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Notices and Alerts11/16/09, Telephone Maintenance Tonight We must perform some unplanned maintenance on our telephone system this evening, Monday November 16. The maintenance period will be brief, beginning at 6:00 PM; it should be completed by 6:30 PM. You may notice short outages of up to 10 minutes in which you cannot place or receive calls. If you experience an outage lasting beyond 6:30 PM, please get to another phone and leave a message at x.6012, and it will be investigated first thing in the morning on Tuesday 11/17. We regret the late notice to our community. 11/13/09, Don't Be Fooled ITS uses e-mail to communicate with you about computer and network events, such as planned maintenance periods and unplanned downtimes. Scammers know this, and will try to take advantage of you by sending official-looking messages about your "Inbox exceeding quota" or "confirming your account." If you reply, particularly if you give your password or other private information, you open yourself up to identity theft. How can you distinguish real ITS notices from scams? Here are some clues that will help you tell the difference:
If you ever wonder whether an e-mail message is legitimate, please contact the ITS Help Desk at x.6525 or via e-mail at helpdesk@macalester.edu. We'll be happy to check it out for you. If you keep these five guidelines in mind, chances are you'll be able to spot the scams every time on your own. 11/09/09, 1600grand Upgrade Successful Over the weekend of 11/7-8, we successfully upgraded 1600grand -
technically, by upgrading to the newest version of the portal software
Luminis. The upgrade went smoothly and we have not seen any significant
problems resulting from the upgrade. Remember, the quickest way to
access 1600grand is by following the link on www.macalester.edu,
Macalester's home page, at upper right in the quick links bar.
11/04/09, Telephone Outage: Check Your Messages Shortly before midnight last night, November 3, we were informed that the Macalester telephone system was out of service. A technician found the problem and restored service just after 1:30 AM on November 4. All phone services, including voice mail, should now be working properly. Even though voice mail message indicators should be working, if your message indicator has not been on yet today, you may want to check for messages, just in case the message light functionality was disrupted for you.
11/03/09, 1600grand and Banner Downtime 11/6 - 11/8 Starting at 5 p.m. Friday November 6, 1600grand will be unavailable due to a necessary upgrade. This should affect 1600grand and Banner access only. All other network services, including e-mail and the Internet, will remain available. The upgrade should be complete and services restored by 12:00 noon, Sunday November 8.
10/28/09, Halloween "Lights Out" Reminder This is the last followup reminder that we will be conducting significant maintenance to many electronic resources from 6:00 AM to 12:00 noon on Saturday, October 31. Internet access, Banner and 1600grand will remain available, although some 1600grand channels may not function. You should expect that all other electronic services, including e-mail, will be down during all or part of the maintenance period. All services should be restored by 12:00 noon at the latest. Servers and networked resources are like any other complex mechanism: regular maintenance keeps them running well and helps prevent problems, including significant unplanned service interruptions. We will be conducting similar extensive "lights out" maintenance periods, roughly four times per year. We will continue to send out advance notices to the community, and will collaborate with stakeholders who maintain major systems that will be affected. If you have questions or concerns about the Halloween maintenance period, please contact either Ramón Rentas (rentas@macalester.edu, x.6633) or Gabe Stitzel (stitzel@macalester.edu, x.6823). 10/27/09, Moodle Downtime Thursday 10/29 Attention Moodle users: Moodle will be unavailable on Thursday, October 29th from 7:00 AM to 11:00 AM in order to apply security patches and prepare for upcoming system integration changes. Only access to moodle.macalester.edu will be down during this time period. All other IT-related services will remain available (e.g. Internet access, e-mail, Banner/1600grand, etc.). We apologize for the short notice on this downtime. If you have any questions regarding this scheduled downtime please contact Adam Nave (nave@macalester.edu) at 696-6181. 10/22/09, Web Server Reboot 4:45 PM The primary Macalester Web server - the source for www.macalester.edu and most departmental Web pages - is experiencing memory issues. These problems will get worse and service will continue to degrade until the server is rebooted. The reboot process takes approximately 15 to 20 minutes, during which time those Web resources will not be available. We plan to "throw the switch" and perform this needed reboot today, Thursday October 22, at 4:45 PM. We regret that the nature of this problem forces us to act with only very short notice. If you have questions or concerns, please contact Gabe Stitzel (stitzel@macalester.edu) at x.6823. 10/20/09, Banner/1600grand downtime Saturday 10/24 Attention all Banner and 1600grand users: the 1600grand system will be taken offline this Saturday, October 24 from 10:00 AM to 12:00 noon for scheduled maintenance. This outage will only affect 1600grand and Banner users. Faculty, staff and student Self Service applications (e.g. grading, view/pay my bill, leave details) delivered through 1600grand will be unavailable. Internet access, e-mail, Moodle, etc. will not be impacted. If you have questions about this maintenance, please contact Ramón Rentas at x.6633 or via e-mail (rentas@macalester.edu). 10/19/09, Services Not Affected on Halloween As a reminder, ITS Network staff have scheduled a regular "lights out" maintenance session for Saturday, October 31 from 6:00 AM to 12:00 noon. We can confirm that there will be no interruptions to these three services:
You should expect that all other networked services, including e-mail, will not be accessible during all or part of the maintenance period. We plan to restore all services by 12:00 noon. We will be contacting the owners/maintainers of some systems to consult in advance about the maintenance. If you have questions or concerns, please contact either Ramón Rentas (rentas@macalester.edu, x.6633) or Gabe Stitzel (stitzel@macalester.edu, x.6823). 10/13/09, Halloween System Maintenance ITS has scheduled a regular "lights out" system maintenance period for Saturday, October 31, beginning at 6:00 AM and ending at 12:00 noon. We will be performing upgrades, testing connections, patching and doing other tasks to keep our critical campus systems running efficiently. At this time, we are still determining which systems most need work. As we get closer to this Halloween maintenance period, we plan to list which services will remain available during the maintenance. Please expect that all networked services will be down, completely or intermittently, during the maintenance period. If you have questions or concerns, please contact Ramón Rentas via e-mail or at x.6633. 10/05/09, Problems Calling 911 We are experiencing intermittent problems dialing and connecting to Saint Paul 911 operators. If you call 911 and get a busy signal, hang up and try again. If the problem continues, place your 911 call using a mobile phone. In addition, call Campus Security at x6555 and report your emergency. Qwest is working on finding the problem and repairing it as quickly as possible. If you have any questions about this matter contact Kelly Borke at x6566. 09/30/09, Snow Leopard Alert Apple released its new operating system in late August. If you are considering upgrading your Macintosh to OS X 10.6, 'Snow Leopard,' you should know that the current version of Symantec Anti-Virus will not work with Snow Leopard. Symantec AV is the virus fighter ITS licenses and distributes for campus and home use. Snow Leopard may also conflict with other software often used at Macalester. Although Apple has released a list of known incompatibilities with Snow Leopard (at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3258), the OS is new to campus and further incompatibilities may arise. If you are considering purchasing an upgrade to Snow Leopard, you may wish to wait until ITS has tested the software further and is able to support it fully. If you have already upgraded to Snow Leopard and want to backgrade to OS X 10.5, 'Leopard,' we can help you. Just call the Help Desk at x.6525. If you have bought a new Apple computer that came with Snow Leopard loaded, the Help Desk can assist you in backgrading temporarily. Finally, if you have upgraded to Snow Leopard and want to remove Symantec Anti-Virus altogether, or if you have any other questions or problems with Snow Leopard, please call or e-mail the Help Desk (helpdesk@macalester.edu). Apple computers have a reputation for rarely being targets of computer viruses, so you may wonder why we're concerned about the Symantec AV/Snow Leopard incompatibility. Simply put, assuming "it can't happen to my Mac" is taking a risk, and we want you to be aware of the possibility. 09/28/09, Details on Google Mail Problems Google has published a report analyzing what caused service problems on Thursday September 24. The text of that report is reproduced below. You can also download it directly from Google, in PDF format, here: www.google.com/appsstatus/ir/tqf22jly22wqytr.pdf. Friday, September 25, 2009 Incident Summary Between 7:00 AM - 9:50 PDT (14:00 - 16:50 GMT), Thursday September 24, Google Apps users were unable to access the Contacts feature through the Gmail interface. However, they could view their contacts at an alternate URL. During this period, most customers also could not access Google Talk or add users to their Google Apps accounts. Until 8:30 AM PDT (15:30 GMT), users could not access Gmail or found that Gmail loaded very slowly. Users could continue to access their accounts using IMAP throughout this period. No data was lost during this incident. The Google Engineering team has determined that the root cause of this incident was a high load on the Contacts service. We understand that this service outage has affected our valued customers and their users, and we sincerely apologize for the disruption and any impact to your organization. Review and Preventative Actions Beginning at 7:00 AM PDT (14:00 GMT), Thursday September 24, an issue with the Contacts feature caused its performance to severely degrade. This issue caused problems with Gmail access, and users received a 500-series timeout error or found that Gmail pages loaded very slowly. The Google Engineering team investigated the issue, and at 7:57 AM PDT (14:57 GMT), they temporarily stopped all requests to use the Contacts feature from the Gmail interface to alleviate the Gmail issue. By 8:30 AM PDT (15:30 GMT), Gmail access returned to normal for all users. An alert banner in Gmail notified customers that Contacts could not be displayed though the links in Gmail. The Apps Status Dashboard described a workaround in which users could view contacts directly at www.google.com/contacts/yourdomain.com. During this period, affected users also could not access Google Talk or add new user accounts to their Google Apps accounts. To restore these features, the Engineering team deployed additional capacity to the Contacts service through Google's flexible capacity server systems. At 9:30 AM PDT (16:30 GMT), the Engineering team restored use of the Contacts feature from the Gmail interface, and by 9:50 AM PDT (16:50 GMT), the Contacts, Google Talk, and "add user" features returned to normal for affected users. No data was lost during this time. After an internal investigation and review, the Engineering team has determined that the root cause of the Contacts issue was a high load on the service. This load was the result of a combination of the following:
The Google Engineering team is continuing their analysis, and this incident report will be updated with the plan to help address the underlying cause of the problem and to help prevent recurrence. We appreciate your patience and again apologize for the impact to your organization. Thank you for your business and continued support. Sincerely, The Google Apps Team 09/24/09, Google Mail Problems Google e-mail services are experiencing problems. These problems are affecting both Google Apps and GMail, and extend beyond Macalester's campus. Google has acknowledged the problems and is working to fix them. We will post more information when we have it. If you want to check directly with Google, go to www.google.com/appsstatus (note the double S). 09/18/09, Try a Wired Connection Students, did you know that wired networking is faster, more secure and more
robust than wireless access? All true. Additionally, when you connect
to a wireless network signal, you're sharing it with others nearby. As more
people try to connect at the same time, your share of that signal
diminishes, and with it the quality of your network use.
