Notices


CS IT STAFF AVAILABILITY (New!)


NOTE: Beginning March 18, 2020, and until further notice, the CS IT Support Staff will not be available in-person. We will continue being available M-F, 8:30 to 5pm, but online only. Therefore, please remember to email support@cs.jhu.edu for assistance. Also, please have Zoom available on your device(s), so that we can arrange to contact you using that method, as an alternative to in-person communication. We are also looking into providing a virtual version of Steve DeBlasio's daily office hours for accounts, etc.


SERVICE OUTAGES

UNPLANNED CS SERVICE OUTAGES

SELF-SERVICE FILE RECOVERY ISSUES
30 October 2020:
The /users/backup directory used for Self-Service File Recovery on the CS Grad Net Linux clients may be sporadically unavailable, due to a software bug. We're working on getting a fix for it. But, it might be some time before a fix is made available. Therefore, until further notice, if you need a file restored and cannot access the /users/backups directory, please request restoration from our offline backups.
Self-Service File Recovery continues to be available on the CS Ugrad Net.


PLANNED CS SERVICE OUTAGES


Major Malone Power Outage Planned, Affecting CS IT Service - January 16, 2021

WHAT: There will be no CS IT computing services available during an upcoming major power outage for ALL of Malone Hall.
WHEN: Saturday, January 16, 2021, all day, from 6am until sometime after 8pm.
DESCRIPTION: JHU is planning an all-day power outage for Malone Hall. As such, all of our computing services will be unavailable during that time.
The actual power outage is planned to start at 7am and end at 8pm Saturday, January 16. However, we need to safely bring down our computer servers and clients earlier than that (before the power goes out.) We plan to bring our systems down around 6am that morning. We will then bring the systems back up after 8pm (when the power outage is declared over.)
Please read all of the notes below regarding Malone Hall Residents, CS Server Room users, and a list of the CS IT services that will be unavailable during the outage.
NOTES TO MALONE HALL RESIDENTS: During the time of the outage, we're assuming most building lights will be out and the J-Card system might be out too. That might make it more difficult to get into the building during the outage. But with the power out, we're not sure how much need there will be for anyone to be in the building during that time anyway. If you have an office refrigerator, expect that to be out too. If you are counting on your UPS (battery-backup) systems to continue powering your office equipment, please realize that this is an expected over-12-hour outage. And keep in mind that your office phones may be inoperable during the outage. So please plan in advance for this outage. Due to Covid, there should be a minimum number of people in Malone Hall.
NOTE TO CS SERVER ROOM (MH G-29) SERVER OWNERS: Our server room will be out of power, so our servers will be unavailable. If you host servers in the server room, your servers will be down as well. Plan ahead of time to shut down and to bring back up your servers. Your group is responsible for any systems you choose to shut down before the outage or boot back up after the outage. I've sent a separate email to the server room system owners about the outage.

NOTE: Because we will not have power to our servers, the CS IT Support Wiki—and especially its Notices page—will be unavailable during the outage. Instead, we have arranged for status updates to be available at the following website:

https://csstatus.jhu.edu
CS IT services unavailable during the power outage include:
  • CS DNS-based lookups (hostname lookups) will be unavailable.
  • CS Mail service, both incoming and outgoing, will be suspended for CS Grad/Research Net users.
  • 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. And, although, CS Ugrads can send email through the JHU webserver, their @cs.jhu.edu incoming mail arrives at CS, so CS Ugrads might nMarch 22ot be able to see their email.)
  • No CS webpages will be available.
    • NOTE: And, as mentioned above... because we will not have power to our servers, the CS IT Support Wiki, and especially its Notices page will be unavailable during the outage. Please refer to https://csstatus.jhu.edu for status updates during the outage.
  • Grad/Research Net and Ugrad Net user accounts and home directories will be inaccessible during the power outage.
  • ssh service to our CS Grad/Research Net & Ugrad Net Linux boxes (masters1 through masters16, ugrad1 through ugrad24, gradx, gradz, ugradx, and ugradz) will be unavailable.
  • SMB File Shares (the CS Office Staff uses these) will be unavailable.
  • Console (desktop) access at any of our lab Linux clients systems will be unavailable.
  • MySQL service via the mysql.cs.jhu.edu server and through the dbase.cs.jhu.edu server will be unavailable.
  • Network switches in the building will be without power, so no network connections in Malone Hall.
  • Wifi access points in Malone Hall will be without power, so no wifi.

We'll post updates on https://csstatus.jhu.edu during the outage. We will also try to keep our usual Notices page updated, but see the note above regarding the Notices page's unavailability.


CS COMPUTING LAB AVAILABILITY


MH-122 (CS Undergrad Lab/Collaboration room): As of 3/13/20, closed until further notice.

All CS Linux systems in that room (ugrad1 through ugrad12) will continue to be available remotely, via ssh.

G-61 (CS Masters/Ugrad Labs): As of 3/17/20, closed until further notice.

For the UGrad side, although that section is closed, the Linux systems in that room (ugrad13 through ugrad24) will continue to be available remotely, via ssh.
For the Masters side, although that section is closed, the Linux systems in that room (masters1 through masters16) will continue to be available remotely, via ssh.


AUDIO/VISUAL (A/V) OUTAGES

None at this time.