Core Services

Category: GAC IT

  • Gustavus Webadvisor Server

    —

    by

    doachs

    This afternoon the web services team has changed the links for Webadvisor on the Gustavus home page to point to our new webadvisor server. The new setup consists of two linux servers running apache and tomcat 5, running in a highly available mode such that if the primary server should fail, the secondary server will…

  • System Downtime

    —

    by

    doachs

    This morning at about 8:00am, one of our servers (meow) had a kernel panic and died.  As a result some services had issues with switching over to our secondary NFS server.  Thus there were problems accessing home directories on some apple computers, viewing homepages on our homepages.gac.edu webserver and checking quotas. By 8:30am, the server…

  • Spamassassin Upgrade

    —

    by

    doachs

    Yesterday afternoon I upgraded our version of Spamassassin from 3.1.0 to 3.1.1.  I also ran sa-update so that it would download any new or updated rules.  My hope is that this newer version will do a better job at catching the recent stock pumping spam we have seen lately where it is mostly a bunch…

  • More Wireless

    —

    by

    doachs

    Quote from Joel Jackson … “We have added three more wireless access points to the network today. Locations: Schaefer 323 – This services the Communications Studies Dept. and Classrooms Schaefer 316 – The Student Lounge/Computer Lab on 3rd floor by the Music library. Courtyard Cafe – Jackson Center on south side of the Post Office.”

  • Unexpected Downtime

    —

    by

    doachs

    At about 12:35pm today, both of our servers that provide home directory access and email access (woof and meow) decided to call it quits and kernel panic. Both were restarted by 12:55pm. Luckily downtime was not too great, but it is very troubling that they both died when they did. No word yet on what…

  • Status Update

    —

    by

    doachs

    Wireless Updates: The big news this week has been wireless. Since the last update we have added wireless to Rundstrom and Norelius. From our stats, it looks like the students in Norelius are really making use of it. (110 devices in the past 24 hours) We also ordered another 60 access points due to arrive…

  • Email Delays

    —

    by

    doachs

    Late yesterday afternoon we were hit with a particularly large batch of spam comming from computers spread all across the internet.  Then, due to a slight loophole in our mailservers configuration for blocking spam, the spam ended up in a loop taking up more resources that it otherwise would have.  The end result was that…

  • Internet Bandwith Increase

    —

    by

    doachs

    In an attempt to keep up with the ever increasing demand for more internet bandwith, today we increased our connection from 20Mbits to 30Mbits.  Enjoy the extra speed while you can.  I’m sure the students will find plenty of uses for it come next week 🙂

  • Mailserver Downtime

    —

    by

    doachs

    At about 8:30pm tonight, our IMAP and POP server died. As a result webmail and any other email client was unable to login and read messages. During this time our mailservers dutifuly stored the mail until just before 9:00pm when the IMAP and POP server was restored.

  • This Weeks Status Update

    —

    by

    doachs

    Microsoft WMF Vulnerability: Obviously the big story this week was the Windows WMF vulnerability. I think we caught this one early, told people how to avoid infection, and now with the Windows patch being available, are fairly safe. I am still worried that a lot of computers were silently infected with some spyware, but chances…