09/08/09, Enhanced Novell Security In an effort to enhance our data security procedures, we are phasing out
the use of Social Security numbers as unique identifying information.
To do this, we have reset the challenge questions used to verify your
identity when using the Password Self-Service tool, at
activate.macalester.edu. We recommend that you go to this page, log in,
and re-answer the challenge questions. If you have the current version
of the Novell Netware client, you will be prompted to do so every time
you log in, until you re-answer the questions. On the plus side,
re-answering the challenge questions will speed up the Novell login
process.
09/02/09, More On Yesterday's Google Outage Google's blog shows a post from Ben Treynor, VP Engineering and Site Reliability Czar, giving more information on yesterday's e-mail outage. You can read all about it at http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/more-on-todays-gmail-issue.html. 09/01/09, 4:20 PM: Google E-mail Service Restored Google e-mail service has been restored. Google has not yet released information pinpointing the cause of the disruption, although it is clear that many Google mail customers - not just Macalester - were affected. When we have more solid information on this disruption, we will post it here, on the ITS Notices and Alerts page. You can also check Google's Status Dashboard at www.google.com/appsstatus. Information about today's outage may be found at http://www.google.com/appsstatus#rm=1&di=1&hl=en. 09/01/09, 3:00 PM: Google E-mail Disruption Google e-mail service has been disrupted at the source. This problem is affecting many Google customers, not just Macalester. Google has issued a statement saying "we're aware of a problem with Googe Mail affecting a majority of users." They promise an update later this afternoon. We are actively monitoring the disruption and will pass along more information as we get it. This message has been forwarded via voicemail to campus department coordinators and other office communicators, with a request that they forward it to everyone in their respective areas. 8/26/09, All Telephone Service Restored All campus telephones should now be back in service. If your phone is not functioning properly, please call x.6566 or e-mail Kelly Borke, borke@macalester.edu. 08/25/09, Telephone Outage Update, 3:15 PM Service has been restored to approximately 85% of campus telephones, voicemail, the college's switchboard (x.6000) and Campus Security (x.6555). Repairs continue, and the remaining phones should be working again by midmorning tomorrow, Wednesday 8/26. 08/25/09, Telephone Outage Update, 11:30 AM It appears that our campus-wide telephone outage may be due to a lightning
strike early this morning. Technicians are bringing repair parts to campus,
and hope to have service restored mid-afternoon. We will pass along further
updates as more information becomes available.
08/25/09, Telephone Service Disruption Most campus telephones are out of service. This problem was detected
early this morning, Tuesday August 25. Technicians have been alerted
and dispatched to campus. Those few phones that do have dial tone can
call out, but are not able to receive incoming calls. No other IT
services seem to be affected.
08/24/09, Graduated Seniors' Accounts Closing 8/31 This is a gentle reminder that accounts for seniors who graduated in the
Class of 2009 will be closed on Monday, August 31. If you have not
already done so, please migrate or copy your data (files, Web pages,
etc.) and your e-mail out of your Macalester accounts before that date.
08/18/09, Banner/1600grand Downtime Thursday 8/20 Attention Banner and 1600grand users: the Banner/1600grand systems will be unavailable on Thursday, August 20 from 5:30 PM to 8:00 PM in order to replace faulty hardware. Only access to Banner/1600grand will be down during this time period. All other IT-related services will remain available (e.g. Internet access, e-mail, Moodle, etc.). If you have any questions regarding this scheduled downtime please contact Tim Friemann (friemann@macalester.edu) at 696-6879. 08/14/09, Student Residential Computer Information This message was sent to all students via Student-Notification-L. It will be most helpful to you if you are going to live on campus, whether you're a new or returning student. In brief:
If you bring a computer to campus, you will need to register it on both our wired and wireless networks in order to access networked resources. Full information was sent to you on August 4. You can access that same information in our ITS "What's New?" archive, in the 8/4/09 posting on http://www.macalester.edu/its/whatsnew/. Registration will go quickly if your computer is fully updated, but may take a long time if not, so update before you arrive. After you get to campus, we're ready to help you with your computer. New and transfer students, you should plan to drop by the ITS Orientation/connection sessions in the DeWitt Wallace Library. These sessions are from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM on Friday September 4 and Saturday September 5. Bring your computer in, and we'll help you get registered and connected. The ITS Help Desk is located in Humanities building, room 314. If you cannot attend either of the drop-in sessions on Friday or Saturday, call the Help Desk at x.6525 or come by between 12:00 noon and 6:00 PM on Sunday September 6. The Help Desk may also have some hours open on Monday September 7, Labor Day; for updates, please call x(651) 696-6525. Full details about ITS assistance for student computers may be found on the Web at http://www.macalester.edu/its/helpdesk/resnet.html. If you have not already reviewed the ITS Student Orientation page, check it out at http://www.macalester.edu/its/orientation/. 08/10/09, Campus Phone Service Restored The campus phone service has been restored! However, some phones may have been directly impacted by the lightning. If you do not have dial tone, please report it to Telecommunications by calling x.6566 from a working phone, or email borke@macalester.edu. If you have phones in your area that are not currently attended, please check those, and report any without dial tone.
08/08/09, Campus Phones Out of Service The campus phone system was struck by lightning at approximately 1:30 am, Saturday August 8th, resulting in no campus phone service.
This includes outbound calls to 911. If you have a life threatening emergency, use a cell phone to call 911.
08/05/09, Network Maintenance Day Friday 8/7 ITS Network staff will be performing several needed maintenance tasks starting at 1:00 PM on Friday, August 7. All tasks should be completed by 5:00 PM, and may conclude earlier than that. Scheduled tasks include installing new equipment and reconfiguring several existing devices. During the maintenance period, these services will not be available:
Internet access, Banner and 1600grand will NOT be affected by this planned maintenance period (although some channels within 1600grand may be inaccessible). If you have problems or questions about this planned maintenance period, please contact Ramón Rentas as soon as possible, at x.6633 or via e-mail. 08/05/09, Banner/1600grand Preventive Maintenance Tomorrow Attention all Banner/1600grand Users: the Banner and 1600grand systems will be taken offline on Thursday, August 06 from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM for preventive maintenance. This outage will only affect Banner and 1600grand. Internet access, e-mail, Moodle, etc. will not be impacted. If you have questions about this maintenance, please contact Ramón Rentas at x.6633 or via e-mail (rentas@macalester.edu). 07/28/09, Wireless Keys Distributed As announced July 24, we will split the
wireless network into three segments starting at 9:00 AM Monday August
3. The segments named 'Macalester' (dedicated for faculty and staff) and
'Macalester-Student' (dedicated for students) have electronic 'keys.'
It is necessary to enter the appropriate key only once to get wireless
access for all of Fall 2009. Keys were e-mailed to all faculty, staff and
students via the Notification-L mailing lists on Tuesday, July 28. If you
did not see your key message, consult the appropriate list's archives:
07/20/09, Notification-L and Phishing Scams This message is being sent to all Macalester students. Returning students already know about ITS' Notification-L mailing list. New students, this list is used by Information Technology Services (ITS) staff to communicate with you about planned and unplanned network maintenance, service outages, computer virus outbreaks, etc. That's all we do with it: we don't advertise visiting speakers or invite you to club meetings. This message is to introduce Notification-L and to tell you about communications from ITS. There are three Notification-L mailing lists, one each for students, faculty and staff. Every posting to one of these lists is automatically archived (see https://lists.macalester.edu/mailman/private/student-notification-l/). Most Notification-L messages will also be posted on ITS' "Notices and Alerts" Web page. We also submit notes on planned maintenance and scheduled downtimes to the Daily Piper. All mailings from ITS, whether they use Notification-L or not, will be from a Macalester staff member whose contact information appears in the online Directory. Most messages will tell you whom or where to call for more information if you have questions. Now that you know how to identify real communications from Macalester's ITS people, here are some ways to identify fake communications from criminals. 'Phishing' scams often appear to be official messages from central ITS staff. They all try to fool you into divulging private information, such as your e-mail account password. Don't respond! If you do, your account will be hijacked and used by the spammer to send more garbage. Google's spam filters are very good, but your intelligence and vigilance are the best defenses against phishing attempts. ITS will never ask for your username, your password, your account number or other personal data via e-mail! Since we use e-mail to communicate with you, please know that ITS staff who send messages do so either with their own accounts or with Macalester distribution lists, such as notification-L. All of us are listed in the online Directory, all of us use Macalester.edu accounts, and all of us include accurate contact information in messages we send. Here's an example of a current phishing attempt: **********begin spam message**********from: School IT HelpDesk < emailhelpdesk@mail2webmaster.com> to: date: Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 2:24 AM subject: ***Update Your Email Details*************end spam message********** You can immediately identify a phishing scam by a few consistent clues. While the wording of scams varies, these clues will always be present: Who is it sent to? Be suspicious of messages with generic salutations like "Dear Account Owner" or "Attention Customer." ITS has your name and account number already. We will use this information in our communications to you - scammers will not. Who is it sent from? Messages from ITS will come from addresses ending in "@macalester.edu" and will typically be signed by an individual you can find in the Directory. Be suspicious if 'From' is a non-Macalester address. What information is being requested? Again, ITS will never ask for your username, your password, your account number or other personal data via e-mail! Neither will any legitimate vendor, bank or service provider. This is a dead giveaway that you're dealing with a scam attempt rather than a legitimate message. Think about it: ITS already knows your name and username. Never give this out this information in e-mail. What is the overall tone and style of the message? Scammers often try to disguise their phishing attempts by using technical-sounding verbiage. However, most scammers don't spend much time checking their messages for spelling or grammatical accuracy. If you get a message filled with broken or stilted English, misspellings and simple grammar mistakes, be suspicious of it. To learn more about phishing scams and how to identify them, check out EDUCAUSE's pages on phishing, beginning at http://connect.educause.edu/term_view/Phishing. If you are suspicious of any e-mail message you receive, please call the ITS Help Desk at x.6525. 07/17/09, Maintenance Day Saturday 7/25 ITS Network staff have scheduled a 'maintenance day' from 6:00 AM to
12:00 noon on Saturday July 25. Network systems and servers need
regular periodic maintenance and updating. By performing maintenance on
a routine quarterly basis, we keep things running normally and prevent
unplanned system outages.
