NEWS - MAIN Page

All news items will appear hear in reverse-chronological order. Many items will be links with more details provided in greater depth. Not all news items will be equally interesting for all PO_LAN users, but hopefully they will be of interest to some (hopefully).




2007 ENTRIES FOLLOW BELOW FOR REFERENCE

  • Matlab License Problems(Dec-30th): FlexLm on Jade toasted recently, coupled with KT-crash this is "a problem". Click to read all details.
  • KT-4800 Crash(Dec-28th): KT-4800 crashed today. Joy.
  • Anchor & Sunray Misc Updates (Nov-21st): New default printer setup, Abiword installed, read here for full details.
  • Dal - Internet Outage(Nov-20th): There was a campus-wide glitch resulting in ~15minutes of no internet access.
  • Anchor Crash (Nov-9th): Anchor crashed again last night at approximately 7pm, and remained "hung" overnight. It will be rebooted at approximately 10:30 and then again at 11:00 to resolve the problem.
  • UCIS Servers DOWN (Nov-7th): Power outage in UCIS, a few hours of downtime for some core servers (ie, @Dal.Ca Email server included)
  • Anchor "Known Issues" (Nov-7th) Please review this page for known issues outstanding with the anchor migration.
  • Anchor Migration LOOMS (Nov-5th): we're on track for anchor migration starting at noon today. Please save your work and logout no later than 11:55 thisAM.
  • Power Outage (Nov-4th): Post-tropical storm "Noel" caused extensive power outage to halifax, and polan was down as a result.
  • Anchor Migration Update (Nov-2nd): Update on the migration plan, progress and suchlike.
  • Anchor Migration Plan (Oct-30th) Please see this page for details about the looming (long delayed) anchor retirement / newanchor deployment.
  • Anchor Crash (Oct-26th) It seems our ~12 days of uptime was too much to ask for. 2 weeks was unattainable. Anchor crashed again.
  • Matlab License Servers Update(Oct-23rd) License data on the matlab servers hydra, jade and kt-4800 were updated to support the new (fall) release of Matlab 2007b
  • Mail Server Maintenance(Oct-22nd): The mail server will be down for some maintenance.
  • Jade Maintenance(Oct-18th) Maintenance work was done at jade today, from 10-10:30am approximately.
  • Jade Crash(Oct-12th) Jade crashed again, in the same manner as Oct-1-07.
  • Anchor Reboot(Oct-12th): Anchor crashed again.
  • Mail Server Issues (Oct-11th): Mail server freeze and reboot
  • Anchor Maintenance (Oct-10th): Anchor crashed again, maintenance is planned during lunchtime to remove possible bad memory modules which may be the cause of the trouble.
  • Dal VPN - SSH Fix (Oct-9th): UCIS Changed VPN configuration last month "sometime" resulting in broken VPN access to SSH services in POLAN. This is now "fixed".
  • Anchor Crashes (Oct-9th) Anchor crashed, please read for details. Not just once, but twice. More fun!
  • AC Problems Fixed (Oct-3rd): AC is fixed and running as of 4pm, and a few core servers will run overnight to generate a test load. Full services back tomorrow AM likely.
  • Server Room AC Problems (Oct-2nd): It seems we have cooling problems in the POLAN server room, temp is spiked up to 28. Tech is onsite taking a look.
  • Jade Crash (Oct-1st): The server "Jade" crashed on Sunday just before lunch. It is back online now (Monday ~10am).
  • New RB Colour Laser Printer (Sept-26th): New / Replacement for RB Colour Laser is now deployed and working.
  • Anchor FireFox2 Update (Sept-21st): Firefox web browser was updated on anchor today from an older version 1.5.X to version 2.0.7
  • Server Issues/TDC Busy (Sept-17th): Please be advised, TDC is very busy this week due to abundant disk failures in a number of servers.
  • Scheduled Power Outage (Sept-15-16th): A campus-wide power outage scheduled from approx 1am "late saturday night" (ie, SunAM) through to Sunday "early-mid morning" (Approx 9am?) was scheduled for today. All polan gear was shut down in advance to ensure no problems. Everything is now back online (for the most part)
  • Hartling Crash (Aug-23rd): The server "HARTLING", used by JS/RG's groups - crashed today, due to bad RAM. New spare parts were installed and the system is back online at approximately 11:30am
  • Major Power Failure (Aug-17th): A major thunderstorm, comupled with the extreme lame NSP service, resulted in a major power failure which caused some grief to the POLAN Main UPS (Power Supply). Many servers remained offline after power was restored. Things are mostly back to normal now (1:00pm)
