Month: January 2009

Classes canceled – College and administrative units are closed.

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Classes canceled today at Ohio State Columbus campus

Classes are canceled on Ohio State’s Columbus campus on Wednesday (1/28).It is probable that the majority, if not all, of IT staff will be working from home.

  • As always, the Ohio State University Medical Center remains open 24 hours a day, as do other essential services such as public safety and residence halls.
  • College and administrative units are closed.
    Depending on the nature of their work, essential employees may be required to report to work on campus or may be able to work from home.
  • Students, faculty and staff should check http://www.osu.edu/ for updates and information about services that remain open.
  • This message applies to the Columbus campus only. Decisions relating to regional campuses will be based on local conditions.

WinFS Instability – Continued

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We’re still diagnosing the hang-up problems with WinFS. It will be rebooted several times this morning. If you are on WinFS, and if possible, if may be best to work from your local system until the problem is resolved.

We’re currently diagnosing a problem with the SCSI bus on the server named WinFS. The server may reboot without notice for the next 30 minutes.

How to contact support for the best results

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The single best way to contact support is by sending email to support@chemistry.ohio-state.edu. We have the RT ticketing system in place to grab emails sent to that address and create work tickets- we are far less likely to lose track of your issue if you have sent email to support. We understand that this system is not perfect, but since it is a system we can ultimately improve on it.

I’m back from being out sick for 2 and a half days (and over the weekend). While I was out I received a few calls and messages on my office phone. I don’t want to dissuade anyone from contacting me- I am here to help, so call me whenever. But know that on occasion I am indisposed or out of the office, so you should also send email to support@chemistry.ohio-state.edu to ensure that someone receives your request for help.

Sometimes you can’t send email. Say, when email is down, for instance. In such a case, the general support number is 614-292-0848. This is your best hope of reaching a person and getting help- especially when people are out on vacation, sick, or otherwise indisposed.

Emailing a single member of support with a support related issue is a bad idea. If your request isn’t seen- for whatever reason- then there is no way for the rest of the support team to know you need help.

As always, you can stop in for emergency help. If your need is not an emergency, consider sending an email to support instead of dropping by. We can prioritize our work better when we have a list of work tickets, rather than a queue of people seeking immediate resolutions to non-emergent issues in addition to work queue tickets.

Login Troubles – Round 2 (Updated)

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The login problems appear to be resolved, but we’re experiencing trouble with our new windows file server named winfs. It is being diagnosed now.

Many people are still experiencing login troubles. We’re diagnosing the problem now. Expect to see update posts at regular intervals.

Login Problems (Fixed – Last Update – 1:25PM)

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(Update 1:25PM 01.12.09)
Everything appears to be back up and running properly. The new windows file server ‘winfs’ will be taken offline to testing tomorrow evening at 7PM for 15 minutes.

Please email or call my cell if you experience any more logon problems today.

Thank you,
John Puskar
Chemistry Windows Support

(Update 12:58PM 01.12.09)
Several problems have been addressed, but we now seem to have a problem with our main disk array. We are working out the details now, more information will be posted as it becomes available. Many users are still unable to log in, others unable to access their files.

(Update 12:35PM 01.12.09)
Rebooting our PDC Emulator DC seems to have brought limited authentication back. Some users are reporting the ability to log-in, other are not.

(Update 12:08PM 01.12.09)
The problem is more severe then originally thought.
Here is what we know so far:

  • Logins are indefinitely stuck on ‘loading personal settings’
  • All the servers are running properly
  • There does not appear to be any network switch problems.

Updates will continue to be posted as new information is discovered.

Thank you
John Puskar
Chemistry Windows Support

The windows file server has locked up, and is being rebooted. All people on the old windows file server will be disconnected for about 10 minutes. Those who are migrated to WinFS already will be unaffected.
Thank you,
John Puskar
Chemistry Windows Support

Reminder: ChemRAT meeting tomorrow at 11am in 2015MP

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Reminder: ChemRAT meeting tomorrow at 11am in 2015MP

Possible topics of conversation:

– windows user migration
– cleaning up user and group shares
– cleaning up mail server INBOX usage
– preparing for new mail server transition, what needs to happen before we can switch to a new mail server

– anything on your mind or outstanding items with your group

If I have forgotten something I promised you, please remind me and I will try to do some follow up before the meeting.

Chemistry Windows File Server Problems

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Several people have reported problems with the chemistry windows file server named ‘windows’. We are rebooting the server, and in the process of diagnosing the problems. Users who have been migrated to the new server named ‘winfs’ should not be experiencing any problems. Thank you,
John Puskar,
Chemistry Windows Support

Periodic Mail Outages today

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Mail will be up and down today. I will attempt to post here when we have those oustages. One is forthcoming now… expect mail to be down from 11:15 until 11:45 (up sooner if possible).

Question: Why are we having a mail outage? Answer: 20% of the problem is old hardware. 80% of the problem is that Mail Inbox sizes are out of control.

What can you do to help?

Move mail out of your inbox into another folder. Depending on how your mail client is configured, this may mean it moves to your home directory on CHEMISTRY or to your local machine. Either would help our mail services tremendously.

What we are we doing in support?

  1.  We’ve expanded the mail disk a little bit (it was at 99% full). This is a temporary solution- we’re all out of room.
  2. I will be contacting users who have a very large Inbox. This means anything larger than 50MB. Now, some users have hundreds and hundreds of MB in their Inbox- how you manage your mail is your business. However, if you don’t categorize or organize your mail into subfolders please consider simply moving mail out of your inbox into  another folder to decrease load on the server. Maintaining a massive Inbox is wrecking mail for everyone and making it tremendously difficult for us to do our work.
  3. Among the$60,000 in hardware we just bought was a mail server. We’re working on that. These things take time. Keeping a tidy Inbox on your end will help move this project along as it simplifies (somewhat) rolling it out and it creates fewer emergencies for us to solve- like this current outage.

Thanks.