The following services will NOT be affected, except as noted:
If you do not see a particular service or resource on this list (e.g. Advance), be assured that we have talked with the primary custodians of that resource about possible effects of the upcoming maintenance. Either such services will not be affected, or their owners have approved the maintenance and accepted the possibility of brief service interruptions. If you have questions about quarterly maintenance days, please contact Ramón Rentas at x.6633. 07/16/09, Banner/1600grand Downtime Tonight Attention all Banner/1600grand Users: the Banner and 1600grand systems will be taken offline on Thursday, July 16 from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM for unscheduled maintenance. This outage will only affect Banner and 1600grand. Internet access, e-mail, Moodle, etc. will not be impacted. If you have questions about this maintenance, please contact Ramón Rentas at x.6633 or via e-mail (rentas@macalester.edu). 07/15/09, Fall Moodle Courses Ready Your Fall semester Moodle course sites are ready for you at
moodle.macalester.edu. If you have any questions, or would like help
with Moodle, please contact your Academic Information Associate.
7/9/09, Voice Mail System shut down Tonight, Thursday, July 8, we will be rebooting the voice mail system. During the reboot, the voice mail system will be out of service. This will occur shortly after 5pm. The reboot should take no more than 15 minutes. If the reboot is a success, voice mail will be working and available by 5:30pm. The reason for the reboot is to fix some voice mail problems you may have experienced this week - your message light not activating when you have messages, or not deactivating when you erase your messages, or the voice mail system not answering. If, after 5:30 today, you experience any of the above mentioned problems, or something perceived to be a voice mail problem, please contact Kelly Borke at x6566. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by these issues. 07/06/09, Email and Moodle Login outage 4:15-4:45pm At about 4:15pm the server that manages email and Moodle logins stopped allowing logins. Network staff found the cause of the error and fixed it. We are restarting the server and it should be repaired by 4:45pm. 6/22/09 Directory issues repaired on the Academic server- Also restore The home directory issues on the Academic server were resolved as of 11:30 AM Sunday, June 21st. People using Novell or Webfile to view their files should now be able to see their home directories normally. Please log in and test your settings by checking if you can see and edit your files. If anyone is unable to view their files or has any other problems on Academic, please let the Help Desk know at helpdesk@macalester.edu or x6525. CORRECTION - I previously stated erroneously that the data were restored from backups created on Friday, June 12th. The actual creation date of the backups was Tuesday, June 16th, and even some files from the 17th, if they were edited before the server went down. This means that very little, if any, data was lost since people were unable to log in reliably after that point on Tuesday. 6/19/09 The Academic Server is back up and running As of 7:30 PM on Friday (6/19/09) the Academic Fac/Staff volume, which has been down most of the week, and the whole Academic Server is back up. The Academic Fac/Staff volume was corrupted and had to be restored from an off-site back up. The most recent backup data was from Friday June 12th, when we switched over to the new SAN. Because of the hardware failure any changes to your data after that date has been lost. We regret this data loss, but, unfortunately, this was unavoidable because the data on the crashed drives was corrupted and unrepairable. The two drives that failed have been replaced by the company. All of the data on the other Academic volumes, such as Academic Groups, or Academic Courses, is just fine and didn't have to be recovered. There is still one issue with Home directories that we are still working to resolve. If you use the Novell Client/login or Webfile, We will send out another message after full functionality is restored. Thank you for your continued patience and understanding 06/19/09, Academic Server Down Friday 6/19/09 There are continuing problems with the Fac/Staff volume. To fix the issue we have to rebuild the whole Academic server. To do that, we have to keep the whole server (Fac/Staff, Groups, Courses) down today while the data is backed up and restored. The process has been running over night, but at 7 AM this morning, there were still 11 hours to go in the data transfer process. The Academic server will therefore be down Friday (6/18/09) while this process completes. We recognize that this is inconvenient, happening during a workday, but this is the only way to repair the Fac/Staff volume. We regret the inconvenience, and thank you for your continued understanding. 06/19/09, Equipment reorganization successful; Network up in all buildings by 7:30 AM ITS Network staff was successful in reorganizing the fiber optic equipment in the data room early this morning. There was a brief outage from 6:00 to 7:30 AM in selected buildings. All the buildings are connected and working as of 7:30. This reorganization was necessary for our later summer projects to go forward and we thank you for your understanding. 06/18/09, Academic Fac/Staff Server Outage Continues Although the issues from yesterday (6/17/09) have been for the most part addressed, the Fac/Staff volume of the Academic server (also known as the H: drive for PC users) continues to be unstable. The result is that we are keeping the Fac/Staff volume down until we can repair the problem. The effect of this is that faculty folders, including personal home pages, continue to be inaccessible to users directly and also from the internet. We are working to resolve this problem, but unfortunately, we do not yet have an anticipated resolution time. We regret the inconvenience, and thank you for your continued understanding. 06/17/09, System outages Wednesday afternoon Continued hardware problems caused network failure on most servers this afternoon from about 1:35-5 pm. Though the actual outage was brief, most of the time was spent by ITS staff ensuring data integrity. This was especially important because the servers shut down suddenly which can cause data corruption. ITS is still working on this issue, but we are not anticipating any further server outages. We regret the inconvenience, and thank you for your continued understanding. 06/16/09, Yesterday's Admin and Academic Servers Limited Outages Late yesterday afternoon, Monday June 15th, the academic and admin servers, which run on the new SAN stopped working due to a hardware failure. The outage began at approximately 4:30 PM and was corrected by approximately 10:15 PM when ITS staff finished repairing the problem. We regret the inconvenience, and thank you for your continued understanding. 6/15/09, Weekend Upgrades Successful; Lingering Issues Resolved As published last week, we had two upgrades this weekend. On Friday we upgraded the Storage Area Network (SAN), and on Saturday we did a phone system upgrade. Both upgrades were successful, but we had a few residual issues with each. Those issues have since been resolved. We regret the frustration and inconvenience this outage caused for some of our clients. Please check below to see more specifics on the outages and their resolutions. The SAN upgrade on Friday caused about half of the network-based iPrint printers to go down and stay down over the weekend. Depending on the printer you use, you may not have been able to print over the weekend and Monday morning. All affected printing services were restored late this morning, Monday June 15. The phone system upgrade on Saturday resulted in some minor issues with time, message lights, and phone forwarding to voice mailbox. All of these issues seem to be resolved. If you are experiencing any further phone or voice mail issues, please contact Kelly Borke at x6566. Thank you for your patience and cooperation during ITS-related upgrades! 06/15/09, SAN Upgrade Printing Glitch The Storage Area Network (SAN) upgrade begun Friday June 12 caused an unexpected problem - network-based iPrint services went down and stayed down over the weekend. All affected printing services were restored this morning, Monday June 15. We regret the frustration and inconvenience this outage caused for some of our clients. 06/12/09, Brief Network Outages Friday 6/19 ITS Network staff will be reorganizing some equipment in the data room between
6:00 and 8:00 AM on Friday June 19. There will be brief, but complete, network
outages during that time in the following campus buildings:
06/09/09, Phone System Outages Our campus phone system will be down from 7:00 AM until 2:00 PM on Saturday, June 13, due to a necessary upgrade. During that Saturday downtime, no incoming, outgoing or campus calls can be completed, with two exceptions: Security calls, x6555, will be routed directly to the officer on duty, and calls to x6000 will be routed to a voice mailbox with an appropriate message.
06/08/09, Network Storage Expansion Preparations Friday June 12 On Friday June 12, we will begin the process of upgrading our SAN (Storage Area Network). When completed later this summer, the upgrade will significantly increase the overall network data storage capacity for the entire campus. This initial work is scheduled to take place from 1:00 to 2:00 PM Friday. No service outages or problems are expected; however, if problems do arise, they will be brief 5- or 10-minute outages on systems using the SAN (i.e. most College servers). If outages occur, they will end by 2:00 PM. Internet access and 1600grand/Banner will not be affected in any event. If you have questions please call Ramón Rentas at x.6633. 06/02/09, 2:00 PM - Google Slowdown Resolved At 1:52, Google administrators posted this notice on their Apps Status page: "The problem with Google Mail should be resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support." Google services do indeed appear to have returned to normal. 06/02/09, 1:30 PM - Google Slowdown As of approximately 1:30 PM today, you may be experiencing a serious slowdown when accessing any Google services, including Google e-mail, Google Calendar, Google searching, etc. This problem is widespread and is not limited to Macalester. It is similar to the routing problem we experienced on May 14. We will pass along more information as we have it. 06/01/09, Banner/1600grand Maintenance Friday June 5 Attention all Banner/1600grand Users: the Banner and 1600grand systems will be taken offline on Friday, June 5 from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM for regularly scheduled maintenance. This outage will only affect Banner/1600grand; Internet access, e-mail, Moodle, the Macalester Web site, etc. will not be impacted. If you have questions, please contact Tim Friemann at x.6879. 05/18/09, Critical Adobe Update Available Adobe has released an update to their software to address a recent critical vulnerability in their products (see the ITS Notices and Alerts posting of 4/30/09, below). All users are strongly encouraged to update their Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat software to the latest versions.
05/14/09, 11:30 AM: Google Problems Resolved The routing problem affecting Google services seems to have been resolved. An outage somewhere on the Internet between Google and some of its customers - including Macalester - was creating this problem. (You may have experienced difficulties with other Internet sites, such as the Star-Tribune, that either used Google plug-ins or were in the same routing path.) Google has not published details except to note that they have restored normal functionality to all services. Update, 2:40 PM: click here for further information from the Star-Tribune. Update, 3:05 PM: click here for further information directly from Google. 05/14/09, 10:00 AM: Google Problems As of May 14 at approximately 10:00 AM, there is a global routing problem affecting Macalester's access to Google services - including Google e-mail, Google Calendar, Google searching, etc. This problem appears to be widespread, and is not limited to Macalester. We are actively investigating and will communicate further as appropriate. 04/30/09, New Adobe Vulnerability Affects: All versions of Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat for both Windows PCs and Macintoshes
Description: A new vulnerability has been found in all versions of
Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat, for both Macintoshes and Windows PCs.
