During the Tuesday, 1 March maintenance window, maintenance work affecting a number of services will occur, starting at 5:30 PM. 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. For smaller buildings, the work might be completed in 30 minutes, while larger buildings may take up to 90 minutes.
Barratt Lecture Complex
Beethoven House
Eden Grove
ELRC
IWR
Main Admin (south of the clock tower)
New Arts Building
Physics Building
Steve Biko Building
Wi-Fi: software will be updated on Wi-Fi access points in the buildings listed below. Wi-Fi services will be unavailable in areas of the buildings as each access point is updated, which takes around 10 minutes.
Catering and Housekeeping Headquarters
Continuing Education Centre
Great Hall
Highway Africa Building
Jan Smuts Dining Hall
Nuns’ Chapel
Selwyn Castle
Sports Admin
Steve Biko Building
Request Tracker (RT): RT software will be upgraded. We expect an outage of four to six hours, possibly extending to early Wednesday morning, during which time it will not be possible to access the RT web interface. E-mail messages will be processed once the upgrade has been completed.
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
Web proxies
Registration system
Incoming e-mail
Outgoing e-mail
IMAP e-mail mailboxes
Webmail
Mailing lists
SMS
Provisioning (web proxy autodiscovery)
Wi-Fi and VPN authentication
CHERTL Evaluation Assistant
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)
IMAP discontinuation: as part of the process of discontinuing IMAP mailboxes on imap.ru.ac.za, access to shared mailboxes will be blocked. Should this change affect your access to email, please contact support@ru.ac.za (046 603 8288) for advice. Please note that the imap.ru.ac.za IMAP service will be shut down entirely in future.
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.