Author name: csstaff

As you may have noticed, this upgrade was not completed this morning due to issues with the upgrade process. Some critical parts of the system were successfully upgraded, which should allow us to upgrade more components in a less-disruptive way, but the process is not completed at this time.

More updates will follow at a future date. Thanks for your patience.

-CS Staff

—– Original Message —–
From: csstaff@CS.Princeton.EDU
To: downtime@lists.cs.princeton.edu
Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2015 11:38:30 AM
Subject: [downtime] CS Email Downtime, Thursday, November 5, 2015, 06:00-09:00

Date: Thursday, November 5, 2015 (06:00-09:00)

Who is affected:
All users of CS Department email services

What is happening:
All incoming email services will be shutdown while the Zimbra server
software is upgraded.

During this time, IMAP, POP, and Webmail will all be unavailable, as will
any email forwarding or filtering. All incoming messages should be safely
queued on our MTAs for delivery after the downtime. IMAP and POP users
should not notice any changes after the downtime. Webmail users will see an
updated interface.

Why is it happening:
This upgrade will bring our mail server software up-to-date with the
current release version from Zimbra. Among other things, it will address
several recent vulnerabilities announced in various portions of the
software.

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: Thursday, November 5, 2015 (06:00-09:00)

Who is affected:
All users of CS Department email services

What is happening:
All incoming email services will be shutdown while the Zimbra server
software is upgraded.

During this time, IMAP, POP, and Webmail will all be unavailable, as will
any email forwarding or filtering. All incoming messages should be safely
queued on our MTAs for delivery after the downtime. IMAP and POP users
should not notice any changes after the downtime. Webmail users will see an
updated interface.

Why is it happening:
This upgrade will bring our mail server software up-to-date with the
current release version from Zimbra. Among other things, it will address
several recent vulnerabilities announced in various portions of the
software.

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

UPDATE 08:09 : This downtime is being extended due to problems with the upgrade. At present, we hope to have service restored by 10:00. Further updates will be posted here as needed.

UPDATE 08:30 : After further work, rather than extending to 10:00, service is returned presently, and the upgrade process has been postponed to a later date. Thank you for your patience.

Date: Thursday, October 22, 2015 (06:00-08:00)

Who is affected:
All users of CS Department Email Services

What is happening:
All incoming email services will be shutdown for a brief period.

During this time, IMAP, POP, and Webmail will all be unavailable, as will
any email forwarding or filtering. All incoming messages should be safely
queued on our MTAs for delivery after the downtime.

Why is it happening:
This shutdown will allow us to move around a couple of the underlying
services supporting our email servers. This shuffle is necessary to prepare
for a major Zimbra version upgrade planned for the Fall Break time period
(more details to follow later), by retiring some older servers in favor of
newer versions that can better handle the coming upgrade.

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 15, 2015 (06:00-08:00)

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

What is happening:
During this window, these systems will be replaced with newer hardware.
This also means their OSes will be reinstalled, but they will receive the
same Springdale 7.1 OS currently installed.

SPECIAL NOTE: As we are installing fresh OSes, all crontabs on the cycles
machines 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. Any crontabs on tux or opus (\”penguins\”) will persist, as those
machines are not being reinstalled at this time.

Why is it happening:
This is part of the normal refresh cycle of the public login systems, and
will bring newer, faster processors and larger memory to the cycles
systems.

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: 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

Date: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 (07:00-08:00)

Who is affected:
All users of the CS Department \”cycles\” systems (soak, wash, rinse, and
spin).

What is happening:
The cycles systems will be shutdown and rebooted after a firmware update.

Why is it happening:
Due to an uptime-related firmware bug on the current cycles servers, the
systems have recently become unstable. In order to avoid a possible
unplanned outage of these systems, they will be power cycled and have the
affected firmware updated to a version no longer affected by the bug.

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

Due to inclement weather, this downtime, previously announced for
Tuesday, is being rescheduled by one day to Wednesday, January 28, 2015.
Please contact CS Staff immediately if this causes you undue hardship.

Sincerely,
CS Staff

—– Original Message —–
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2015 1:41:46 PM
Subject: [downtime] CS System Downtime, Tuesday, January 27, 2015, 06:00-08:00

Date: Tuesday, January 27, 2015 (06:00-08:00)

Who is affected:
All users of CS Department computing systems and services including, but
not limited to, e-mail, web service, cycles, penguins, and the ionic
cluster.

What is happening:
During this window, OS patches will be applied to update our managed
systems to Springdale 6.6. After patching, all systems will be rebooted.

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

*** This downtime has been rescheduled.***

Date: Tuesday, January 27, 2015 (06:00-08:00)

Who is affected:
All users of CS Department computing systems and services including, but
not limited to, e-mail, web service, cycles, penguins, and the ionic
cluster.

What is happening:
During this window, OS patches will be applied to update our managed
systems to Springdale 6.6. After patching, all systems will be rebooted.

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, December 30, 2014 (05:30-06:30)

Who is affected:
All users of the CS department computing using rinse.cs.princeton.edu

What is happening:
rinse.cs.princeton.edu will be rebooted.

Why is it happening:
rinse..cs.princeton.edu is running out of resources and has numerous
defunct processes.

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