This vulnerability could allow someone to take control of your computer
by sending you a specially designed PDF file. Security experts believe
that such PDFs are already circulating on the Internet. A patch is
expected for this specific vulnerability, but in the meantime you can
take steps to protect yourself from this issue.
04/29/09, Internet Explorer 8 Updates Today Microsoft unexpectedly elevated the Internet Explorer (IE8) Web
browser to a "critical" update, which means that you may be prompted to
install IE8. While it includes a number of good security and performance
improvements, IE8 is a new browser and some older computers may have
trouble with it.
04/20/09, Sunday Slowdown Starting early the morning of Sunday April 19, our network began suffering from a routing error. The error resulted in a progressive slowdown of normal Internet services on campus. Network staff investigated and corrected the problem at approximately 7:45 PM. We regret any inconvenience this error may have caused you. 04/14/09, Data Backups = Insurance Classes will end soon. Final exams are looming, and you have a lot of hard
work stored on your computer. Especially at this stressful time of the
semester, you need to back up that data in multiple places. Hard drives
tend to fail at the worst possible time. Here are some suggestions for
effective backups.
03/26/09, Conficker C/April Fool Virus Prevention You may have read disturbing news about the Conficker C computer virus,
more commonly called the 'April Fool's Day worm.' Conficker has infected
computers worldwide and is currently dormant. The virus is expected to
become active next Wednesday, April 1. It is unclear exactly what
malicious effects the virus may have, but you should take the threat
seriously.
03/25/09, Last Night's Limited Outage Last night, Tuesday March 24, several systems running on a shared
resource stopped working when the resource ran out of space. The outage
began at approximately 7:15 PM and was corrected by approximately 9:15
PM when ITS staff allocated more space to the shared resource. The most
noticeable services affected were e-mail (SAML) logins and Moodle
logins; people already connected to these services did not experience
interruptions.
03/17/09, Banner/1600grand Downtime 3/19 Attention all Banner/1600grand Users: the Banner and 1600grand systems will be taken offline on Thursday, March 19 from 9:00 PM to midnight for regularly scheduled maintenance. This outage will only affect Banner and 1600grand. Internet access, e-mail, Moodle, etc. will not be impacted. If you have questions about this maintenance, please contact Tim Friemann at x.6879 or via e-mail (friemann@macalester.edu). 03/12/09, Critical Adobe Update Available Adobe has released an update to their software to address a recent
critical vulnerability in their products (see the ITS Notices and Alerts
posting of 2/25/09, below). All users are strongly encouraged to update their
Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat software to the latest versions.
02/25/09, Critical Vulnerability In Adobe Reader And Adobe Acrobat A major vulnerability has been found in later versions of Adobe Reader and
Adobe Acrobat for both Macintoshes and Windows PCs. This vulnerability
could allow someone to take control of your computer by sending you a
specially designed PDF file. Security experts believe that such PDFs are
already circulating on the Internet. While there is not currently a
patch for this issue, one is expected by March 11, 2009. In the
meantime, you can take several steps to protect yourself from this
issue.
02/06/09, Google Meeting Invitations Change Google frequently updates the tools we use in Google Apps. One recent
change affects how your attendees are invited when you create a meeting
in Google Calendar. Previously, when you set up a meeting and clicked
the 'Save' button, you would automatically see a window pop up asking
you whether you wished to send e-mail notifications to your attendees,
with buttons for both Yes and No. This feature has changed.
02/04/09, Brief Internet Outage There was a brief internet routing error at 2:30 PM this afternoon which may have prevented you from reaching sites such as 1600grand or Moodle. This error has been fixed and full access has been restored. If you have any questions, please contact the ITS Help Desk at x.6525. 01/29/09, Something Phishy This Way Comes Many Macalester people are finding yet another 'phishing' scam e-mail
message in this morning's mail. This is a scam - do not reply to it! If
you find this message or one like it in your Inbox, just click Google's
"report spam" button. Here's an example of the current scam:
from: Shairp, Ashley (A.Shairp@lipa.ac.uk) to: date: Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 2:07 AM subject: Increase your Mailbox Space Now! mailed-by: lipa.ac.uk **********end spam message**********
01/22/09, Re-Registering Student Computers (This notice has been sent to all students via Notification-L.)
01/16/09, ITS Virus Warning: Conficker Worm In late November 2008 a new computer virus, Conficker.A, began attacking
Windows PCs. A newer, stronger - and more troublesome - version of the
same virus is now in circulation. Conficker.B attacks Windows PCs that
have not been regularly patched/updated, or which use weak administrator
passwords, causing damage and launching attacks on other computers. It
also propagates through USB-connect flash drives (a.k.a. "thumb
drives"). You can read more about Conficker, which also goes under the
names Kido and Downadup, here (Microsoft),
here (CA.com), and
here (Ars Technica).
1/12/09, Moodle Membership Problem Fixed The issues with Moodle memberships we reported on Friday 1/9 have been resolved. Moodle sites have been created for all Spring semester classes and populated with enrolled students and faculty. If you have any questions about your Spring Moodle sites, please contact your AIA. 01/12/09, Maintenance On King Holiday POSTPONED The ITS data center maintenance we had announced for Monday, January 19 - the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday - has been postponed. All networked services should be up and functioning normally on Monday 1/19. We will perform this maintenance in early summer, after the end of Spring semester and Commencement. A specific date and more information will be forthcoming later this spring. 01/09/09, Data Center Maintenance 01/19/09 On Monday January 19, the College will be closed in observance of the
Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. ITS Networking staff will be making
needed improvements in our data center, including reorganizing all of
the fiber-optic lines that connect our campus network to the Internet.
The downtimes needed to perform these improvements will be primarily on
campus - which is why we have chosen to make them over a College
holiday.
01/09/09, Moodle Membership Problem We are currently experiencing problems with memberships in some moodle
course sites. Your courses may not appear correctly on
moodle.macalester.edu. ITS is aware of this issue and is working
towards a solution.
12/29/08, Banner/1600grand Maintenance Friday 1/2/09 Attention Banner/1600grand Users:
12/17/08, Brief Server Downtimes Monday 12/22 On Monday December 22, between 9:00 and 10:00 AM, we will be moving some equipment in the ITS data center. You may see some brief downtimes with Webfile and the College's Web server for up to ten minute within this period. (Visitors trying to access our Web page will see some explanatory 'maintenance' text during any downtimes.) If you experience an outage, wait a few minutes and try again. 12/08/08, How to Spot a Phishing Scam Internet banking, electronic commerce and online auctions are great ways
to save time and money. Online communications from ITS help keep you
notified of campus-wide system events. Unfortunately, these services
also offer scammers new ways to dupe you into revealing personal
information. With such information, scammers can potentially access
your bank accounts, credit cards and e-mail accounts. There are some
clues that can help you tell the difference between legitimate
electronic communications and 'phishing' scam attempts.
12/05/08, 'Tis the Season to Back Up Your Data Classes are ending, final exams are looming, and you have a lot of hard
work stored on your computer. Especially at this stressful time of the
semester, you need to back up that data in multiple places. Hard drives
tend to fail at the worst possible time. Here are some suggestions for
effective backups.
12/03/08, Department Coordinators Back On Class E-Mail Lists Yesterday we reported that department coordinators were mistakenly deleted from all course mailing lists during the nightly membership refreshment. That error has been fixed. All department coordinators should be able to post to course e-mail lists within their departments once again. If you have difficulty doing so, please call the ITS Help Desk immediately, at x.6525. 12/02/08, Department Coordinators Cannot Send to Class E-Mail Lists Class e-mail distribution list memberships are automatically re-created
every night to reflect adds, drops and other enrollment changes. An
error occurred in the recreation of these lists early today, December 2.
Department coordinators have been inadvertently dropped from the
membership rosters, and therefore cannot post to class e-mail lists.
ITS staff are working to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.
11/21/08, Google Calendar Error Message When scheduling an event in Google Calendar, you may be used to clicking
the "Check guest and resource availability" link to find open times.
Currently, there is an error with this link. No matter whose name you
enter, you'll see text saying "Calendar doesn't exist or isn't shared."
This is not true: the calendars do exist, and they are shared. Busy
times are even blocked off and visible.
11/17/08, Brief Web Server Outage The College's Web server, www.macalester.edu, was down for approximately twenty minutes this afternoon. Networking staff have restored full functionality. No other services were affected and we do not anticipate further problems. 11/06/08, Election E-Mail Attack Warning There is a fake e-mail going around that offers a new video of
President-elect Obama. If you go to the Web link contained in the
e-mail message, it asks you to update your version of Adobe Flash Player
in order to watch the video. However, what really happens is that your
computer is hacked and potentially damaged. If you receive such a
message, don't follow the link - just delete it.
10/27/08, Brief Internet Outage Macalester's Internet connection went down for approximately fifteen minutes this afternoon. During this brief outage, all Internet services (including e-mail) were not available. Internal services, such as 1600grand, Banner, Macalester Web pages, etc. were not affected. Service was restored at 2:30 PM. ITS Network staff are working to find out what happened and prevent a recurrence. 10/24/08, "Macalester Moodle Groups" Error Many people on campus are receiving e-mail messages entitled "Macalester Moodle Groups: New user account." These messages have resulted from a mistake on our part. Please disregard these messages - just delete them. You do not need to take any other action, and your access to Moodle with your current password remains fine. This is not a virus or a scam. 10/23/08, Windows Vulnerability: Protect Yourself Microsoft has announced a vulnerability in all its Windows
operating systems. This vulnerability could be exploited to
damage computer equipment and data. You must protect yourself
and your systems against this vulnerability. ITS staff strongly
recommend that all Windows users run a full Windows update
immediately - and keep running updates until Microsoft's updater
tool tells you there are no further updates to download.
