Notices
UNPLANNED SERVICE OUTAGES
Possible Email Bounces From Normally Working Sites
8/8/16 We have been receiving reports of email bounces from people/organizations that normally work without problems We think we know what is happening. We were informed today that one of our CS student accounts compromised and sending spam. So, sometime recently, the email reputation servers out on the internet got reports of such and updated their databases indicating as such. We have since secured the compromised account and stopped its spamming. So, now, we have to wait until the reputation servers see that no more spam is coming from CS and then they will reset our standing with them. It usually takes a couple of days. Mail servers out there use a variety of reputation servers. They don't all reflect the same position on reputation of a domain. So, some mail servers allow the mail to go through normally, while others might use a specific (or group of?) email reputation server. And, we are at their mercy for those reputation servers to change the reputation score.
This problem doesn't happen often. But, when it does, it causes some headaches. We're looking into some techniques/processes to be able to detect this kind of issue in the future.
Will update here once the reputation scores have returned to normal.
Systems Down
masters12 (grad net computer located in G61) is down due to a bad disk. Grad/Research Net users can use any of the other Grad/Research Net Linux systems until we've replaced the disk. No ETA on the disk replacement timeframe yet.
PLANNED SERVICE OUTAGES
PLANNED OUTAGE...
WHAT: Major CS Grad/Research Net IT services outage, as we make configuration changes to our new file server.
WHEN: Wednesday, August 10, from 1am to approx 7am.
DETAILS: Our new CS Grad/Research Net home directory file server, rtfm.cs.jhu.edu, will be shut down so that system configuration changes can be made to it (which will affect other CS computing services as well), early morning on Wednesday, 8/10.
As a result of this configuration change process, several of our CS services will be unavailable during the shutdown/upgrade (described below). If there are any unexpected complications during the configuration changes that will delay the restoration of services, we will update the CS IT Support Wiki's Notices page at https://support.cs.jhu.edu/wiki/Notices
- CS Mail service, both incoming and outgoing, will be suspended for CS Grad/Research Net users (as this fileserver works in tandem with our mail server.) Incoming mail should be queued by the sender until our mail service is back up again. Outgoing mail will not be available.
- IMAP, POP, and Webmail from our CS (Grad/Research Net) Mail server will be unavailable.
- Some CS webpages, including user (and possibly lab and other CS pages), will be unavailable.
- Grad/Research Net user accounts/home directories will be inaccessible during the downtime.
- SMB File Shares (CS Office Staff uses these) will be unavailable.
- ssh service to our CS Grad/Research Net Linux boxes (masters1 through masters16, gradx, and gradz) will be unavailable.
- Console (desktop) access to masters1 through masters16 will be unavailable.
- MySQL service via the mysql.cs.jhu.edu server will be unavailable.
Ugrad Net users: During the rtfm.cs.jhu.edu shutdown/configuration changes, email directed to your ugrad acct @cs.jhu.edu will not be immediately delivered. Other Ugrad Net services should remain available.
CS COMPUTING LAB AVAILABILITY
MH 122 (Ugrad Lab)
See post about 8/10/16 file server Planned Outage on the Notices page.
MH G-61 (Masters/Ugrad Lab)
See post about 8/10/16 file server Planned Outage on the Notices page.