From 6:00 PM on Sunday (30 July), all Internet access from Rhodes will be unavailable. It is anticipated that the outage will be at least an hour, but could carry on longer into the evening.
During the outage, we will be replacing our Internet firewalls. As all access to the Internet on campus goes via the firewalls, all Internet services (e-mail, web, etc.) will be unavailable. This is a fairly major undertaking, but it has become necessary since our current firewalls date back to 2001 and, though they've served well, they now need to be replaced. We will be installing a redundant pair of new firewalls, running new software, which should provide better security, performance and reliability.
Though we've tried to keep the firewall policy the same as it currently is, it is possible that certain services that have been allowed by the current firewalls might not be allowed by the new firewalls. If you find that certain Internet applications no longer work on Monday, please report the problem via the Software Support Helpdesk (support@ru.ac.za, 046 603 8288, or on the middle floor of the Struben Building) and we'll investigate the problem.