10/23/08, Recent Wireless Networking Improvements Building and improving Macalester's wireless network is an ongoing ITS
project. Here is an update for Fall semester 2008 - what we have done,
what's in progress and what we have planned to continue developing our
wireless resources. All of these improvements will strengthen wireless
signals on campus, and some will bring signals to new locations.
10/01/08, How Can I Tell It's A Scam? Simple. Macalester's Information Technology Services staff will never - EVER - send you an e-mail message asking for your username and/or password. If you receive such a message, it is almost certainly a phishing scam. Do not reply to the message, just delete it. If you're still not sure, contact the ITS Help Desk via e-mail or at x.6525. 9/29/08, OCS, CorpTime, Graduate Accounts Shut Down 10/01/08 As promised, ITS will be turning off the OCS system on Wednesday October
1. This shutdown will include terminating CorporateTime. All College
e-mail traffic was moved to Google by March 31, and all old OCS mail was
migrated by August 26. Google Calendar is now the College's supported
shared calendaring solution.
9/24/08, Banner/1600grand Downtime Saturday 10/04/08 Attention Banner/1600grand users: the Banner and 1600grand systems will be unavailable on Saturday, October 4 from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM in order to apply some security configurations. Only access to Banner/1600grand will be impacted during this time period - all other IT related services will remain available (e.g. Internet access, e-mail, Moodle, etc.). If you have any questions regarding this scheduled downtime please contact Rabin Bajracharya (bajracharya@macalester.edu) at 696-6632. 9/16/08, OCS/CorporateTime Termination 10/1/08 This is a gentle reminder that the OCS system will be switched off
permanently on Wednesday, October 1. CorporateTime calendaring is part
of OCS and will also be shut down October 1. All Macalester e-mail has
been sent and received through Google Apps since March 31, and all old
mail has been migrated from OCS to Google as of August 26. All shared
calendar activity has moved to Google Calendar.
9/16/08, Graduated Senior Accounts Closing October 1 This is a gentle reminder that your Macalester e-mail account will be closed permanently on Wednesday October 1. If you need help moving any mail out of your Macalester account, please call the ITS Help Desk at x.6525 or send e-mail to helpdesk@macalester.edu. 09/15/08, Banner/1600grand Downtime Saturday 9/20 Attention Banner and 1600grand users. The Banner/1600grand systems will be unavailable on Saturday, September 20 from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM in order to perform needed upgrades. Only access to Banner/1600grand will be down during this time period; all other IT-related services will remain available (e.g. Internet access, e-mail, Moodle, etc.). If you have any questions regarding this scheduled downtime please contact Tim Friemann (friemann@macalester.edu) at 696-6879. 09/10/08, Telephone System Repairs Tonight This evening, Wednesday September 10, there will be two short
outages of the Macalester telephone system between 5:00 and 6:00 PM.
During these brief outages, no incoming or outgoing calls may be
placed, and active calls will be disconnected. The work performed last
Friday, September 5, did not remedy the data corruption problem in
our phone system, hence the need for tonight's more extensive
repairs.
09/09/08, Voicemail Indicator Light Glitch Over the past 24 hours, there have been reports of voice messages being
left, but no telephone indicator light coming on. This means you may
not know that you have a new voicemail message. This problem seems to
be affecting only a few faculty and staff members, but we want all
employees to be aware of it. Our maintenance provider has been
contacted, and we are hoping for a speedy resolution. We apologize for
this inconvenience.
09/05/08, Phone System Reboot at 5:00 PM Today - Friday, September 5 - at 5:00 PM, there will be a very short disruption in our campus telephone service. For approximately two to three minutes, no incoming or outgoing calls may be made. Any active calls will be disconnected. We must reboot the system to remedy a problem, and we are sorry for any inconvenience this brief outage may cause. If you have questions, please contact Telecommunications Manager Kelly Borke at x.6566. 09/03/08, Brief 1600grand/Banner Outage There was a brief 1600grand/Banner outage earlier today. All services should now be restored. We strongly recommend that you log out of 1600grand or Banner and open a new browser prior to re-logging into the system. This will help you avoid any potential Java caching problems. We are actively working to identify the cause of the incident in order to prevent future outages. Please contact Tim Friemann with any questions (friemann@macalester.edu or 696-6879). 08/27/08, A Welcome and a Warning Welcome from all of us in ITS, whether you are new to Macalester or
returning for the new academic year! We use 'notification-l' e-mail
distribution lists (one each, for faculty, staff and students) to give
you advance notice of system downtimes and planned maintenance. We
also use notification-l to inform you of unplanned system events, when
such events permit. We will work to balance our need to communicate
about significant technical events versus your desire for messages that
are infrequent, clear and relevant.
08/21/08, Account Access Extended for Graduated Seniors 2008 Graduates, earlier this spring we announced that your Macalester e-mail accounts would be kept open until Friday, August 22. We are revising that deadline and will keep your accounts open until Wednesday, October 1. If you have questions, please contact the ITS Help Desk at helpdesk@macalester.edu or x.6525. 08/12/08, Google Error Fixed Between approximately 4:00 and 6:00 PM Central time yesterday, Monday
August 11, Google EMail service was inaccessible. This was a
system-wide problem and potentially affected all Google users, including
GMail account holders. Service was restored at approximately 6:00 PM Central.
08/11/08, Temporary Google Error Google EMail has been acting very strangely since approximately 4:20 PM Central time. Google administrators report that this is a temporary error, and assure us that our account data and messages are safe. The error is system-wide, and affects all Google customers, including GMail account-holders. They are working to correct the error, and recommend that we try accessing Google accounts again in a few minutes. We will post more information as we have it. 08/08/08, Brief Regional Internet Outage FYI, there was an Internet service outage lasting less than an hour this morning, ending at approximately 8:00 AM. The problem was regional, and affected other institutions including Carleton College and St. Olaf College. We will share more information as we know it. 08/04/08, Fall Semester 2008 Moodle is Ready Your Fall semester Moodle course sites are ready for you at
moodle.macalester.edu. If you have any questions, or would like help
with Moodle, please contact your Academic Information Associate.
07/30/08, Banner/1600grand Downtime TODAY at 5:00 PM Banner and 1600grand users,
07/23/08, Don't Take The Bait A 'phishing' scam is an insidious type of e-mail spam. Such scams take
the form of an official-looking message from a bank, IT office or
vendor, and tries to get you to divulge some personal information "in
order to keep your account open" or "to verify your identity." If you reply, your information can be
used to perpetrate other frauds in your name, or even get access to your
bank accounts, medical records, etc. You should never reply to a
phishing scam, but simply delete the message.
07/17/08, Server Upgrades This Weekend We must perform some critical maintenance and upgrades to our Novell
servers this coming weekend. Among other improvements, the upgrades
will make more storage space available to our clients, and will also
make it easier to add more storage space as needed.
06/25/08, Google EMail and Time Zone Problem (cross-posted on our Google Apps page) The time zone glitch that we have previously notified you about affects you even if you are only using Google Apps e-mail. Google EMail and Calendar are tightly integrated. Therefore, you need to check the time zone in your Calendar settings. Why? Because you probably don't want to be an hour early to meetings.
06/25/08, OCS Nightly Outages The completion of the migration of email from OCS to Google is beginning this evening. OCS will be unavailable between the hours of 10:00 PM and 6:00 AM to do this migration. This downtime will continue every day until the mail migration is completed. 06/20/08, OCS down OCS, our former e-mail system, has been temporarily taken down for UPS maintenance.
We will bring it back up tomorrow morning. Sorry for the inconvenience!
06/11/08, Server Room Power Maintenance Friday 6/20 Our data center, the "server room" on third floor Humanities, normally
falls back on a temporary uninterruptible power supply (UPS) in the
event of an electrical outage. Periodically the UPS needs maintenance
work. We have scheduled maintenance for the UPS on Friday June 20,
beginning at 1:00 PM. The maintenance should be complete and the
UPS turned back on by 6:00 PM that same afternoon.
05/29/08, Banner/1600grand Maintenance This Weekend Attention Banner/1600grand users:
05/27/08, Banner/1600grand Memory Upgrade Wednesday 5/28 This is a gentle reminder that tomorrow, Wednesday May 28, we will be
taking Banner and 1600grand offline to add additional memory to the
Banner server. The downtime will begin at 5:00 PM; the upgrade should
take approximately two hours.
05/23/08, Banner Memory Upgrade In preparation for the installation of ORACLE 10gR2 in Banner's
production environment we need to add additional memory to the Banner
Server.
05/23/08, 1600grand Server Problem Fixed (10:30 AM) The problem with 1600grand not displaying the Banner channels has been fixed. Additionally, there was a problem with logging into Moodle and that problem has also been fixed. The problems were unrelated to the issues we experienced yesterday. If you are still experiencing any difficulty with 1600grand or Moodle, please call or e-mail the Help Desk (x.6525, helpdesk@macalester.edu) for assistance. 05/23/08, 1600grand Server Problem (8:55 AM) There is currently a problem with 1600grand not displaying the Banner channels. This causes a SQL error to be displayed, blocking access to those channels. We suspect this may be a remaining problem from yesterday's network issues. Our Network and Enterprise staff are currently working to resolve this issue. Thank you for your continued patience. 05/22/08, Sporadic Group Access Problems (4:32 PM) Some staff members are experiencing sporadic blockages when trying to access shared (group) directories on the G: drive. We are working to identify and fix the cause of the problem. In the meantime, a process is running that should restore full normal access for everyone to all appropriate group directories. This process will finish later this afternoon. If you find that you cannot access a shared folder on the G: drive tomorrow morning, Friday May 23, please call or e-mail the Help Desk (x.6525, helpdesk@macalester.edu) with your name, your office and the name of the directory you cannot access. 05/22/08, Admin Server Problem Solved (12:25 PM) Earlier this morning, accounts were erroneously disabled for 35 students, 438 staff members and 125 faculty members. All accounts have been re-enabled. No passwords have been reset, changed or stolen. Windows users, you can now log into your account as usual with full access to your G: drives (the 'Groups' directory to you Macintosh users). 05/22/08, Admin Server Problem (11:05 AM) As of approximately 10:00 AM today, Thursday May 22, many people have received e-mail messages saying "your password has been changed." Further, some who try to login to the Admin server are seeing error messages noting that "your account is disabled." We are aware of the problems, are actively investigating and working to fix them, and will send out more information as soon as it is available. If you use a Windows PC, log in with "workstation only" checked. You won't be able to access files saved on the network, but you will be able to access your e-mail and the Web. 05/21/08, Voice Mailboxes Going "Good-Bye" Voice mailboxes for faculty members and language instructors (native
speakers) whose contracts expire May 31 (per Human Resources) will be
deleted on June 1. Please contact Telecommunications, x6566, before that
date if you will be remaining on campus after June 1. Student voice
mailboxes will be deleted starting May 22. Students remaining on campus
for the summer will retain their voice mailboxes.
