noticeboard - summary

2025/10/07 - Scheduled maintenance, 7 October: During the Tuesday, 7 October 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: 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 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.
2025/09/30 - Scheduled maintenance, 30 September: During the Tuesday, 30 September maintenance window, maintenance work will affect certain services, starting at 5:30 PM and being completed before midnight. The following work is planned: Access switches: the network switches in the buildings listed below will be replaced. All network services (including Wi-Fi and IP telephones) will be disrupted in those buildings for up to 90 minutes. Life Sciences Building Terminal Four: Terminal Four software will be updated. We expect an outage of an hour during which time it will not be possible to change content managed by Terminal Four. Already-published web pages will still be accessible. Storage systems: software on storage systems will be updated. No noticeable outage is expected, though an unexpected failure during the upgrade would cause an outage affecting almost all services. This work is being conducted during a minor maintenance period. Should there be a compelling reason why this work should not go ahead as planned, please contact support@ru.ac.za before 3:00 PM on Tuesday.
2025/09/16 - Scheduled maintenance, 16 September: During the Tuesday, 16 September maintenance window, maintenance work will affect certain services, starting at 5:30 PM and being completed before midnight. The following work is planned: Server hardware updates: the servers which provide the following services will be migrated to new hardware. Disruption should be minimal as multiple servers provide each service. DNS DHCP NTP Access switches: the network switches in the buildings listed below will be replaced. All network services (including Wi-Fi and IP telephones) will be disrupted in those buildings for up to 90 minutes. Barratt Lecture Complex Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences (north side) Institute for Nanotechnology Innovation Core router: one of the two core routers in the campus network will be replaced with newer hardware. No noticeable outage is expected as all network traffic should be handled by the other core router. This work is being conducted during a minor maintenance period. Should there be a compelling reason why this work should not go ahead as planned, please contact support@ru.ac.za before 3:00 PM on Tuesday.
2025/09/09 - Scheduled maintenance, 9 September: During the Tuesday, 9 September maintenance window, maintenance work will affect certain services, starting at 5:30 PM and being completed before midnight. The following work is planned: Core router: one of the two core routers in the campus network will be replaced with newer hardware. No noticeable outage is expected as all network traffic should be handled by the other core router. JMS web sites: software maintenance on the server which hosts a number of JMS web sites should not result in any noticeable outage. In the event of unforeseen complications, though, some sites could stop working. This work is being conducted during a minor maintenance period. Should there be a compelling reason why this work should not go ahead as planned, please contact support@ru.ac.za before 3:00 PM on Tuesday.
2025/09/02 - Scheduled maintenance, 2 September: During the Tuesday, 2 September 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: 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 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.