noticeboard.ru.ac.za

2024/12/03 - Scheduled maintenance, 3 December
 

During the Tuesday, 3 December 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:

  • Single Sign On service: the software which provides the single sign on service will be updated. We expect that it will not be possible to login to services using the single sign on service, such as RUconnected, ROSS and Fincore, at times during the evening. Afterwards, when you access a service that uses single sign on the visual design of the login page will be different, as shown in the screenshot below.

    To ensure that you don't provide scammers with access to your Rhodes University account, please always confirm that the login page is authentic before entering your details. Do not proceed if you see "Not Secure" warnings in the address bar. Make sure that the web address hostname ends in ".ru.ac.za" (highlighted in the screenshots below) or, when accessing Google Workspace for Education services, ".google.com" or, when accessing Microsoft 365 services, ".microsoftonline.com".

  • PBX: software on the university telephone system will be upgraded to a new version by our service provider. We expect that all phones (IP telephones, mobile app and web client) will be unable to make or receive calls at times between 7 PM and 9 PM. After the upgrade is complete, there will be some visual differences to the web client.

    This work was previously planned for 19 and 21 November, but could not be completed due to a technical problem experienced by our service provider.

    • Update, 4 December: technical problems once again prevented completion of this work. It will be attempted again between 7 PM and 9 PM on Wednesday 4 December.
  • Distribution routers: software will be updated on the routers serving the university data centres. All services hosted in data centres may be affected, possibly for up to 30 minutes.

  • Distribution routers: software will be updated on the routers serving all buildings in the areas listed below. All network services (including Wi-Fi and IP telephones) may be disrupted in those areas for up to 30 minutes.

    • North campus: all buildings north of Prince Alfred St, from Somerset St to South St

    • Hill campus: all buildings which are south of Prince Alfred St and west of New House (inclusive).

  • 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. We expect the work will be completed in 30 minutes per building.

    • 26A, 70, 74 African St

    • 29, 33 South St

    • 3, 5, 6 Gilbert St

    • 5 Prince Alfred St

    • Adamson Annexe

    • Allan Webb dining hall

    • Building Maintenance HQ

    • Catering and Housekeeping HQ

    • Chessington Flats

    • College House

    • Day Kaif

    • Drostdy Barracks (Linguistics and Applied Language Studies)

    • Facilities and Infrastructure Division offices

    • Founders dining hall

    • Furniture and Equipment Stores

    • General Lecture Theatre

    • Grounds and Gardens HQ

    • Health Care Centre

    • Health Suite

    • King Field clubhouse

    • Law Clinic

    • Maintenance Stores

    • New House annexes 1 and 4

    • Politics and International Studies Building

    • PSAM Building

    • Psychology Clinic

    • Salisbury House

    • Stables

    • Starling House

    • Swimming Pool office

    • The Hangar

    • The Retreat (Humanities Faculty offices)

  • 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

    • Archibus

  • 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.

  • Administrative web applications: certain web applications hosted on dmuapps.ru.ac.za or mealserver.ru.ac.za may be inaccessible while software is updated.

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.


New single sign on service login page as shown in Firefox:

New single sign on service login page as shown in Firefox

New single sign on service login page as shown in Chrome:

New single sign on service login page as shown in Chrome

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