05/20/08, Upcoming Banner/1600grand Maintenance Attention, Banner and 1600grand users!
05/01/08, E-Mail and Voice Mail for Seniors Congratulations to the Class of 2008! As you prepare to make the
transition from students to young alumni, you may have questions about
your e-mail, network and voice mail accounts. Here's the information
you need.
4/24/08, Students: Who's Got Your Back(up)? Students, you're incredibly busy as finals draw near - particularly
seniors working on honors theses and capstone presentations. Now
imagine losing all that work in an instant, with no hope of recovery.
Does that scare you? It should.
04/21/08, OCS Offline For Repairs Tuesday 4/22 We must take the OCS system offline in order to make further repairs. These repairs are a necessary step toward our critical goal of moving old e-mail out of OCS and into Google. OCS will be taken down starting at 6:00 PM on Tuesday April 22. The repairs may take up to 48 hours, or they could be complete much sooner. In any event, OCS will be brought back up by 6:00 PM Thursday, April 24 at the latest. Since a definitive end time cannot be accurately predicted, we will notify the community immediately, via Notification and on the ITS Web page's 'Notices and Alerts' column, when OCS service is restored. 04/21/08, Outbound Traffic Slowdown Fixed Several people reported significant slowdowns in outbound e-mail traffic this morning, Monday April 21. For example, if you sent a message off-campus with a file attached, it may have taken a few minutes (instead of a few seconds) for the attachment to upload and the file to be sent. Our Network staff responded and this problem has been fixed. It has nothing to do with Google, but with our Internet connection. If you notice what you believe to be unnaturally slow sending times in your Google Email, please call the Help Desk at x.6525. 04/18/08, Is Outbound E-Mail Slow, Or Is It Just Me? It's not just you. There is a problem with our outbound Internet connection; it is not clear exactly what is going on, and we continue to investigate. During peak times of day, you may notice that Google attachments upload slowly or that access from off-campus performs more slowly than normal. The slowdown is noticeable but not crippling, and has been evident since the beginning of March. Be assured that the problem is NOT with Google, but with our Internet provider (and may be affecting other customers in addition to Macalester). We will post more information as it becomes available. 04/17/08, 1600grand/INB Error Corrected Sometime last night a component of the 1600grand system went down. Because of this, no Banner channels - including Internet Native Banner (INB) - were accessible. The problem has been corrected and full access to 1600grand and INB have been restored. Enterprise Services staff are working to determine what happened and prevent a recurrence. 04/11/08, More OCS Repairs Saturday and Sunday. Same work, different weekend. As we work to recover everyone's stored OCS mail for migration into Google, more troubleshooting needs to be done on OCS. OCS will be undergoing a period of testing, analysis and repair beginning at 8:00 PM Saturday, April 12. This period will end at 10:00 AM Sunday April 13. During this period, OCS will not be accessible at all to end-users. We're working toward a goal of restoring OCS to the point where mail can be moved, and this repair period will move us toward that goal. 04/02/08, OCS Repairs Saturday and Sunday. Now that we have all moved to Google Apps, it becomes possible to extensively troubleshoot the OCS system without interrupting e-mail service. We realize that everyone has valuable old mail on OCS, and we need to work on the system so that this mail can be recovered and migrated into Google. OCS will be undergoing a period of testing, analysis and repair beginning at 8:00 PM Saturday, April 5. This period will end at 10:00 AM Sunday April 6. During this period, OCS will not be accessible at all to end-users. We're working toward a goal of restoring OCS to the point where mail can be moved, and this repair period will move us toward that goal. 03/26/08, OCS is Up (9:30 PM). The OCS e-mail system is up again. Get in while the getting's good. Really, we regret the inconvenience the OCS downtime has caused. If you haven't yet felt drawn to Google Apps, now is as good a time as any to switch yourself to that entirely better system. 03/26/08, OCS is Down (8:15 AM). The OCS e-mail system is down. We are aware of the problem and are working to restore service as quickly as possible. If you have already switched to Google Apps, your e-mail will not be affected. 03/25/08, OCS Service Restored (1:30 PM). The OCS e-mail system is back in service. We continue to monitor the situation and will react swiftly if further problems arise. If you have not already done so, this would be a great time to make the switch away from OCS and onto Google Apps! 03/25/08, OCS is Down (12:50 PM). The OCS e-mail system is down. We are aware of the problem and are working to restore service as quickly as possible. If you have already switched to Google Apps, your e-mail will not be affected. 03/19/08, Google Apps Updates Redirect This Notices and Alerts column has been a busy place since March 3. Now that we have begun to roll out Google Apps, we will return to posting only system-wide maintenance and downtime notices here. Our Google Apps rollout pages are being updated constantly, and contain an increasing amount of useful information as we begin using this exciting new suite of tools. Please start checking that page for updates, at the following location: www.macalester.edu/its/googleapps/. 03/17/08, Banner/1600grand Maintenance 03/19/08 Attention all Banner and 1600grand users. Both Banner and 1600grand will be taken offline for preventive maintenance on Wednesday, March 19 at 5:00 PM. These applications will be unavailable for approximately two (2) hours. If you have any questions about this scheduled maintenance period, please call Tim Friemann at 696-6879 or send e-mail to friemann@macalester.edu. 03/14/08, We're Moving to Google Apps! (Posted 5:30 PM) We're bringing a great new e-mail system to Macalester! As of today, March 14 2008, everyone in the Macalester community is welcome to sign up for Google Apps for Education. Google Apps is a reliable, feature-rich suite of communication and collaboration tools - beginning with e-mail. We are tremendously excited about this opportunity and we are eager to share it with you! More information, plus a link for signing up, may be found at www.macalester.edu/its/googleapps/ 03/14/08, E-Mail Service (Updated 4:15 PM) OCS e-mail service has been restored. There have been two brief outages in the last hour and a half, but our vendor partner has looked at the problems and things seem to be working again. 03/14/08, E-Mail Service (Updated 2:50 PM) OCS has gone down without warning. We are working with our vendors to restore service as quickly as possible. We will post more information here as soon as we have it. 03/13/08, E-Mail Service: Google Apps Progress (Updated 5:00 PM) As Spring Break approaches, we want to update you on our progress toward rolling out Google Apps for Education. It's going very well. We are working hard to make it possible for you to switch to Google Apps. We will have more information for you at this location tomorrow, Friday March 14. 03/12/08, E-Mail Service: What About IMAP? (Updated 2:30 PM) Several people have asked "When is Thunderbird/IMAP service going to be
restored?" (IMAP is the protocol that permits OCS, our current e-mail
system, to work with the Thunderbird client.) It is true that the OCS Webmail
interface is clunky and awkward, particularly for those accustomed to
using Thunderbird. However, we regret that it is not feasible to turn
IMAP back on at this time. We have found that with IMAP off, our OCS
e-mail works, albeit at lower performance levels. With IMAP on, OCS
becomes highly unstable and is prone to repeated, lengthy crashes.
Faced with a choice between a clunky e-mail system that works OK versus
an elegant system that does not work at all, we have chosen the former.
03/11/08, E-Mail Service: Progress Toward Google Apps for Education (Updated 4:18 PM) E-mail service through OCS has been restored, and is running as well as
it was before this afternoon's downtime. We continue to monitor OCS and
will do what is necessary to keep this service running, but we cannot
predict when it might go down again, however briefly. Please read on
for our plans about quickly moving to a better solution.
03/11/08, E-mail Service Restoration: Status Update, 3:06 PM. E-mail service through OCS Webmail has just gone down without warning. We are contacting our vendors and will post further information here as soon as we have it. 03/11/08, E-mail Service Restoration: Status Update, 8:30 AM. E-mail service through Webmail is working. IMAP service, through Thunderbird, Outlook, etc. remains turned off. We continue to accelerate our planning process to roll out Google Apps for Education. We are closely monitoring Webmail's performance and will post any new information at this location. Regular updates will still be made, but at less frequent intervals unless the situation changes. 03/10/08, E-mail Service Restoration: Status Update and Evening Plans, 5:00 PM. E-mail service through Webmail is working, but is not performing at a
normal level. IMAP service, through Thunderbird, Outlook, etc. remains
turned off. This evening, Monday March 10, ITS staff and Oracle
database engineers will be making some further adjustments in hopes of
bringing e-mail performance back up to normal levels. You will
encounter slower e-mail performance between approximately 11:00 PM
tonight and 6:00 AM tomorrow, Tuesday March 11. If you can avoid using
e-mail at all during this period, please do so. Because making these
adjustments and monitoring progress will take time, we will not be
putting out any more scheduled updates until tomorrow. (We will
certainly post updates in the event of unplanned events.)
03/10/08, E-mail Service Restoration: FAKE WARNING, 4:00 PM. Many Macalester individuals have received a notice threatening closure
of e-mail accounts unless you respond with personal information within
two days. Because of recent e-mail problems, we worry that you may take
this message more seriously than you otherwise would. This warning is a
FAKE. It is a 'phishing' attempt, originating from a German spammer.
Do not reply to it and do not provide any of the sensitive information
it requests.
