Fri, 01 Nov 2013 16:23:47 +0200
During the Tuesday, November 5th maintenance window, maintenance work affecting a number of services will occur, starting at 5:30 PM:
- Firewall software updates: The software on the firewalls will be updated. As the firewalls operate as a redundant pair, it ought to be the case that no noticeable outage will occur. However, as this upgrade is a major version change, there is an increased likelihood of unforeseen problems which would cause longer outages as we attend to those problems. An outage will result in all Internet services being inaccessible from campus, and all campus-hosted services being inaccessible from the Internet.
- Wi-Fi controller change: the access points which have been installed as part of the 2013 Wi-Fi renewal project will switched to the alternate controller. Wi-Fi access will be unavailable an period of approximately five minutes.
- Inbound mail server software updates: software on the server which receives incoming mail for Rhodes @ru.ac.za and @campus.ru.ac.za e-mail addresses will be updated. No incoming mail will be received for a period of approximately five minutes. Once that maintenance is completed, messages which have been sent to Rhodes addresses will be delivered, but it may take a short while for external mail servers to being delivering to Rhodes again. Outbound messages (from Rhodes staff/students to other addresses) will not be affected.
- DNS/DHCP/NTP server software updates: software on the two servers which provide the DNS resolution, DHCP and NTP services will be updated. You may notice that network applications respond slower than usual during those times when the DNS server which is your PC's primary DNS resolver is unavailable. DNS queries will be answered by the secondary DNS resolver, but only once the request to your PC's primary DNS resolver has timed-out.
- RU Single Sign-On service software updates: software on the server which operates the RU Single Sign-On service will be updated, which will have the effect that staff/students will be unable to log in to services using the Single Sign-On service (such as RUconnected and Ex Libris) for approximately five minutes.
- Registration system software updates: software on a server involved in the network registration system will be updated, resulting in network registration being unavailable for approximately five minutes.
This maintenance work is being undertaken in the ITSC-approved scheduled maintenance window, and should be completed before midnight.
More information about maintenance windows and maintenance periods.