IMAP logins, including WebMail, were slow around noon today. The precise reason for the slow-down is under investigation, and InfoSys is watching the server for any repeat occurances.
Monthly Archives: March 2003
Half Day Server Maintenance Outage
Beginning at 6:00am on Saturday, 3/29, Info Systems proposes to take all Novell servers off-line for some routine maintenance procedures and to test one, in particular, for possible hardware anomalies. All servers should be back on-line by noon unless the testing reveals problems that need correction.
Systems affected include all Novell file and print services and access to WebMail (the IMAP email server). The EMU web server and the Blackboard server will be unaffected.
Novell servers FS and FSAPPS were rebooted
The server FS and FSAPPS was rebooted to resolve some locked file and locked user issues. It appears to have worked. While the servers were down images were also made.
FS did not go down gracefully. To bring it down I had to power it off. There were several users with files open – were they “really” open, or were they in an ambiguous locked state similar to the files we were trying to free up? Because of this I had to run vrepair on all volumes – there were many errors on userdata. After the server was back up, there were not any problems with the files we were trying to “free”.
BB went down because of a power managment problem
BB went down because of a power managment problem – came back up clean.
BB and DNS outage
Blackboard and Dad Servers went off line. This was due to the power to the UPS going out, causing the power managment software to gracefully shut down the servers. Power was restored and servers brought back on-line.
Faculty/Staff Novell Server Failure
Faculty/Staff Novell server experienced a hard failure on the SYSTEM drives. Both drives in the mirrored set failed. Various restart efforts attempted. Ultimately the SYSTEM disk had to be restored from the daily backups but numerous problems were encountered during the restore.
Dan Marple Jr directed the recovery effort beginning at 7:30am, 3/6. The server was returned to service about 5:00pm.
The server appears to be stable but a final assessment will be made first thing on Friday morning, 3/7. Faculty/Staff can once again use their network drives and printers by restarting their computers and logging in to Novell.
All Day Outage for Network Software Upgrade
Upgrade the 6509 IOS and the MSFC IOS to allow for the use of the new copper based GBICs. Changed all trunking from ISL to DOT1Q. Had problems in the seminary with the link between the 3550-48 and the 3524 on the 1st floor. It is possibly a bad gigastack on the 3524.
Upgraded the Pix to IOS 6.2.2 to allow for testing and use of VPN’s for Lancaster as well as for the windows client.
A flash card will now need to be purchased for the 6509 to allow for failover and for future upgrades – not enough memory on the board anymore.
All Novell servers, but NS, are patched to the latest service packs for pervasive software. I’m leary on doing NS since these SP’s affect Btrieve, which Novastor uses.
Dan
Reconfigure RAID on IMAP Mail Server
Reconfigured the RAID disk on the IMAP email server (ms.emu.edu) so that the WRITE CACHE is enabled.
Although it was hoped this would be a fairly simple change, the reality was that an image of the 8gb disk had to be made and the RAID was then completely rebuilt. The actual reconfiguration effort began about 10am and was completed about 6pm. However, as a backup strategy in preparation for this procedure, the IMAP mail services were shutdown before the nightly backup of the server at 2am.
We believe this should improve the I/O performance of the IMAP mail server.