Important maintenance work on the power supply to the Stoke Bishop area will be taking place on the 7th and 8th April 2011 between 8am and 4pm.

This will affect building power, ResNet, Wireless (all wireless, including ResNet & eduroam services), Admin network and telephone connectivity throughout Thursday 7th and Friday the 8th.

Your hall office should be able to answer any further queries that you may have.

7th April 2011

The following locations will have no power, network (ResNet, Wireless, Admin Network) or telephones:

• University Hall
• Durdham Hall
• Haitt Baker
• Wills Hall (Including The Holmes)
• The Downs Workshop
• The Grounds and Gardens offices etc

The following locations will have power, but no network (ResNet, Wireless, Admin Network) or telephone connectivity:

• Churchill Hall
• Badock Hall

8th April 2011

The following locations will have no power or network (ResNet, Wireless, Admin Network).  The phones should stay up.

• Badock Hall
• Churchill Hall

We've been having ongoing problems with our database since the scheduled maintenance on Wednesday.  It was unavailable from 2am-8:30am Thursday, and the same again on Friday.  The database team are on the case, and the issue is severe enough that they've opened a support call with Oracle (who supply our database software).

We're waiting to hear back from Oracle, but it's likely that some of the ResNet systems will be unavailable for periods of time over the weekend.  The database team are planning to put some workarounds in place that should minimise the amount of time systems are unavailable.

The ResNet team are also investigating to see if there's anything we can do to minimise the impact on peoples connections, especially those who are due to move out of the bandwidth restricted network on Sunday night/Monday Morning.

Because of essential maintenance to one of the university database servers, the following services will be unavailable between 8:30am and 12:30am, Wednesday 2nd March.

• My ResNet Control Panel will be unavailable
• The ResNet Bandwidth Monitoring Gadget will not report data use correctly
• The ResNet Registration System will be unavailable
• The ResNet Live Status screens on the ResNet Website and the IS website will be unavailable

The helpdesk connection troubleshooting tools will also be unavailable, so there will be a diminished support capacity for ResNet until about 1pm.

For more information about other services which will be affected by this maintenance work, see the IS website: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/is/news/2011/diversp17feb.html

This is the third ResNet newsletter of the year, also sent by email to ResNet subscribers.

Using a router to connect more than one device to ResNet

If you want to use more than one device with your ResNet connection, and you're in a hall covered by ResNet Wireless, it's probably easiest to use that.  For more information about ResNet Wireless, see the ResNet Wireless pages.

If your hall doesn't have ResNet Wireless, then you'll need to get a "broadband router" if you want to do this.  There are hundreds of models available, not all of them are suitable for use on ResNet. It can be really quite confusing trying to pick one out!

If you're buying it from a shop such as PC World, ask for a router which is suitable for use on Virginmedia Cable Broadband.  If you're buying online, look for phrases such as "cable broadband router" or "ethernet router".  Avoid devices which say "ADSL" or which don't mention the word "router" at all - as they're unlikely to work.

If you've got a router which works on ResNet, or know someone who has - it'd be great if you could mention the model number on this AskIT thread: http://askit.bris.ac.uk/uob/topics/connecting_more_than_one_device_to_resnet_which_routers_work_on_resnet

New email and calendar service: come and see the options

Following feedback from staff and students, the University is planning to replace the current email and calendar systems (Mulberry, Squirrelmail and Oracle Calendar) with a new, integrated email and calendar service.

Information Services are holding an open meeting at 2pm on Wednesday 9th February in the Tyndall Lecture Theatre, Physics Building (on Tyndall Avenue) Representatives from Microsoft and Google will be there demonstrating "Google Apps for Education" and "Microsoft Live@Edu."

Everyone is welcome, there is no need to book in advance. For more information, please see http://www.bristol.ac.uk/new-email

Free antivirus software!

Has your antivirus software run out? It's essential to have anti-virus to protect your computer, but normally when you buy antivirus software it expires and stops updating after 12 months.

Luckily there is no need to pay for antivirus software. Microsoft Security Essentials is a good anti-virus package, and even better it's free! Download a copy from http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/

ResNet bandwidth widgets revisited

Most students don't need to worry about how much they upload and download on ResNet, as the weekly usage allowances in ResNet Standard & Max cover most people easily. We do have some very heavy users - if that sounds like you try the ResNet bandwidth widgets.

When we first mentioned them back in October, there were one or two problems with the Windows version.  If you tried it back then but couldn't get it to work - have another go!

We've got official widgets for the Windows sidebar, OS X dashboard, and the web. We've also got a public API and some great widgets contributed by students, including apps for Android phones and iOS devices (iPhone/iPad/iPod touch)

Go to toys.resnet.bris.ac.uk to try them out.

Due to essential network maintenance there will be a number of short interruptions, less than five minutes, to the network services on:

Tuesday 1st February 2011 between 08:00 - 10:00

These interruptions will affect the following area:

* Wills Hall (Stoke Bishop)

Information Services would like to apologise for any disruption caused by this work which is part of a continued programme of improvement to the network service.

If you have any questions or require further details please contact the IT help-desk.

As part of a programme of continued improvement and upgrades to the network, there will be interruptions to the network service at Langford on:

Tuesday 25 January between 07:30 - 09:00

At this time there will be an interruption to the data network of up to an hour during which the main Langford router will be replaced.

This will affect the Academic and ResNet data network for the entire site.  The telephone service will be unaffected during this outage.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Update 2011-01-12 15:10 Because of the extent of the impact this work would have, it has been cancelled and will be rearranged for a later date.

(more...)

It seems that one of our servers which provides My ResNet, the in-room registration system  and DNS for half of ResNet fell over on Friday evening.  Some people will have experienced slow connections as their connections failed over to the secondary DNS server.

As the office isn't staffed at weekends, I only happened to notice it by chance.  I've restarted the server and normal service was restored at around 14:45 on Sunday.

Sorry for the inconvenience caused.

The ResNet Service at Hillside Woodside is currently unavailable.

This appears to be because the connection between Hillside Woodside and the rest of the university goes through Burwalls, and Burwalls currently has the power turned off due to some flooding.

We'll update this post when we've got more information.

Update 2011-01-05: Following a site visit by our networking team, it is due to the flooding at Burwalls.  The pipe which burst was directly above part of the equipment which maintains the link back to the campus.  We're currently trying to determine how best to go about replacing the damaged equipment.

As we don't have any spares for that kit, it's looking like we're talking days to fix it rather than hours.  More info as and when we get it.

Update 2011-01-05: We've managed to acquire a replacement for the damaged kit (just about!  We managed to get the last one in stock!) They're going to ship it out to us tomorrow, so with a bit of luck we should be able to get it fitted in time for the weekend.

Update 2011-01-07: The replacement hardware has been delivered...

Update 2011-01-07: The replacement hardware has been fitted, and service has been restored to Hillside Woodside.

The networking in the North wing of Deans Court has been down since Mon 29-11-2010 at 10:30, we're not sure why at the moment although workmen have reportedly been seen in the vicinity of the cabinet.  We're looking into it, and will update this post when we know what's going on.

Update: 12:50 - it all seems to be back up now.