- 2021/09/14 - Scheduled maintenance, 14 September
- During the Tuesday, 14 September maintenance window, maintenance work will affect certain services, starting at 5:30 PM and being completed before midnight. The following work is planned:
PBX: software on the university telephone system will be updated. We expect that all phones (IP telephones and emergency phones) will be unable to make or receive calls for a period of up to an hour. Phones will likely show a message reading "Discover 146.231.128.90" during that time.
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.
- 2021/09/07 - Scheduled maintenance, 7 September
- During the Tuesday, 7 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:
Wi-Fi security certificate renewal: the certificate used to secure connections from Rhodes University staff/students to the eduroam and RUoffcampus Wi-Fi services will be updated.Users of Apple iPhones and/or iPads will be prompted to accept the new certificate when next they connect to an eduroam or RUoffcampus Wi-Fi network. When asked to accept the certificate, tap View Certificate Details then More Details. Check that the certificate was issued by DigiCert and that the serial number is:
09 91 0C F1 32 D5 83 74 D6 B4 9B 30 4F F3 EC B1
VPN service: the VPN service will be set to require TLS 1.2 for SSTP connections. The encryption supported by the previous TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 versions is no longer regarded as secure, so any PC using VPN software which is only capable of TLS 1.0/1.1 will no longer be able to connect to the VPN.
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
Webmail
Mailing lists
SMS
Provisioning (web proxy autodiscovery)
Wi-Fi and VPN authentication
CHERTL Evaluation Assistant
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)
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.
- 2021/08/17 - Scheduled maintenance, 17 August
- During the Tuesday, 17 August maintenance window, maintenance work will affect certain services, starting at 7:30 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. There may be times when it will not be possible to login to services which use the single sign on service, such as RUconnected, ROSS or library electronic resources, among others, at times during the evening.
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.
- 2021/08/03 - Scheduled maintenance, 3 August
- During the Tuesday, 3 August 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:
Wi-Fi: software will be updated on Wi-Fi access points in the buildings listed below. Wi-Fi services will be unavailable for 20 minutes.
2 and 3 Croft St
23 and 33 South St
19 Somerset St
Allen Flats
Anthropology GIS lab
Building Maintenance
Continuing Education Centre
Chessington Flats
Courtenay Latimer dining hall
Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Building
Day Care Centre
Drostdy dining hall
Founders Lodge
Furniture and Equipment Stores
Grounds and Gardens HQ
Health Care Centre
Hobson dining hall
ISER annexe
John Kotze annexe
Kimberley dining hall
Law Clinic
Maintenance Stores
Mandela dining hall
Old Laundry
Royal Engineers Building
St Mary dining hall
Stockenstrom Place
Waainek research site
VPN service: software on the router which provides VPN services will be updated. An outage of ten minutes is expected.
Telephones: software on the router which connects the PBX to our upstream provider will be updated. An outage of ten minutes is expected, during which time ongoing calls will be disconnected and it will not be possible to place or receive external calls.
Wireless links: software on point-to-point wireless link devices will be updated. This will cause network outages (including IP telephones and Wi-Fi access) of up to 20 minutes in the following buildings:
1 and 3 On Luke
Mandalay off High
Single Sign On service: the software which provides the single sign on service will be updated. There may be times when it will not be possible to login to services which use the single sign on service, such as RUconnected, ROSS or library electronic resources, among others, at times during the evening.
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
Webmail
Mailing lists
SMS
Provisioning (web proxy autodiscovery)
Wi-Fi and VPN authentication
CHERTL Evaluation Assistant
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)
Firewalls: software will be updated on the firewalls which connect the Internet to the campus, SEALS and public networks. As the firewalls operate as a redundant pair, no noticeable outage is expected during this maintenance.
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.
- 2021/07/15 - Scheduled electrical maintenance, 15-19 July
- Electrical maintenance work will be undertaken in the New Arts Building from 15-19 July (inclusive). As a result, all network services in the New Arts Building, including the Jacaranda Lab, will be unavailable during that time. This includes wired and Wi-Fi networks as well as telephone services.
Please note that it is possible that certain areas of the building may have electrical supply at certain times but that network services will still be unavailable if power is not being supplied to the network equipment in the building.
This work is not expected to affect network services in any other building.