IT Press

Temporary Wireless Outage

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:00:00 -0600

Due to maintenance, wireless services on campus will be disrupted for approximately 30 minutes sometime between 6:00 and 8:00am on Wednesday, December 3. Any questions regarding this issue may be addressed to the Help Desk by calling 573-341-HELP (4357).

Thursday night maintenance window

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:44:01 -0600

The following service will be affected during this week's Thursday night IT maintenance window starting at 10 p.m. and lasting until 2 a.m.:

Network File Storage -- All Network File Storage services, including personal network file storage (S: drive), department volumes (Y: drive), non-Documentum web pages, research volumes and roaming profiles will be unavailable for approximately 30 minutes during the maintenance window.

Windows/Linux patching -- Windows and Linux servers will be down for approximately 30 minutes for monthly updating.

Please note: The IT maintenance window occurs every Thursday night from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. You should expect one or more IT services to be unavailable during this weekly time slot.

If you have any questions about this issue, please contact the IT Help Desk at 341-HELP (4357).

Brief network outage felt campus-wide

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 18:52:34 -0600

Missouri S&T experienced a brief campus-wide network outage at 4:20 p.m. today. The outage was caused by a core router failure in the Computer Science data center.

IT will continue to investigate the root cause of the failure and will provide more information as it becomes available.

Impacts from today's Next Generation Network upgrade - S: drives, user web and department web directories

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 18:46:01 -0600

As a result of today's Next Generation Network upgrade, access to a small portion of user home directories (aka "S: drives") is unavailable. In addition, access to user and department web directories/volumes will be unavailable for approximately 18 hours.

Please note that user data was NOT affected and web sites being served from both user and department web directories/volumes are still available from the Internet. Only a user's ability to EDIT the aforementioned sites has been affected.

This interruption in access is necessary to restore proper directory permissions. For most users this service interruption will require no action at all. However, if you have set any custom permissions for accessing your S: drive, user web or department web directories, those permissions will need to be reset once service has been restored.

If you require assistance with resetting your permissions, please contact the IT Help Desk at 341-HELP (4357).

Blackboard courses older than two years to expire

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 09:48:41 -0600

On Dec. 2, IT will perform a cleanup of all Blackboard courses older than two years as part of Missouri S&T's two year Blackboard course retention policy. After Dec. 2, any course content, enrollment, and entire courses themselves which are older than two years, will be purged from Blackboard and will not be recoverable.

If you wish to retain content in any of these courses, it is important that you archive, export, or copy off any content you wish to retain for these courses prior to the remove date.If you require assistance with archiving or copying off any of the course information, please contact the Educational Technology team at 341-4131 or edtech@mst.edu.

You should receive several email reminders during November, listing your specific courses that are set to expire. If you are one of multiple instructors for any of these courses, please coordinate efforts with other instructors in the course to ensure any data which needs to be retained is archived or copied by Dec. 2.

If you have any questions about this issue, please contact the IT Help Desk at 573-341-HELP (4357).

Next Generation Network upgrade, IT services down Sat. morning

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 09:41:43 -0600

Missouri S&T has been working with MOREnet to increase our campus bandwidth capacity and offer improved Internet performance by upgrading to an NGN (Next Generation Network).

Related to this upgrade, most IT services will be unavailable on Saturday, Nov. 8 from 8 a.m. to noon. Customers should expect the following regarding campus computing services during this time:

Email and voicemail will be unavailable (new messages will queue up for delivery, but customers will be unable to access existing messages during the outage)
Network File Storage will be unavailable, including personal and department folders and web volumes
Customers will not be able to login to CLC computers
IT hosted servers will be unavailable
IT applications hosted on itweb.mst.edu may not function correctly
New systems or computers attempting to get access to the network will not be able to connect

For more information about this issue, please contact the IT Help Desk at 573-341-HELP or read the NGN announcement from MOREnet.

UPDATE: Web volumes and some Network File Storage down this morning

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:24:20 -0600

Service has been restored for all web volumes and network file storage.

Due to an ongoing problem, which we are working with Microsoft to resolve, user web volumes and department web volumes that AREN'T in Documentum are currently unavailable.

