Service downtime

Today around 0715 we experienced a series of power outages in our water-cooled racks in HIT, leading to a shutdown of our most crucial servers. It took us almost two hours to get the systems up and running again, during which time most of our services were not available.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Microsoft Security Bulletin for July 2009

Last night Microsoft has released the Security Bulletin Summary for July, 2009.
If Automatic Update is not activated yet, then you must visit Microsoft Update to install the Security Updates.

Network outage aftermath

Today around 14:20 the D-PHYS network started acting up. After about 20 minutes the problem could be tracked down to a machine running amok. Unfortunately, the terminal server plimpy did not survive the downtime and had to be rebooted at 16:10. We apologize for any inconvenience.

LTSP Clients And The LTSP Server “plimpy” Upgrade

We will upgrade our LTSP server "plimpy" the next Wednesday, 24 June 2009 starting at 7 pm. Please save all your open documents and log out until that time. The machine should be ready again the next morning. You don't have to back up your data on /scratch since we will do that. Find the details on the software changes here.

While performing the upgrade to Debian "lenny" we will switch to a 64 bit kernel since finally also Adobe flash player, the last missing mission-critical app, is now available for 64 bit Linux. Unfortunately Adobe still doesn't ship 64 bit Linux versions of Adobe Reader (formerly Acrobat Reader). You can still fill Adobe Reader PDF forms and even create and edit PDF documents on the Windows RDP Server "ramora" which you can access via the ETH Zurich menu, Microsoft Office (or the full-screen login, see above link).

Beware of phishing e-mails

Of course 'UPGRADE YOUR ETHZ E-Mail-Konto.' is a phishing attempt. And not a bad one at that. The German is halfway correct and they even used different From: and Reply-To: addresses. But still: no administrator worth her title would ever ask for a password. Please delete.

Microsoft Security Bulletin for June 2009

Last night Microsoft has released the Security Bulletin Summary for June, 2009.
If Automatic Update is not activated yet, then you must visit Microsoft Update to install the Security Updates.

Microsoft Security Bulletin for May 2009

Last night Microsoft has released the Security Bulletin Summary for May, 2009.
There is 1 critical update.
If Automatic Update is not activated yet, then you must visit Microsoft Update to install the Security Updates.

Microsoft Security Bulletin for April 2009

Last night Microsoft has released the Security Bulletin Summary for April, 2009.
There are 5 critical, 2 important and 1 moderate updates.
If Automatic Update is not activated yet, then you must visit Microsoft Update to install the Security Updates.

Short Maintenance Downtime of D-PHYS Authentication Server

There will be a short maintenance downtime of our authentication server this evening at 7pm. This means that you won't be able to log in to any managed D-PHYS workstation or D-PHYS service for about 5 minutes. Update 19:01: Maintenance successfully over.
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RAM upgrade for LTSP Terminal Server

On Wednesday, April 8, starting around 0730 we will upgrade the RAM in plimpy, our LTSP terminal server. This will cause a downtime of about 5 min and the loss of all open sessions. Please make sure to have all your data saved by Tue evening if you're working on a thin client.

Update Wed 0800: plimpy now has 16 gigs.