  • Mahone HW Failure (July 31st): The server MAHONE has suffered some hardware issues (SATA Drive backplane) which mean the system is offline for approximately one week.
  • Backup Server Issues (July 30th): Shackle, the backup server, is having some problems. They were mostly resolved within a few days.
  • Network Performance Issues (July 23rd) Network access in and out of POLAN was terrible for many hours on this day, due to an abusive user.
  • Network Performance Issues (June 14th): Network access to the outside world is problematic today.
  • Backup Server Failed HDD May.28th: The backup server, Shackle, suffered a failed hard drive over the weekend. Due to redundant (fault-tolerant) configuration, this has had no impact on operations. Spare part is installed to fix the problem on Tuesday May 29th.
  • Server Room AC Water May.28th: Water pooled out under the server room door over the weekend due to a blocked drain in the AC unit. No damage to equipment in the server room resulted, and AC service during the week has corrected the problem.
  • Anchor Crash TuesAM May.22nd: Anchor had a bad morning, see here for details. Great fun.
  • KT-4800 Offline (Disk Maintenance) Apr.26th: KT-4800 is offline for ~24 hours (Thurs AM April-26 through Friday AM April-27) for some critical disk maintenance and updates.
  • Note - "Cheap" Standalone Matlab Mar 19th: Do you need to use MATLAB on a standalone (non-networked) system? If so you might want to check out this notice.
  • Power Failure - Servers Down March 11th: There was a ~1.5hour power failure last night (approximately 8:15 to ~9:30) which resulted in some downtime for POLAN servers. All functionality is restored effective ~8am Sunday Mar-11.
  • DayLightSavings - March 11th Topics: The early transition to DST this year may result in some minor glitches on Monday morning. Please review this notice for details and also for updates about known issues which may develop.
  • Dal (UCIS) Mail Servers DOWN Feb-28: Note that UCIS experienced "major technical difficulties", resulting in ~18hours downtime on the main Dal Mail Servers. No inbound mail was delivered during this time. In theory, no mail was lost; rather delivery was delayed until service was restored.
  • Inbound SSH Remote Access Changes Feb 13th: A number of changes are being announced today, to come into effect tomorrow, which will help secure POLAN from unauthorized access. Please review this link for full details.
  • Core POLan Server Patching Feb-2nd: Numerous core POLan solaris servers (Including Anchor, Jade, KT-4800, and Shackle) were patched with security and operating system patches today. A reboot in the evening was required to complete this process.
  • MatLab License Timeout Feature Enabled Jan-31st: A small change to the MatLab license servers was implemented today, to help ensure that matlab licenses will be more readily available for active users.
  • New gear into POLAN Server Room Jan-22nd: A number of servers have been moved into the POLAN server room from other physical locations around Oceanography today, to provide better facilities for these systems and to give some access to their (currently underutilized) resources for some other POLAN users.
  • UCIS Network Problems Jan-12th: It seems UCIS had some kind of power fail event thismorning, resulting in many core services (including the network) going offline. The disruption was most apparent from (approximately) 10:30 to 11:30am, but some small glitches still appear to be ongoing.
  • Inbound Email Delays for Dal Jan-10th: UCIS is experiencing problems with one of two anti-spam servers today, resulting in delays for delivery of mail sent into the Dalhousie network from the outside world.
  • MatLab License File Update Jan-10th: It will be necessary for all servers and workstations running MatLab in POLAN to update their License.Dat files in order for MatLab to continue to function correctly. Please read here for more details..
  • Power Outage Mon Jan-8th: NS Power is having a great week it seems, and the windy rainy storm Monday Night has caused a power outage for ~30 minutes.
  • Power Outage Sun Jan-7th: NS POWER had a ~2hour power outage from 10:30-12:30am on Sunday January 7th, a lovely sunny clear day. It is unclear why they have problems such as this. A number of servers remained offline AFTER power was restored - Jade, Anchor and Shackle. Servers are being actively restored (Monday AM) to service with only Anchor causing problems as of 10am. (Anchor is back online as of ~10:15am)



2006 ENTRIES FOLLOW BELOW FOR REFERENCE