Additionally, some customers' network storage drives are unavailable. 90% of user home directories are available, and we are working to restore service to the remaining 10%. No customer data has been impacted.

Department drives, research volumes, roaming profiles, and most customers' network storage space are available. We are working to restore service, and will pass along information as we find out more.

If you have any questions about this issue, please contact the IT Help Desk at 573-341-HELP (4357).

Important Microsoft security update

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 10:50:15 -0600

Microsoft released a new security patch on Oct. 23 to patch a vulnerability that could lead to remote access of Windows-based computers. The Missouri S&T IT security team is urging all faculty, students and staff to make sure your automatic updates are turned on and that you reboot your computer as soon as the updates are installed.

This update will be pushed automatically to all IT-managed computers, but if you have a personal machine, you should make sure the update is installed.

If you have any questions about this issue or how to turn on auto update on your computer, please contact the IT Help Desk at 573-341-HELP (4376).

Password Safety

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:07:07 -0600

October is Cyber Security Awareness Month. Check out the IT website for tips on how you can help protect yourself.

Beware the horrors that lurk in cyber space

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:22:46 -0600

October is Cyber Security Awareness Month. Check out the IT website for tips on how you can help protect yourself.

Access to all network file storage has been restored

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 05:50:00 -0600

Friday, October 17, 2008 - 5:50 a.m.

As of 5:50 a.m. today, access to all network file storage has been restored.

IT teams worked through the night to identify several key factors which played a role yesterday's outage. At this time we are still working with the vendor to analyze the diagnostic information, to see if we can more clearly identify the exact cause. We will also be evaluating our ongoing operations of network file storage to identify changes, which may be needed to prevent this type of outage in the future.

IT would like to thank the campus community for your patience while we worked to resolve this issue. Should you experience additional problems related to network file storage or other technology related areas, please contact the Help Desk at 341-HELP (4357).

Thursday, October 16, 2008 - 11:05 p.m.

IT teams continue to work through the night to coordinate a solution with multiple vendors to restore network file storage. Further communications will be forthcoming when service has been restored.

Thursday, October 16, 2008 - 4:40 p.m.

At noon today, an emergency maintenance outage was taken on all network file storage (Minerfiles service). See below for more details.

Working through the day, IT has been able to identify the underlying cause of the outage and is working with Microsoft to develop a procedure to correct the issue.

While the outage has been extended, the extension is partly a result of our efforts to safeguard everyone's data. We apologize for the extended nature of the outage and are working to correct the issue as quickly as possible. We will continue to work throughout the evening until service is restored.

Please stay tuned to IT Press (itpress.mst.edu) for the latest updates regarding this emergency maintenance event.

If you have questions or concerns, please contact the IT Help Desk at 341-HELP (4357).

Thursday, October 16, 2008 - 11:50 a.m.

There will be an emergency maintenance outage of all network file storage (Minerfiles service), starting today at noon.

This outage will impact: user web volumes, user home directories (S: drives), CLC profiles, and departmental directories (Y:, P: drives, etc.).

Length of outage: ~~Approximately 1 hour, but due to the nature of the issue being corrected, may take slightly longer.~~ We are continuing to work to resolve this issue. It is taking longer than anticipated due to unknown problems with one of the sub-systems involved. We will continue to work with the vendor (Microsoft) to diagnose the issue, and will restore services as soon as possible.

IT has engaged the vendor, and is taking an outage now to prevent a longer, unscheduled outage from occurring in the future.

If you have questions or concerns, please contact the IT Help Desk at 341-HELP (4357).

NIC-Cluster upgrade: IT needs your feedback

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 10:37:00 -0600

IT is working toward a major NIC- cluster upgrade and we have a launched a pilot cluster running the new ROCKS 5.0 cluster distribution. The new cluster can be accessed via an ssh session to nic-p1.mst.edu. Documentation including examples for using new features of ROCKS 5.0 are available at http://wiki.mst.edu/nic .

