Information Services are carrying out some essential systems maintenance on the 11th August 2009, 10:00-10:30 which affects the following ResNet systems:

One of the ResNet servers is feeling a little under the weather, so we’re going to have to take it offline first thing tomorrow
to run some diagnostics to confirm that the problem is what we think it is before we can log a hardware fault report.

The following services will be unavailable from 8:30am-10:30am, Friday 17th April 2009.

• My ResNet
• In-Room registration system
• Wireless ResNet
• download.resnet.bris.ac.uk/pub (ResNet software archive)
• www.bris.ac.uk/slink url shortening service
• www.resnet.bris.ac.uk browser redirection – the actual content at http://www.bristol.ac.uk/is/computing/advice/homeusers/resnet will remain available.

Currently registered connections will continue to function normally.

We will update this post when the maintenance is complete

Update: 09:42
Maintenance is now complete, and service has been restored.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, one of our database servers encountered a problem and stopped accepting connections.  This meant that the My ResNet and Registration systems were unavailable, and in some cases were displaying unhelpful error messages.

The database team sprang into action on Monday morning and fixed the problem, and everything is back up and working now.  Sorry for any confusion/concern that this caused!

One of our ResNet DNS servers has developed a disk fault.

The majority of ResNet users will not be effected, as our other DNS server is ticking along nicely – however some users will notice that web usage feels a little unresponsive as their computer tries the dead server before failing over to the live one.

We swapped out the disk this morning at about 10am, in what should have been a transparent procedure with no expected downtime.  Things don’t appear to have gone to plan, and the service is taking longer than expected to restore (as we’ve had to take the server offline while it re-synchronises its disks)

I’ll update this post when we’re back in business.

Update: 12:31
The disks are still syncing – but thanks to some fancy footwork, we’ve managed to move the DNS service over on to a backup machine, so we’ve got two DNS servers again.

Update: Friday 24th Oct – 11:09
Normal service has been resumed – thanks to a significant amount of mucking about with disks, a long and tedious synchronisation process, and an issue with the disk controller drivers.  I do have some more minor work to do to this server to tidy things up – but it’s currently stable so I’ll leave it alone for the weekend.

It looks like the University single-signon system isn’t working at the moment. I’m told that people are looking into it, but as far as I can tell it’s a certificate problem.

This means that the following ResNet services are unavailable as there is no way to log in at present.

• My ResNet
• The in room registration system
• All our administration tools

I’ll update this post when the problem has been resolved.

Update: 2008-08-19 – 16:47
Problem is now resolved.  I don’t have many details as yet, but access to all the above tools has been restored.

There is some central database maintenance going on today, which means the following ResNet services are unavailable:

• My ResNet – www.resnet.bris.ac.uk/myresnet
• The in-room registration system – register.resnet.bris.ac.uk
• The systems which our helpdesk use to process application forms and troubleshoot connections

If your ResNet connection is working, it will continue to work unaffected. If you need to register your connection, move rooms, or connect a new computer to ResNet, you’ll need to wait until later this evening.

Other systems around the university may be affected by this maintenance period. For more information, see http://www.bris.ac.uk/is/news/2008/datahavenaugust4.html

Update: 2008-08-14 10:43
It seems that there were problems encountered during the upgrade which meant it took longer than expected.  Normal service was resumed at about 10am today (Thursday) and after a few minor wobbles we appear to be back in business.

It would seem that just after I left the office on Friday, the server which hosts both the registration process and the My ResNet service fell over. The out of hours helpdesk have probably noticed this, as it also hosts the system which they use to look at the health of peoples ResNet connections when they call up!

We don’t have access to the machine room on weekends, and I’m unable to reboot the server remotely as we’ve upgraded part of the equipment that does that – and my crib sheet of instructions is out of date! The staff that have the required knowledge to update my crib sheet aren’t available…

So it’ll have to wait until first thing Monday morning. I should be in the office around 8:30am on Monday, and I’ll reboot it first thing.

Sorry for any inconvenience caused by this outage.

Update: 2008-06-30
The server was rebooted at about 8am this morning.  Normal service has been resumed.

It looks as though one of our servers fell over at about 7am yesterday morning. We didn’t notice because we were all away for the bank holiday. Sorry about that.

The services affected include:

• ResNet Website
• My ResNet
• The registration system
• ResNet Chat
• ResNet downloads page

There are a number of other services which may have experienced problems, although those appear to have fallen over to backup servers.

We have a mechanism for rebooting servers from offsite, so I’m trying for a reboot now.

Update: Reboot complete, service should now be back to normal.

It seems we’ve been having problems with the ResNet Chat service all day.

It’s been doing some odd things, specifically with server2server chat (eg chatting to your mates on googletalk)

The problems became a little worse this evening and I’ve spent the last three quarters of an hour or so trying to breathe some life back in to the service.

I’m not getting very far.

I’ve managed to get it back to a point where you can connect, and it appears that you can chat to other ResNet chat users – but talking to external users still isn’t working.

I’m going to keep looking into it, but I’m rapidly becoming out of my depth – so I’ll be passing it on to a collegue in the morning.

Sorry for any inconvenience this causes!

Update 2008-03-04: We’ve spent all day looking at it, updating certificates, restarting this, fiddling with that – and it’s still broken. We’re going to try a cold reboot of the server tomorrow morning to see if that helps, but as far as we can tell it *should* be working. I will update again tomorrow morning.