We are working to resolve an issue with DropBox. The site is currently down. We will post status updates here.

Update 11:39 AM – DropBox is now working again. Please let us know if you have any issues.

On Tuesday, March 19, 2013, we will have a scheduled downtime from 6:00am to 8:00am EDT.

Some of this work (bullets \”1\” below) was originally scheduled for March 5, 2013.

Who is affected:

1. Users of the public login machines (soak, wash, rinse, spin, tux, opus), certain CS websites (jobs, kiosk, msdnaa, search, wiki), database servers, runscript, CAS, lpdrelay (printing), labpc machines (Friend Center fishbowl lab) and the ionic cluster.
2. Dynamic websites for projects or groups with hostnames of the form project-or-group-name.cs.princeton.edu that are accessing executables (e.g., python, perl, java) on the shared /usr/local filesystem.

What is happening:

1. These hosts will receive a critical security update and be rebooted.
2. Websites of the form project-or-group-name.cs.princeton.edu are moving to a new server that no longer mounts the shared /usr/local filesystem.

Why is it happening:

1. There is a critical kernel security patch available for our Springdale hosts. It addresses a specific security vulnerability. As this is a kernel update, all machines must be rebooted. Actual expected downtime should only be a minute or two for each host to reboot.
2. The website migration is the next step to decommission the shared /usr/local filesystem. This work has already been done for the cycles and penguin machines and will result in decreased load on our central file server and simplified management of our web server infrastructure. Additional notes about the website migration:
   • In the week leading up to the downtime, we will reach out to the owners of as many affected websites as we can identify with instructions on what they need to do for the migration. We anticipate that very few sites will need modification and that those modifications will be minor.
   • After the downtime, all projects and groups should double check that their sites are operating as expected. If not, please notify CS Staff immediately and we can assist and/or temporarily move the site back to the old server.

On Saturday, March 16, 2013, we will have a scheduled downtime from 6:00am to 8:00am EDT.

Who is affected:

• All users of the CS wired network (including PlanetLab at 221 Nassau, CS hosts in CITP in Sherrerd, and the CS section of the data center at 151 Forrestal) as well as users of the OIT wireless network in the CS Building.

What is happening:

• We will be updating the firmware on the department\’s gateway router and firewall service module. During this time, there will be no OIT wireless connectivity in the CS Building (as the OIT access points use the CS wired infrastructure) and there will be no Internet connectivity between the CS network and the outside world.

Why is it happening:

• This update will address some ongoing network issues affecting a limited number of services.

OIT is reporting that the puwireless is not available to some users. For more details, see their outage message.

On Tuesday, March 5, 2013, we will have a scheduled downtime from 6:00am to 7:00am EST.

UPDATE: This downtime did not happen and the work has been postponed to March 19, 2013.

Who is affected:

• Users of the public login machines (soak, wash, rinse, spin, tux, opus), certain CS websites (jobs, kiosk, msdnaa, search, wiki), database servers, runscript, CAS, lpdrelay (printing), labpc machines (Friend Center fishbowl lab) and the ionic cluster.

What is happening:

• These hosts will receive a critical security update and be rebooted.

Why is it happening:

• There is a critical kernel security patch available for our Springdale hosts. It addresses a specific security vulnerability. As this is a kernel update, all machines must be rebooted. Actual expected downtime should only be a minute or two for each host to reboot.

The temperature in the central computing facility has risen very quickly to critical levels this morning. OIT and facilities are aware of the problem. We have already started to see equipment failures. To protect our infrastructure, we are very likely to begin shutting down equipment.

UPDATE: At 10:43am, OIT reports, \”All air-handlers at the HPCRC are currently stopped.\”

UPDATE 10:55am: The penguin machines (tux, opus) and cycles (wash, rinse, spin, soak) are being shutdown. Our primary DNS server automatically shutdown due to the high temperature.

UPDATE: At 10:56am, OIT reports, \”The air handlers are running again and temperatures are returning to normal.\” CS Staff is monitoring temperature sensors in our area.

UPDATE 11:13am: Primary DNS server has been restarted. We expect to restart penguins and cycles within 15 minutes. The switch for the ionic cluster failed. We have a spare in the CS building. It will be a while (no ETA yet; could be a full day) before it is configured, installed, and operational.

UPDATE 2:00pm: We may not be out of the woods yet. We are seeing elevated temperatures again and we are keeping a close eye on our systems. From OIT, \”HPCRC control system is having problems again. Facilities staff are still at HPCRC and are responding.\”

UPDATE 2:55pm: We have seen temperatures peak and then decline again. OIT now reports, \”HPCRC cooling is now operating normally.\”

UPDATE 4:20pm: Facilities believes that they have identified and corrected the root cause. As a precaution, facilities staff will stay at the HPCRC all night to be able to respond quickly in the event of another problem.

On Saturday, February 2, 2013, from 5:00am to 9:00am, the campus network will be offline for scheduled work.

See: http://helpdesk.princeton.edu/outages/view.plx?ID=3998

This outage includes all OIT networks including the wireless network in the CS building.

The CS network will effectively be disconnected from the rest of the campus and the Internet during this time. However, if you are on the CS network (e.g., on a wired connection in the CS building), you will be able to reach other systems on the CS Network (even if they are at the remote data center).

