noticeboard.ru.ac.za

During the Tuesday, July 5th 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:

• Jackal: previous attempts to update the software on the jackal.ru.ac.za server have not been successful, so another attempt will be made to update it.  It will not be possible for students to log in to public labs or access files stored on jackal during the outage.  It is expected that jackal will be unavailable for the entire evening.
• 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.
• 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)
• Core and distribution routers: software on one of the core routers and the datacentre distribution routers will be updated. As these routers operate as redundant pairs, no noticeable outages are expected during this maintenance.

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.