At about lunch time yesterday (Wednesday 28th September) one of RUCUS's machine, shell.rucus.ru.ac.za, was taken down for a routine hardware upgrade. Unfortunately the upgrade did not go smoothly and RUCUS's systems administrators are currently trying to recover data from backups. As with any backup recovery, this is a painfully slow process and it is going to take some time for the machine to become operational again. At the moment, RUCUS's systems administrators are unable to predict exactly how long this will take but have indicated that it is likely that the machine will be unavailable for most of today.
As a result of this RUCUS users and members who store data on, or otherwise make use of the facilities provides by RUCUS's servers, will find that they're currently unable to access these resources. In addition, users who make use of the many mirror sites (za2.php.net, freebsd.ru.ac.za, etc) that RUCUS provides may find that connectivity to these sites is slow and/or intermittent.
Please be aware that none of RUCUS's machines are under the control of the IT Division. This post is provided for informational purposes only -- please direct any queries about this matter to RUCUS directly (sysadmin@rucus.ru.ac.za).