During the week of January 28, 2013, we will be moving our centralized computing infrastructure and our cluster (\”ionic\”) to a new location.

For all infrastructure services (e-mail, CS web sites, file services), the downtime window is:

• START: Tuesday, January 29, 2013, at 6:00 AM EST
• END: Wednesday, January 30, 2013, at 10:00 AM EST

If you use the ionic cluster, its downtime window is longer:

• START: Monday, January 28, 2013, 4:00 PM EST
• END: Thursday, January 31, 2013, 10:00 AM EST

Additional Details

\”Infrastructure\” is everything except the ionic cluster and includes e-mail, web pages, file system, printing, and general purpose computing (i.e., penguins: tux and opus; cycles: soak, wash, rinse, and spin).

We are prioritizing the infrastructure over the ionic cluster. We will bring up the ionic cluster within 1 business day of bringing up the infrastructure.

The wired and wireless network in both the CS Building and in the CS section of the data center (e.g., PlanetLab, VICCI, SNS, Memex, etc.) will continue to work during the downtime. Users will be able to access University systems and the Internet from their desktops/laptops during the downtime.

Because the CS e-mail server will be down longer than 4 hours, people sending e-mail to CS accounts will get bounce messages. (These messages are generated by the sending server and are sent back to the sending account.) Properly configured senders will retry sending for 5 days so incoming messages will be delivered after the infrastructure is back online. People sending e-mail to the CS department can expect to see bounce messages of the form \”warning: message not delivered after 4 hours; will re-try for 5 days.\” (The exact message, timeouts, and retry periods are specific to the server sending the message.)

Due to the magnitude of the move, support services from CS Staff will be limited.

While all changes to infrastructure (including this move) have inherent risks, CS Staff has been taking significant steps to reduce these risks to stay within the 28-hour window for the infrastructure and within the additional 1-business-day window for the ionic cluster.

UPDATE 1/28/2013 at 4:08pm: The ionic cluster has been shut down in preparation for its move.

UPDATE 1/29/2013 at 7:06am: All servers have been powered down.

UPDATE 1/29/2013 at 8:47am: All infrastructure servers have been removed from their racks. Packing has begun.

UPDATE 1/29/2013 at 10:25am: Truck with the infrastructure servers has arrived at the new data center; unloading has begun. In the CS Building, the ionic cluster has been removed from its racks; packing has begun.

UPDATE 1/29/2013 at 11:15am: Truck with systems for the ionic cluster has left the CS Building.

UPDATE 1/29/2013 at 11:30am: Installers dropped one of our disk arrays. Assessing damage. Other work continues. For this kind of eventuality, we did engage the manufacturer our storage system vendor and had an on-site engineer already in place to help.

UPDATE 1/29/2013 at 12:42pm: We are working with the vendor to attempt to get a replacement disk array chassis today. Racking of other infrastructure systems continues. Truck unloading of ionic cluster continues.

UPDATE 1/29/2013 at 3:00pm: All systems are in the machine room. Approximately half are in racks. Some are starting to be wired up. Still waiting for arrival of replacement disk array chassis.

UPDATE 1/29/2013 at 4:20pm: All systems are mounted in their racks. Infrastructure systems have been cabled. Awaiting arrival of replacement disk array chassis.

UPDATE 1/29/2013 at 6:10pm: Replacement disk array chassis due to arrive by 8:15pm. We have tested several systems successfully. The disk array chassis is 1 of 7 chassis in our file server system. Even with this setback, we still believe we will meet our deadlines to be back online.

UPDATE 1/29/2013 at 8:25pm: Replacement disk array arrived. Work continues.

UPDATE 1/29/2013 at 9:50pm: Components have been moved from damaged chassis to new chassis. We are working with vendor to bring replacement chassis online.

UPDATE 1/29/2013 at 11:20pm: Chassis replacement complete and system operational. Work continues.

UPDATE 1/30/2013 at 12:10am: Infrastructure services (e-mail, CS web sites, file services) are starting to come back online.

UPDATE 1/30/2013 at 12:40am: All Infrastructure services (e-mail, CS web sites, file services) are now online. The ionic cluster is the only service that is still down. We will be bringing the ionic cluster back online sometime after 1:00pm today.

UPDATE 1/30/2013 at 8:15am: While not all nodes are yet online, the ionic cluster is operational and available for use. The remainder of the nodes that are down will be coming up this morningwhen an additional power strip is installed in one of the cluster racks.

UPDATE 1/30/2013 at 10:55am: The ionic cluster is fully online. At this point, all systems should be operating normally.

The main CS website, virtual websites, wiki and CS Guide are currently down. We are working to correct the problem.

UPDATE 10:06am: we believe we have isolated the issue and continue to correct the problem.

UPDATE 11:03am: all systems are back up and working as expected.

From http://helpdesk.princeton.edu/outages/view.plx?ID=3906

\”OIT network administrators have informed the Help Desk that the OIT provided network is experiencing problems acccessing resources off of the Princeton campus. This includes all internet websites as well as mail resources. Connections to intranet resources (file shares, OIT mail servers, Princeton websites) will all still work from on campus connections. OIT administrators are working to resolve this issue and more information will be provided here as it becomes avaiable.\”