August 2015

Date: Tuesday, August 25, 2015 (06:00-08:00)

Who is affected:
All users of the CS Department public login servers (tux and opus, aka
\”penguins\”) and cycle servers (soak, wash, rinse, and spin, aka \”cycles\”)

What is happening:
During this window, these systems will have their OSes reinstalled and
upgraded to the latest distribution version, Springdale 7.1.

SPECIAL NOTE: As we are reloading the Linux (penguins and cycles) servers,
all crontabs will be deleted. If you have crontabs that you wish to
persist, you will need to back up your crontabs before the downtime, and
restore them after.

Why is it happening:
This is part of normal maintenance of the publicly-accessible systems, and
will bring newer versions of installed tools and software. This is the
first step in bringing this newer software to other parts of the CS
infrastructure.

Please note that with this upgrade, some older versions of software, or
some packages which are no longer part of the distribution, may no longer
be available. We encourage you to verify your workflows after this upgrade
to ensure you are able to continue your work. CS Staff stands ready to
assist with any unforeseen trouble.

We will post updates to the status page: http://www.csstaff.org
as necessary.

If this downtime will cause you undue hardship, or if you have specific
concerns before the upgrade, please contact csstaff@cs.princeton.edu
immediately, so we can discuss options to reduce any negative impact. Your
patience is appreciated.
Sincerely,
CS Staff

Date: Tuesday, August 18, 2015 (05:00-08:00)

Who is affected:
All users of the CS Department computing infrastructure, including web
servers, public login and cluster servers, file service, and more.

What is happening:
The file server supporting most CS Department computing services will have
its OS and server software upgraded. During this time, all public login
servers and the ionic cluster will be shutdown and rebooted in order to
minimize the risk of data corruption or loss.

Why is it happening:
This upgrade is part of the regular maintenance of our storage system, and
is expected to improve the performance of the system.

We will post updates to the status page: http://www.csstaff.org
as necessary.

If this downtime will cause you undue hardship, please contact
csstaff@cs.princeton.edu immediately, so we can discuss options to reduce
any negative impact. Your patience is appreciated.
Sincerely,
CS Staff