Author name: csstaff

UPDATE: 10:30 AM – The upgrade is progressing as expected, but some minor issues have arisen. At this time, SMB/CIFS connections to the cluster are not functioning. We are working to correct the issue and will update this post when it is done.

UPDATE: 11:45 AM – We have found a workaround for the SMB/CIFS connection issue. SMB/CIFS connections should be working normally again and we will continue troubleshooting the backend issue later this week. At this time, the planned upgrade is complete.

Date: Monday, August 9, 2021 (05:00-12:00)

Who is affected:
All users of the CS department computing.

What is happening:
We are upgrading our storage operating system, which requires for CS
storage to be rebooted. All services that depend upon access to storage
might be unavailable for some periods during this window, including –
cycle servers, ionic cluster, web content, home directories, CIFS, etc.

Why is it happening:
Our current operating system has reached end-of-life status and needs an
upgrade.

Bear in mind that, while we do not anticipate any extended service outages,
you may find that there are momentary interruptions and some connections
(especially CIFS/SMB connections) may need to be reestablished.

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

Date: Wednesday, June 23, 2021 (08:00-08:15)

Who is affected:
Users of CS Department Email Services

What is happening:
One of the two Zimbra mailbox servers will be rebooted. This will cause a
brief email outage for about half of CS Department email users. After the
reboot, some folks may need to re-authenticate to the email server. There
should be no loss of email; any incoming messages during the outage will
simply be queued for delivery once the server is up.

Why is it happening:
The out-of-band management device for this server has hit a fault and
become unavailable. As a result, our ability to troubleshoot the machine in
an emergency is presently restricted. This device also provides
environmental monitoring to the OS level (including temperature and power
supply status), so those functions are also not presently working. The
reboot will include a power cycle intended to restore the full function of
the hardware.

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
_______________________________________________
downtime mailing list
downtime@lists.cs.princeton.edu
https://lists.cs.princeton.edu/mailman/listinfo/downtime

Date: Tuesday, January 21, 2020 (07:00-09:00)

Who is affected:
Users of the CS Department mysql database service.

What is happening:
The Computer Science Department user and project database server needs to
undergo hardware maintenance for reported memory errors.

Why is it happening:
To continuously provide stable database resources for the department, the
CS user database server must be taken offline outside normal business hours
to perform the necessary corrective actions.

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
_______________________________________________
downtime mailing list
downtime@lists.cs.princeton.edu
https://lists.cs.princeton.edu/mailman/listinfo/downtime

Date: Tuesday, September 3, 2019 (06:00-10:00)

Who is affected:
All users of the CS Staff-managed public login systems, including the
cycles, courselab and armlab systems.

All users of the CS Department Beowulf high performance computing cluster,
known as ionic.

What is happening:
During this window, the cycles systems will be replaced with newer
hardware, and the courselab systems will be reinstalled and updated with
the latest distribution version of Springdale Linux 7.6. Armlab systems
will be rebooted.

SPECIAL NOTE: As we are reloading the Linux 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 regular maintenance to keep systems up-to-date.

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
_______________________________________________
downtime mailing list
downtime@lists.cs.princeton.edu
https://lists.cs.princeton.edu/mailman/listinfo/downtime

Date: Tuesday, August 20, 2019 (07:00-09:00)

Who is affected:
All users of CS Department email services, including those forwarding their
CS email off-site or reading it locally.

What is happening:
During this window, our Zimbra mail server software will be updated to the
current release version. During the upgrade, all CS email services will be
unavailable.

Email messages arriving during the outage will be queued for delivery after
the systems return to service.

Why is it happening:
This upgrade is part of normal maintenance of our systems, keeping up with
changes and updates to the software. It will also provide updated features
and interfaces for the Webmail interface.

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
_______________________________________________
downtime mailing list
downtime@lists.cs.princeton.edu
https://lists.cs.princeton.edu/mailman/listinfo/downtime

Date: Tuesday, January 29, 2019 (07:00-15:00)

Who is affected:
All users of the CS department computing.

What is happening:
We are upgrading our storage operating system, which requires for CS
storage to be rebooted. All services that depend upon access to storage
will be unavailable for some periods during this window, including –
cycle servers, ionic cluster, web content, home directories, CIFS, etc.

Why is it happening:
This is necessary in order to fix numerous bugs on our file system. In
addition, it will get our storage aligned with the latest operating system, which is crucial for any of the future storage hardware upgrades.

Please keep in mind that all of the above services will not be unavailable for the whole duration of the downtime. We do not expect an outage to last more than an hour, but cannot give an exact time of the reboot.

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