Lancaster University ISS

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Fri 29 Feb - All services ran without problems

Thu 28 Feb - All services ran without problems

Wed 27 Feb - Webmail 2.2 Deployed

During the systems at risk period, work was be carried out to update webmail to the latest version. Work began at 14:30 and was completed by 17:00. Short service outages were experienced during this period.

Tue 26 Feb - All services running without problems

Mon 25 Feb - Central-print5 Print Server Down For 30 Minutes

Central-print5 was off-line between 10:00 and 10:30. During that time the print server was not excepting print jobs. Central-print5 is one of two print servers that serve ISS maintained printers on campus. The problem has been fixed and both printer servers are now working normally.

Fri 22 Feb - All services running without major problems

Thu 21 Feb - Webmail & Unix Email Service Interruption

The system holding mailboxes for Unix mail users (all Webmail users and some others) failed on Thursday Feb 21 at about 20:45. ISS engineers were on site attending to the failure quickly, and service resumed at 22:45. We do not yet have an indication of the cause of the problem but will be analysing diagnostic data tomorrow.

Wed 20 Feb - All services running without major problems

Tue 19 Feb - Webmail & Unix Email Service Stabilised, HPC Operational, and Network Maintenance

Webmail & Unix Email Service Stabilised

For the past two weeks users have experienced Unix, Webmail & SMTP E-mail delays. ISS have worked on the problem and reduced the delays to a minimal level. ISS are continuing to monitor and respond to the situation.

HPC Operational

The HPC service is now restored. The job scheduler is back on line, and waiting jobs are now filtering through to the running queues. We are expecting a report from Panasas tomorrow on when to expect a bugfix for our problem. Until then, the service is still at risk of similar file system hangs.

Campus Network Maintenance

07:00-09:00: During the network at risk period, work was undertaken to continue the enablement of the network to support IPv6.

Mon 18 Feb - HPC Problem

The HPC service is unavailable this morning after a recurrence of last week's file system problems. Update 13:30: Access to the file system has now been restored following a reboot and volume recovery this morning. The corona head node is available if you wish to access your files. The job scheduler is currently unavailable - file system damage is preventing the service from restarting.

Fri 15 Feb - Webmail/Unix/SMTP Email Maintenance, HPC back in Service

Webmail, Unix & SMTP Email Delays

To further optimize the system, the UNIX Email Service was unavailable this morning between 08:00 and 08:30 for essential maintenance.

HPC Problems Persist

Panasas engineers restored the file system overnight. There's some additional clean-up work required access can be restored. It is anticipated that the HPC will be available around lunchtime today. Update at 12:45: The HPC service is available again following on from yesterday's file system instability.

Thu 14 Feb - Webmail/Unix/SMTP Email Stabilised, and HPC Problems Persist

Webmail/Unix/SMTP Email Stabilised

The UNIX Email system has now been stabilized and email delivery times have been greatly reduced.

HPC Problems Persist

The HPC is unavailable again due to another hang of the Panasas shelf. Symptoms appear to be identical to yesterday's hang. ISS are investigating the problem.

Wed 13 Feb - Webmail/Unix/SMTP Email Delays, and Problems with HPC

Webmail/Unix/SMTP Email Delays

Users of the Unix e-mail service are experiencing delays on incoming email through Webmail, Unix mail and SMTP mail. The delays are caused by the high volume of email traffic on the system. ISS are making a series of changes to help reduce the delays to incoming email. If this is unsuccessful, then a longer-term solution planned for the summer may need to be brought forward.

Problems with HPC

Problems with HPC (Panasas shelf hung , affecting all nodes which mount file systems from it) required an overnight reboot of the system (including RAID reconstruction) The system should be up and running by tomorrow morning.

Tue 12 Feb - External Network Maintenance, Webmail/Unix/SMTP Email Problems & IE Update

External Network Maintenance

During the 'Network at risk' period, the border router for the campus network will be upgraded to increase the University's connection to JANET and the wider internet. Very short outages may be experienced whilst this work is carried out. Work will begin at 07:00 and should complete by 09:00.

Problems with Webmail/Unix/SMTP Email

Users of the Unix email service are still experiencing delays. The delays are being caused by the high volume of email traffic on the system. ISS are making a series of changes to help reduce the delays to incoming email.

Update from IE6 to IE7

On the 12th February Microsoft will force all Windows PCs* running automatic 'Windows Updates' to download and install Internet Explorer version 7 (IE7) and overwrite version 6 (IE6). Essentially Microsoft is sending out Internet Explorer as a 'patch' to mend security holes** in Windows. The first time you use IE7 after the upgrade, it will look different. IE7 offers additional features and increased security. For more information, see Converting to IE7.

*Note that all 'Managed' XP PCs have already been upgraded to IE 7.

Mon 11 Feb - Problems with Webmail/Unix/SMTP Email

Users of the Unix e-mail service are still experiencing delays - ISS are investigating the problem.

Fri 8 Feb - Webmail, Unix & SMTP Email Delays

This problem affects users sending or receiving email through Unix mail, Webmail and SMTP mail (this includes Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird and other IMAP mail clients. The 'Quota Indication' on the Webmail system has been turned off. This measure was to help diagnose the current mail performance problems.

Thu 7 Feb - Webmail, Unix & SMTP Email Delays

Users of the Unix e-mail service are experiencing delays. This problem affects users sending or receiving email through Unix mail, Webmail and SMTP mail (this includes Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird and other IMAP mail clients). ISS are working on both short and longer term solutions to correct the problem. We will post updates when available.

17:00 7/02/08 - one issue has a that a high proportion of email was being generated to a mailing list that had been requested by the department to be 'open'. This list was being heavily Spammed. In order to rectify this particular issue and protect the internal mail systems the mail list was closed so that only authorised users could email to the list. Other factors are known to be impacting the performance and these are under investigation.

Wed 6 Feb - Webmail/Unix/SMTP Email Delays

Email passing through the Unix servers is still being delayed. ISS are investigating.

Tue 5 Feb - Recovering from a Power Cut, and Webmail/Unix/SMTP Email Delays

Power Failure

Following on from last night's power cut, some services have taken time to recover. The HPC service was restarted at 10:00.

Users connecting the University network VPN are unable to connect to the their filestore (aka H: Drive).

Webmail/Unix/SMTP Email Delays

Email passing through the Unix servers is being delayed. This affects Webmail and external email.

Mon 4 Feb - Power Failure to Campus

On the evening of 4 Feb there was a power cut between 19:00 and 20:00 that affected the whole of campus.

Sun 3 Feb - Hoax Emails from Help Desks

A new type of attack has recently been detected in UK Universities whereby spammers send emails claiming to be from the University help desk requesting your username and password to prevent your account being deleted. Although there is no evidence to say Lancaster has been targeted, now is a good time to remind everyone that ISS will never ask for your password. If any emails do claim to be from ISS or the University please forward the email (without your password!) on to the ISS Service Desk for further investigation.