HMC Mathematics Computing Weblog

Printing is back. Tape backup system restored. Spamassassin running again. Other backend services restored/adjusted.

Lab and faculty machines are now rebooted. If you have problems reaching them, with file access, or with anything else that doesn't seem to work the way it used to, please let me know ASAP. Thanks.

Please remember that during the remainder of the break access may still be suspended temporarily while I do minor maintenance. Significant service breaks will be announced here and by e-mail at least a day before they happen.

Incoming and outgoing mail working. Authentication working. UPS working. NFS working. Time to go home. More testing and configuration tomorrow.

Packages installed. Rebooting.

Partitioning and configuration complete; installing packages.

Start OS install.

Begin installing BIOS updates.

fscking /home partitions. (Machine had been up for 160 days.)

Backups complete.

Services suspended. Final backups underway.

Temporarily restored mail and printing service while prebackup copies complete.

Many services have been shutdown in preparation for the final backups. These services include:

• Log in
• Electronic mail
• Printing

Mail should be picked up by an alternate server and delivered when our main server is up again.

I will be performing an upgrade of the operating system on the department's main server, esme, on December 29, 2003. The upgrade itself should be fairly straightforward, but I am reserving the following two days for reconfiguring services and testing. Access to the department's systems will be undependable during this time period.

Services affected will include: file service (home directories), remote login, e-mail, and printing. I will be shutting down nonessential workstation systems during the outage.

I plan to temporarily relocate the core of the department's website to the web server, so access to the website should continue during the service outage (with the exception of personal websites located in ~/public_html directories).

Because the web server will remain available, you will be able to check in on progress on the computing support page, <http://www.math.hmc.edu/computing/> (i.e., right here).

I will be performing other work during the break that may make access unreliable or impossible. I will send out mail in advance of such work, but it's safe to assume that if you can't log in to a workstation (directly or remotely), it's work-related. Feel free to send me e-mail if an outage lasts for longer than a couple of hours (or call me, if e-mail is affected).