If you have doubts or concerns about any e-mail message and want to get a second opinion, please call the ITS Help Desk at x.6525 immediately. 03/10/08, E-mail Service Restoration: Status Update, 3:00 PM. E-mail service through Webmail has been restored. Thunderbird (IMAP) remains off. We are closely monitoring the situation and will post further updates in this location. 03/10/08, E-mail Service Restoration: Status Update, 1:35 PM. E-mail service is down once more, apparently due to a problem in the Oracle database. We do not have more information at this time but we continue to work hard on repairing e-mail. Keep checking this location for updates. As below, we will post a new notification immediately when service is restored. 03/10/08, E-mail Service Restoration: Status Update, 1:25 PM. E-mail service through Webmail has been restored. Thunderbird (IMAP) remains off. Oracle's takedown and reboot procedure has been completed. Keep checking here for updates. 03/10/08, E-mail Service Restoration: Status Update, 12:00 noon. It is taking our Oracle database engineers much longer to accomplish the takedown and reboot procedure than was originally estimated. Until this process is complete, e-mail service through Webmail remains unavailable. We do not know how long the downtime will last. Rest assured that we will immediately post a notice in this location when the server is back up and Webmail is accessible once more. Further notices will give more information as we know it. 03/10/08, E-mail Service Restoration: Status Update, 11:10 AM. Oracle database engineers have brought our e-mail system down as of 11:05. This unplanned action was necessary to resolve a problem which, if left uncorrected, would have created more significant problems later today. If you are currently running Webmail (accessible at webmail.macalester.edu), please log out of it. Service should be restored at approximately 11:45 AM. We will post more information as it becomes available, in this location. 03/10/08, E-mail Server Restoration: Monday Update, 8:15 AM. Currently only Webmail is available. Access webmail here. IMAP service (Thunderbird) remains disabled Monday morning. After the meeting this morning another update will be posted. Please use webmail, and continue to monitor this page for additional updates. Thank you for your continued patience. 03/09/08, E-mail Server Restoration: Sunday Update, 11:30 PM. Currently only Webmail is available. Access webmail here. The change to webmail-only has helped, in that webmail works better than it had been while running along with Thunderbird e-mail. However, the underlying problem is still there, causing the system to become overloaded. We will be meeting Monday morning to decide the best next step. Please use webmail, and continue to monitor this page for additional updates. Thank you for your continued patience. 03/09/08, E-mail Server Restoration: Sunday Update, 7:15 PM. Currently only Webmail is available. Access webmail here. Last night the e-mail system was restarted with only Webmail available. This was done as Thunderbird access was clearly working much worse (not because of Thunderbird). Our hope is that doing this will allow users improved access to e-mail while we work this out. Please use webmail, and continue to monitor this page for additional updates. Thank you for your continued patience. 03/08/08, E-mail Server Restoration: Saturday Update, 5:40 PM. E-mail service will be down later than planned, until 8:00pm. Thank you for your continued patience. 03/08/08, E-mail Server Restoration: Saturday Update, 2:30 PM. E-mail service will be intermittently down between 3:00pm and 6:00pm today, while additional attempts are made to restore system functionality. If you find the e-mail system down during that time, please try again after 6:00pm. 03/08/08, E-mail Server Restoration: Saturday Update, 1:30 PM. E-mail service has been stable through the night and there are no new updates at this time. There are no more scheduled updates until tomorrow afternoon. 03/07/08, E-mail Server Restoration: Evening Update, 7:10 PM. IMAP service (Thunderbird) was has been re-enabled as of 6 PM. There was no significant improvement in service with IMAP down so we are continuing to explore other options to increase performance. ITS staff will continue to work thru the weekend but has no plans to take e-mail down again. This will be the last update of the evening but we will post status reports midafternoon Saturday and Sunday or as new developments arise. 03/07/08, E-mail Server Restoration: Status Update, 4:45 PM. As reported in our last update, IMAP service (accessible with
Thunderbird) has been disabled as of 3:55 PM. IMAP was running poorly,
generating errors for end-users while running slowly on the back end. If
Webmail access performs better, IMAP will remain disabled into
the coming weekend. If there is little difference between e-mail
service with Webmail and with IMAP, then IMAP will be re-enabled at 6:00
PM today, Friday March 7. In either case, look for a further update
around 7:00 PM this evening. As a reminder, Webmail may be accessed at
webmail.macalester.edu and also ocs.macalester.edu.
03/07/08, E-mail Server Restoration: Status Update, 3:45 PM. E-mail service through Thunderbird is not functioning well. Users are
encountering a high number of errors and failures. The tool that runs
Thunderbird - IMAP - needs investigation and possible repair. For this
reason IMAP will be turned off at 3:55 PM today, Friday March 7.
IMAP/Thunderbird will stay off for at least the remainder of today, and
possibly through the coming weekend.
03/07/08, E-mail Server Restoration: Status Update, 10:00 AM. Some reports are coming in about difficulties users are encountering. These include occasional problems logging into Thunderbird, changing from one folder to another while using Thunderbird, and getting various error notices when attempting to send, delete or forward messages. Webmail (accessible at webmail.macalester.edu and also ocs.macalester.edu) seems to be working slightly more efficiently than Thunderbird, so if you see such errors, Webmail may offer an alternative. We will continue monitoring the system closely and will post updated information here. 03/07/08, E-mail Server Restoration: Status Update, 8:30 AM. E-mail service is up and working. Performance levels are incrementally returning to normal. The backlog of messages that were held ("queued") during the downtime have all been delivered. We are closely monitoring the system and will continue to post updates at this location regularly, particularly if we have new information. Please note that while performance is still improving, you may still encounter some errors or unexpected glitches. 03/06/08, E-mail Server Restoration: Status Update, 10:15 PM. The scheduled service on the e-mail system was completed at just before 10:00 PM. The system will be monitored during the night to see if the maintenace improves the state of the e-mail server. Our next regular update will be tomorrow morning, Friday March 7, by 8:30 AM CST. 03/06/08, E-mail Server Restoration: Status Update, 5:00 PM. As we continue restoring normal e-mail service, it will be necessary to take the system down for further repairs. This downtime will take place tonight, Thursday March 6, beginning at 8:30 PM CST. We expect to bring the system back up by midnight - 12:00 PM - at the latest, and possibly earlier. Because of this scheduled downtime, we will post an update when the server comes back up. Our next regular update will be tomorrow morning, Friday March 7, by 8:30 AM CST. 03/06/08, E-mail Server Restoration: Status Update, 1:25 PM. We have no new information to report at this time. E-mail service continues to run slowly as the backlog of accumulated messages is delivered to your mailboxes. Anecdotally, Webmail (accessible at webmail.macalester.edu and also ocs.macalester.edu) seems to be working slightly more efficiently than Thunderbird. Our staff are monitoring the situation closely. Further updates will be posted in this location. 03/06/08, E-mail Server Restoration: Status Update, 11:05 AM. E-mail service continues to run very slowly as the backlog of accumulated messages is delivered to your mailboxes. Oracle staff have recommended some changes that they believe would improve performance. If we do not see an increase in speed shortly, we will consider implementing these recommendations. Such an implementation would require us to take e-mail down long enough to make the recommended changes. Rest assured that if we need to go this route, we will immediately communicate that with the campus community at this location. 03/06/08, E-mail Server Restoration: Status Update, 8:15 AM. We are cautiously optimistic that the problems with our e-mail service
have been resolved. Oracle's database team has given us the green light
to bring e-mail back up; we are doing so incrementally and closely
monitoring the process.
03/05/08, E-mail Server Outage: Evening Update, 10:00 PM. Oracle is still testing the E-Mail system so regrettably there is no new information tonight. This will be the last update this evening but we will start again first thing in the morning. 03/05/08, E-mail Server Outage: Status Update, 7:00 PM. ITS and Oracle are performing backups on the E-Mail database before continuing further testing. We will report again at 10:00 PM or as new information is available. 03/05/08, E-mail Server Outage: Status Update, 5:00 PM. We have received encouraging news from the Oracle team working on our e-mail database problem. Later this evening we will implement and test the actions they are recommending to us. We will post updates here at 7:00 and 10:00 PM CST. 03/05/08, E-mail Server Outage: Status Update, 4:00 PM. Oracle has identified the file that was damaged during the power outage Sunday evening 3/2, and Oracle technicians are now working to repair that file. When they have finished their work, we will begin testing the service to determine whether this repair has resolved the e-mail problem. The process will take place over the next few hours. We will continue to post new information here as soon as we have it. 03/05/08, E-mail Server Outage: Status Update, 1:30 PM. E-mail service remains down, and Oracle and ITS staff continue working
together to restore it. As noted, we will continue to post regular
updates at this location, as well as any new information we have to
share with the community. Several people have asked questions about this
outage, and we want to answer those questions here.
03/05/08, E-mail Server Outage: STATUS UPDATE (Updated 11:00 AM). ITS and Oracle staff continue to work on restoring e-mail service. We regret there are no new updates at this time. We will continue to post updates at this location regularly, and further at any time that we have more information to share with the community. 03/05/08, E-mail Server Outage: STATUS UPDATE (Updated 10:00 AM). ITS and Oracle are still working on e-mail. We regret there are no new updates at this time. 03/05/08, E-mail Server Outage: STATUS UPDATE (Updated 8:45 AM). Based on the latest information from Oracle, we don't expect e-mail service to be available until early this afternoon. We will continue to give updates as they occur. 03/05/08, E-mail Server Outage: Morning Update (Updated 8:00 AM). OCS e-mail was brought down at 6AM this morning to make changes to the system recommended by Oracle's tests last night. We will bring the system back up shortly to test these changes. Again, please be advised that we do not have confidence that email is currently stable, and so you may experience problems if you choose to access OCS. We will post an update within that time frame. 03/04/08, E-mail Server Outage: Evening Update (Updated 10:00 PM). OCS email will be up intermittantly this evening as ITS and Oracle monitor it with problem detection software. We hope to detect and resolve any remaining problems associated with the power failure Sunday evening. Please be advised that we do not have confidence that email is currently stable, and so you may experience problems if you choose to access OCS. The problems would likely be limited to slowness, and it is likely that we will have to shut OCS down at some point to resolve problems that we expect will be detected. This will be the last update for the evening but we will have more information first thing in the morning. Thank you for your patience as we work through this. 03/04/08, E-mail Server Outage: Current Status (Updated 7:10 PM). ITS staff members are continuing to work with our e-mail vendors. There are no new updates at this time but we will continue to inform the campus community with status. If you would like us to call you back when service is restored, please contact the Help Desk at x.6525 (if you call after 7:00 PM, please leave your name and extension). 03/04/08, E-mail Server Outage: Evening Plans (Updated 4:45 PM). ITS staff members will be on campus this evening, and through the night
if necessary, working with our vendors to restore e-mail (OCS). As of
5:00 PM, Webmail and e-mail with Thunderbird, Outlook, etc. remain
unavailable. Currently we are in constant communication with Oracle's
head of OCS for America. As a result of extended conversations with
her and with Oracle's lead database consultants, we are pursuing
a strategy that we hope will bear fruit within the next three hours.
