Provisioning (web proxy autodiscovery, telephone provisioning)
  • Apple Software Update Server
  
  
• Firewall software updates: 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.
  
• St Peter's Campus sector: changes will be made to the distribution routers serving the St Peter's campus sector, which may result in a network outage (including phones and Internet access) for the entire sector (including Eden Grove).
  
• Network renames: Some networks will be renamed better reflect the correct names of the buildings the serve:
  
  • "union" network will be renamed "biko"
  • "san" network will be renamed "healthcare"
  • "orielk" network will be renamed "cl"
  This is not expected to cause any outage.
  
• AMM Data Centre: A software upgrade will be performed on the network switches serving AMM data centre. This will cause a temporary disruption to services provided out of AMM data centre (but, see below).
  
• Virtual infrastructure changes: a number of services will be migrated out of the AMM data centre in preparation for the maintenance work early Wednesday morning. This is not expected to have any noticeable impact, but most centrally provided services will be at risk as a result.

This maintenance work is being undertaken in the ITSC-approved scheduled maintenance window, and should be completed before midnight. More information about maintenance windows and maintenance periods.

The update to the web proxy servers encountered some unexpected problems. Whilst we've managed to resolve the problem, this was done at the expense of some configuration changes that might negatively impact performance. As a result, only one of the two proxies has been updated; the other remains unchanged.

The change will be monitored during the course of the coming week. If (as is expected) there is no performance impact, we'll complete the update of the second proxy during the minor maintenance period next Tuesday. If it does turn out to have a performance impact, we'll investigate reverting the change on the first.