2024/04/23 - Scheduled maintenance, 23 April

During the Tuesday, 23 April maintenance window, maintenance work will affect certain services, starting at 5:30 PM and being completed before midnight. The following work is planned: DMARC policy update: DMARC is a framework for improving the authenticity of messages from an email domain. For a number of years, the DMARC policy for the @ru.ac.za has allowed us to monitor the extent of forging/spoofing of the @ru.ac.za domain.We're about to begin strengthening that policy to make it harder for forged messages to be delivered at all, because of the risk that forged messages could be used in phishing scams or other security attacks. On Tuesday evening, as a first step, we will publish a policy requiring that email systems quarantine 0% of non-DMARC compliant messages from @ru.ac.za addresses. That percentage will be gradually increased over the next few months, and eventually all non-DMARC compliant messages will be rejected.While we have done extensible monitoring to reduce the chance of this, it is still possible that legitimate email messages from RU senders might no longer be deliverable. If that should happen, you might find that email messages that you've sent from your RU address are returned (bounced) to you, or delivered into your recipients' spam folders.Particularly if that happens with contacts or mailing lists that you've have written to previously, please let I&TS Division know by contacting support@ru.ac.za. If you've received an undeliverable notification (bounce message) please be sure to include a copy of that. iPrint: software on the iPrint servers will be updated. We expect an outage of an hour affecting printing to all iPrint printers. Storage systems: software on storage systems will be updated. No noticeable outage is expected, though an unexpected failure during the upgrade would cause an outage affecting almost all services. Internet edge routers: the software on one of the two edge routers will be updated. No noticeable outage is expected as all network traffic should be handled by the other edge router. This work is being conducted during a minor maintenance period. Should there be a compelling reason why this work should not go ahead as planned, please contact support@ru.ac.za before 3:00 PM on Tuesday.

2024/04/16 - Scheduled maintenance, 16 April

During the Tuesday, 16 April maintenance window, maintenance work will affect certain services, starting at 5:30 PM and being completed before midnight.  The following work is planned: Distribution routers: software will be updated on the routers serving all buildings in the areas listed below.  A few brief interruptions (less than ten minutes) are expected, but in the event of unforeseen problems, all network services (including Wi-Fi and IP telephones) will be affected, possibly for a number of hours. North campus:  all buildings north of Prince Alfred St and west of Somerset St St Peters campus: all buildings south of Lucas Avenue. West campus: all buildings which are west of South St and north of Prince Alfred St  Core routers: the software on one of the two core routers will be updated. No noticeable outage is expected as all network traffic should be handled by the other core router.  Internet edge routers: the software on one of the two core routers will be updated. No noticeable outage is expected as all network traffic should be handled by the other edge router. This work is being conducted during a minor maintenance period. Should there be a compelling reason why this work should not go ahead as planned, please contact support@ru.ac.za before 3:00 PM on Tuesday.

2024/04/09 - Scheduled maintenance, 9 April

During the Tuesday, 9 April maintenance window, maintenance work will affect certain services, starting at 5:30 PM and being completed before midnight.  The following work is planned: Distribution routers: software will be updated on the routers serving the university data centres.  A few brief interruptions (less than five minutes) are expected, but in the event of unforeseen problems, all services hosted in data centres will be affected, possibly for as long as an hour. Core routers: the software on one of the two core routers will be updated. No noticeable outage is expected as all network traffic should be handled by the other core router.  Internet edge routers: the software on one of the two core routers will be updated. No noticeable outage is expected as all network traffic should be handled by the other edge router. This work is being conducted during a minor maintenance period. Should there be a compelling reason why this work should not go ahead as planned, please contact support@ru.ac.za before 3:00 PM on Tuesday.

2024/04/02 - Scheduled maintenance, 2 April

During the Tuesday, 2 April maintenance window, maintenance work affecting a number of services will occur, starting at 5:30 PM and being completed before midnight.  The following work is planned: 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 IMAP e-mail mailboxes Mailing lists SMS Provisioning (web proxy autodiscovery) Wi-Fi and VPN authentication Network graphs 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) File servers/home directories (gnu, serval, studentfiles) PC login service for public labs 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.

2024/03/26 - Scheduled maintenance, 26 March

During the Tuesday, 26 March maintenance window, maintenance work will affect certain services, starting at 5:30 PM and being completed before midnight. The following work is planned: Access switches: software will be updated on the network switches in the buildings listed below. All network services (including Wi-Fi and IP telephones) will be disrupted in those buildings. The work in each building is expected to be completed in 30 minutes. ABET Lab in the Main Admin Building Adamson Annexe 26A, 70, 73 and 74 African St Allan Webb Dining Hall Building Maintenance headquarters Catering and Housekeeping headquarters Chessington Flats College Housekeeping Day Kaif Drostdy Barracks Founders Dining Hall 3, 5 and 6 Gilbert St GLT Building Grounds and Gardens headquarters Health Care Centre INI Building King Field clubhouse, Stanley Kidd common room Law Clinic Literary Studies in English building New House annexes 1 and 4 Politics and International Studies Building 5 Prince Alfred St PSAM Building Psychology Clinic Salisbury House 29 and 33 South St Swimming pool and office The Hangar The Retreat This work is being conducted during a minor maintenance period. Should there be a compelling reason why this work should not go ahead as planned, please contact support@ru.ac.za before 3:00 PM on Tuesday.