- 2017/05/12 - WSUS service supports English only
- The university's Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) server will only provide updates for Microsoft's English language software from now on.
If the original installation language of Microsoft products on your PC is:
English (EN-US): no change is necessary. WSUS will continue to provide updates.
Any other language: please ensure that your PC is not configured to use the Rhodes WSUS service, but rather to download updates directly from Microsoft so that your PC continues to receive updates. Please check whether the "Rhodes Software Update" program is installed in the Control Panel under Programs and Features, and uninstall by right clicking on it and clicking Uninstall. This will change the settings back to the default, and your PC will fetch updates from Microsoft in future.
Should you have any further queries or need any assistance, please contact the I&TS service desk by mailing support@ru.ac.za.
- 2017/04/26 - Telephone system maintenance
- Maintenance will be conducted on the university's PBX systems on Wednesday, April 26th, starting at 5:30 PM and being completed before 8:30 PM. During the maintenance, there will be times when it will not be possible to receive incoming calls from outside the university or place outgoing calls to numbers outside the university.
As part of the migration from the Avaya Aura system to Avaya IP Office, the trunks from Telkom to the university will be disconnected from the Aura system and reconnected to the IP Office system. Call routing within both systems will then be adjusted accordingly.
We are working to permit outgoing calls from the university PBX to show the number of the person calling, rather than "private number". Depending on Telkom, that should happen either during this maintenance or during the coming week. We are engaging with Telkom to confirm when this will occur.
Please note that outgoing calls placed via the university switchboard will still show "private number" rather than the caller's own phone number.
- 2017/03/28 - iPrint maintenance
- During the Tuesday, March 28th minor maintenance window, maintenance work affecting iPrint services will occur, starting at 5:30 PM and being completed before midnight. The following work is planned:
iPrint: iprinta.ru.ac.za will temporarily lose connection to iPrint services in order to obtain an error log necessary for the troubleshooting of an intermittent recurring issue with iPrint. During this time, all printing services connected to iprinta.ru.ac.za are expected to be unavailable.Printing Services Affected in:
Library
Computer Labs
Academic Departments
Staff Offices
- 2017/02/28 - VPN service: PPTP protocol to be discontinued
- From the end of February 2017, the Rhodes University VPN service will no longer permit PPTP connections, as they are no longer regarded as sufficiently secure.
If you make use of the VPN service, please check the configuration of your VPN client.
Windows: if your VPN connection profile's Type of VPN option is already set to Automatic or SSTP, no changes are necessary. If your connection is set to "Point to Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP)", please change it to "Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP)". In the unlikely event that you're unable to connect using SSTP (for instance, because the network you're connected to doesn't permit it), you can try the L2TP/IPsec protocol by changing the VPN type to "Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol with IPsec (L2TP/IPsec)" then entering Preshared Key "vpn.ru.ac.za".
macOS, iOS or Android: as the VPN clients in these operating systems do not support SSTP, please use the L2TP/IPsec protocol instead of PPTP. Please ensure you set the Preshared Key to "vpn.ru.ac.za".
Configuration instructions are available on the configuration guides page. If you have any queries, please contact support@ru.ac.za.
- 2017/02/28 - Apple software update service to be discontinued
- The Apple software update service (applesus.ru.ac.za) will be discontinued at the end of February 2017, as it is very seldom used.
Any Macs still configured to use applesus.ru.ac.za should be reconfigured to the default setting, which is to download updates directly from Apple's servers, in order to ensure that they continue to receive updates.