How the pilot will work

The pilot cluster will share your home folder with the existing NIC cluster, which means that you will need to be careful when recompiling code on the pilot cluster as it will affect the code on the production cluster. The pilot cluster has limited resources at present and should only be used to test your custom software for compatibility. In order to create the best possible NIC environment, we're asking all NIC-cluster users to run your tests on the pilot cluster and contact the IT Help Desk with your questions, comments and feedback.

The pilot cluster consists of 10 nodes, 20 CPUs, it has the same queue configurations as the production cluster so that you should only need to change the cluster host name in your job scripts to test your code under the new environment.

We want to hear from you

If your team is interested in moving some or all of your dedicated nodes to the pilot system please let us know, the more feedback we have the better we can serve your needs as we move forward with the upgrade process. Once the pilot is complete, we will coordinate with your individual group to move your dedicated nodes to the pilot cluster.

For more information

To check cluster statistics and read the documentation for ROCKS 5.0 go to https://nic-p1.srv.mst.edu. For more information on the pilot cluster check the documentation at https://wiki.mst.edu/nic. We will continue to improve the quality of the support documentation so check these links often.

Thank you for your assistance! Please feel free to contact the IT Help Desk at 573-341-HELP (4357) if you have any questions or concerns.

DFS and Exchange services unavailable during Thursday IT maintenance window

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 15:12:57 -0600

On Thursday night during the normal IT maintenance window between 10:00pm and 2:00am, DFS and Exchange services (network login and email) will be unavailable for up to two hours. There is also a possibility that all campus services, including any use of the network, may become unavailable for a 10-15 minute period during this time.

If you have any questions about this issue, please call the IT Help Desk at 573-341-HELP

IT Update - Fall 2008

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 09:29:40 -0600

Need help with tech problems?
IT has many resources to help you get the technical resources you need on campus:

IT Help Desk - Call 341-HELP (4357) for on-the-phone troubleshooting assistance.
IT Walk-In Center - Visit the first floor of the library for assistance setting up campus IT services for students, faculty and staff.
MinerTech - Need work done on a personal computer? This fee-based service offers full hardware repair and software diagnostic services.
IT Press - Visit or subscribe via RSS to IT's official blog for updates about products and services.
IT Website - Learn about available IT products and services and find answers and instructions for common IT questions on the Missouri S&T KnowledgeBase.

New in IT this semester
Office 2007 deployed in most campus CLCs
You may have noticed that Office 2007 has been installed in most of the CLCs on campus. An Office 2007 resource site is available to help ease the learning curve on the new features and tools in Office 2007. If you have questions or problems, please contact the IT Help Desk at 573-341-HELP (4357).

New tech classroom in the works in McNutt
McNutt 114 and B14 are closed this semester as we convert these rooms into a new state of the art technology classroom, thanks to an anonymous donor. Scheduled to open at the start of the Spring Semester, the new classroom will include new computers with quad processors and a causal learning space with wall-mounted LCD displays to promote collaborative learning and social interaction.

New Educational Technology group on campus
With a focus on the use of technology in the realm of teaching and learning, a new group has been created, called Educational Technology (EdTech). EdTech serves faculty and the campus student body by providing support for clickers, Blackboard, and other classroom technologies in use around campus. To find out more and to get the latest news and information about educational technology visit the EdTech Connect blog.

For more information about these, or any other IT issues, please contact the IT Help Desk at 573-341-HELP.

Are you Cyber Aware?

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:46:40 -0600

October is Cyber Security Awareness month the information technology (IT) department is conducting an awareness campaign focused around cyber security and what you can do to stay safe in cyber space.

Here on the Missouri S&T campus we have a staff of individuals dedicated to providing a safe computing environment for our students, faculty and staff. While they work hard to prevent, detect and respond to malicious attacks, the ultimate burden of responsibility for cyber security falls on you. That's why IT is going to be shining a spotlight on cyber security all month.

Cyber security topics for the month will include:

How to create strong passwords
How to avoid phishing scams
How to help protect your computer from viruses
The importance of regular computer updates and patching

Look for posters, videos and security-related events on campus during the month of October.

If you have any questions about information security on campus or want to report suspicious university email or website activity, call the IT Help Desk at 573-341-HELP (4357).