03/04/08, E-mail Server Outage continues (Updated 4:01 PM). ITS staff members are working with our vendors to restore e-mail (OCS) - currently Webmail and e-mail with Thunderbird, Outlook, etc. remain unavailable. We are working to bring the system back up as soon as possible. We will continue to issue updates at this location until the problem is resolved. If you would like us to call you back when service is restored, please contact the Help Desk at x.6525. 03/04/08, E-mail Server Outage continues (Updated 3:00 PM). ITS staff members are continuing to work with our vendors to restore e-mail service (OCS). Currently Webmail and e-mail with Thunderbird, Outlook, etc. remain unavailable. We aim to bring the system back up as soon as possible. We will issue further updates at this location until the problem is resolved. If you would like us to call you back when service is restored, please contact the Help Desk at x.6525. 03/04/08, E-mail Server Outage continues (Updated 2:00 PM). ITS staff members are still working with our vendors to restore e-mail service (OCS) - currently Webmail and e-mail with Thunderbird, Outlook, etc. remain unavailable. We aim to bring the system back up as quickly as possible. We will issue further updates at this location until the problem is resolved. If you would like us to call you back when service is restored, please contact the Help Desk at x.6525. 03/04/08, E-mail Server Outage continues (Updated 1:00 PM). ITS staff members are working with vendors to restore e-mail service (OCS); currently Webmail and e-mail with Thunderbird, Outlook, etc. remain unavailable. We are continuing to work to bring the system back up as quickly as possible. We will issue further updates at this location until the problem is resolved. If you would like us to call you back when service is restored, please contact the Help Desk at x.6525. 03/04/08, E-mail Server Outage continues (Updated 12:01 PM). ITS staff members are working with our vendors to restore e-mail service (OCS) - currently Webmail and e-mail with Thunderbird, Outlook, etc. remain unavailable. We are working to bring the system back up as quickly as possible. We will continue to issue updates at this location until the problem is resolved. If you would like us to call you back when service is restored, please contact the Help Desk at x.6525. 03/04/08, E-mail Server Outage continues (Updated 11:00 AM). ITS staff members continue collaborating with our vendors to restore e-mail (OCS) - currently Webmail and e-mail with Thunderbird, Outlook, etc. remain unavailable. We are working to bring the system back up as quickly as possible. We will keep issuing updates at this location until the problem is resolved. If you would like us to call you back when service is restored, please contact the Help Desk at x.6525. 03/04/08, E-mail Server Outage continues (Updated 10:05 AM). ITS staff members continue working collaboratively with vendors to restore e-mail (OCS) - however, Webmail and e-mail with Thunderbird, Outlook, etc. remain unavailable. We are working to bring the system back up as quickly as possible. We will keep issuing updates at this location until the problem is resolved. If you would like us to call you back when service is restored, please contact the Help Desk at x.6525. 03/04/08, E-mail Server Outage continues (Updated 9:10 AM). ITS staff continues to work with our vendor to repair e-mail (OCS) - however, both Webmail and e-mail with Thunderbird, Outlook, etc. remain unavailable. We are still working to bring the system back up as soon as possible. We will issue updates at this location until the problem is resolved. If you would like us to call you back when service is restored, please contact the Help Desk at x6525. 03/04/08, E-mail Server Outage continues (Updated 7:30 AM). ITS staff worked through the night with our vendor to repair e-mail (OCS) - both we and the vendor are taking this outage very seriously. Both Webmail and e-mail with Thunderbird, Outlook, etc. remain unavailable. We are still working to bring the system back up as soon as possible. Keep checking back for updates or, if you would like a callback during business hours after service is restored, please contact the Help Desk at x6525. 03/03/08, E-mail Server Outage continues (Updated 10:00 PM). ITS networking is still working with our vendor to repair E-Mail. You may have noticed you could access your e-mail but the database is still not stable and the system will continue to go up and down as needed to repair the problem. Keep checking back for updates or if you would like a callback during business hours after service is restored, please contact the Help Desk at x6525. 03/03/08, E-mail Server Outage continues (Updated 7:30 PM). ITS networking continues to work with our vendor to repair E-Mail. If you would like a callback during business hours after service is restored, please contact the Help Desk at x6525. 03/03/08, E-mail Server Outage (Updated 4:35 PM).A problem ocurred with our e-mail server as a result of last night's campus-wide power outage. The server was rebooted, but there are still significant database errors. As of 4:30 PM, our network staff is still working closely with the vendor to get e-mail back up and working. This Web note will be updated further when we have more information to share. If you would like a callback during business hours after service is restored, please contact the Help Desk at x6525. 02/29/08, 1600grand, Banner Maintenance 3/3/08NOTICE for 1600grand and Banner users:
02/21/08, Incoming Mail Delivery Delay Due to a hardware problem overnight, there is a delay in delivering
e-mail messages coming from off-campus. No messages have been lost, and
all delayed messages will be delivered over the next few hours. We are
working with the hardware vendor to prevent a recurrence of this problem.
01/29/08, File Server Reboot Tonight It has become necessary to reboot the Academic and Admin file servers tonight, Tuesday January 29, beginning at 10:00 PM. Both servers will be down for approximately thirty minutes, during which we will increase the amount of storage space on them available for our community. During the downtime, all files stored on these servers (on G: and H: drives) will not be accessible. E-mail, Web services, 1600grand, Banner and Internet service will not be affected. 01/24/08, E-Mail Downtime: Resolved E-mail service went down at approximately 4:00 AM today. Networking Services staff have restored service as of 9:10 AM. Incoming and outgoing messages sent or received during the outage are NOT lost, but have been 'queued' and are now being delivered. 01/07/08, 1600grand Portal Problem: Resolved We had been experiencing technical difficulties with the 1600grand portal. ITS staff has resolved the issue, and the portal is working normally as of 2:40 PM. Please contact Tim Friemann (friemann@macalester.edu) at (651) 696-6879 or Rabin Bajracharya (bajracharya@macalester.edu") at (651) 696-6632 with any questions. 12/19/07, Network Maintenance Sunday 01/06/08 On Sunday January 6th 2008, from 6:00 AM to 10:00 AM, we will be performing some preventative maintenance on the Macalester network. Most services will be offline for periods of time during the maintenance window, including networked file access, e-mail, and all Macalester Web sites. External Web browsing (Chat, IM, gaming) will not be affected. If you have any questions or comments about the maintenance, please send an e-mail to fines@macalester.edu. For full details and status updates that morning please check back on this page. 12/06/07 Novell Servers Rebooted 5:30 AM, Friday December 7 It will be necessary to reboot two of our Novell servers, beginning at 5:30 AM Friday December 7. It will take approximately fifteen minutes for the servers to be brought back online. During that interval, no one will be able to log into e-mail or access Novell file servers (e.g. the G:\ drive). In addition, Windows PC users will not be able to print to network printers. 11/11/07 10am, OCS needs disk replacement OCS will be down for about 1 1/2 hours starting at 10am to replace a disk. 10/11/07 The Password Change Page is back up. Sorry for the delay but the Password Change Page is back up and running. 10/11/07 The Password Change Page is unavailable. If you want to change your password please call the Help Desk at ext.6525. 9/28/2007 9/25/07 Spam surge causes e-mail delays. An unusually high amount of incoming spam today caused e-mail delivery delays. Message delivery times returned to normal by the afternoon. View daily e-mail stats here. 07/9/07 Self Service Password Page &New Password Format Announcement A recent news item: "At the time, Tufts officials saw no reason to warn
alumni, as the school found no evidence that any personal data had been
accessed. But then came news of the alumni computer breach at Boston
College, as well as thefts of personal information at California State 06/30/07 System Outage Due to Power Issues As of 9:15 all services are back up and running. We apologize for the inconvenience. Saturday morning a power breaker blew out in the server room causing several systems, including E-Mail, to go down. ITS Staff is working on the problem now and as of 8:40AM systems are still down but should be up shortly.
05/30/07 E-Mail Outage Update & Explanation E-mail service over the Memorial Day weekend was interrupted due to a hardware failure within a physical server, not to problems with OCS itself. Network staff have made changes to our infrastructure so as to prevent a recurrence. 05/28/07, 9:30 am. Disk Maintenance on E-mail server Four of the disks on the e-mail server are being replaced. To do this, a large quantity of data (196GB) needs to be moved on to new disks.While it is being moved, e-mail will be unavailable. We thank you for your patience during this very inconvenient outage. 05/25/07 E-mail Service Restored E-mail service was restored at about 11:00 PM on Friday night. There will be a planned outage on Sunday morning from 6:00 AM to 9:00 AM in order to make a permanent fix for the problem that caused this extended downtime.We thank you for your patience during this very inconvenient outage.
05/25/07 E-mail Outage 10:00 PM update A firmware conflict caused our e-mail server to crash Friday morning at 9:15 AM. E-mail service has been down since that time. While our support vendor has recovered several files necessary to bring the server back up, there was significant data corruption caused by the initial crash. Fixing these corrupt files requires much work. This work has been in progress since the files were recovered Friday afternoon and is still continuing. Unfortunately, it has been difficult to estimate the amount of time this outage would take to resolve, because the extent of the damage could only be discovered as the files were fixed. We now expect the outage to continue into the morning hours on Saturday. We will update this page as more information is available and as soon as e-mail service is restored. We regret the great inconvenience this service interruption has caused. We are working with our vendor to restore e-mail as soon as possible.
05/01/07, Student Voicemail Boxes On Monday April 16th at about 12:00pm, our Internet connection speed was increased from 25 Mbps to 35 Mbps, a 40% increase. We are hoping this bandwidth increase will get everyone at Macalester through the end of the semester! Attention all 1600grand and Banner users: Both 1600grand and Banner will be taken offline this evening, Monday April 16 2007, at 8:00 PM for approximately one hour in order to perform preventative maintenance. 1600grand and Banner are scheduled to be available again at 9:00 PM this evening. Please contact Tim Friemann (x.6879 or friemann@macalester.edu) if you have any questions pertaining to this notice. Thank you.
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Macalester College · 1600 Grand Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55105 USA · 651-696-6000 |