ITS Help Desks

By noon today, all PASS CIFS gateway servers have been switched to use the new LDAP Directory Servers. Changes in access due to new account creations or group membership changes will be reflected on this service once again.

ITS will continue to monitor and tune the service as needed however it is expected that the new Directory Servers will greatly out perform the old version. The new version uses a much more robust, multithreaded replication model and tests have shown the new servers performed orders of magnitude better with proper tuning. This is expected to resolve the user and group account information lookup problem with the CIFS service.

The login issues effecting all CLC Linux lab machines and the CLC Linux cluster has been resolved. If you still have login problems, please email clc-linux@psu.edu.

To optimize the performance of Penn State's Course Management System, ANGEL, during fall finals week, the Import Wizard and Export Wizard tools will be turned off from 4:00 a.m. Saturday, December 12 until 6:00 a.m. Saturday, December 19. These tools include the Copy Course, import Content Package, import Master Course, and export ANGEL Archive functions. Note: During finals week, instructors can continue to create course content and create master courses and learning object repositories. Students can continue to upload/download files and access lesson content.

The tools for importing and exporting individual lesson content items between courses and groups will be turned off as well. These are only temporary changes to improve ANGEL performance during the period of intense usage associated with finals week.

The Copy Course tool allows instructors to copy one of their existing ANGEL courses into another course section. A master course is a special course set up as a template that multiple instructors can import into another course section. The ANGEL Archive tool is used to download a backup of a course as a ZIP file; this file can then be imported into another section using the import Content Package tool.

Instructors who need to use these tools to set up a course for the spring semester are encouraged to plan ahead and perform necessary course imports or exports prior to finals week.

Beginning at 1:00 AM on Wednesday, 11/25, OPP will be testing the main breakers in Telecommunications building. While the test is in progress critical building load will be supplied by generators. Testing is scheduled to be completed by 7:00 AM. No service interrupts are expected by this work.

Schedule changes and information pertaining to Information Technology Services (ITS) during the Thanksgiving Holiday have been posted at http://its.psu.edu/notices/holidays.html.

Users are currently experiencing problems when logging in to TurnItIn at http:turnitin.psu.edu . The problem has been reported to the vendor and we will update the alert as we get more information. Questions about the outage should be sent to turnitin@psu.edu . Thank you.

During the maintenance window on Thursday, Nov 19, we installed the patch from the vendor to fix the race condition.

We are currently experiencing a problem with the LDAP server being used by
our Workflow Service. This may cause problems for those individuals who are
submitting TRMN forms through Workflow. We are currently working with IBM to
resolve this issue. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. If
you do experience problems, please contact the AIS Support Center.

Degree Audit problem has been resolved and the
service is back on line.

On 11/24/09, during the maintenance window, TNS will be performing maintenance on our DWDM connections that will result in a degradation of Internet connectivity.

On 11/20/09, during the maintenance window, TNS will be performing maintenance on the Computer2 router. During the maintenance, network connectivity may be disrupted briefly.

On Thursday, November 19th, 2009, TNS will upgrade the router at the Altoona campus. All services will be restored by 6:00am.

We have been informed that there will a scheduled power outage affecting Penn State York on Saturday, November 28, 2009 between approximately 6:00 AM and 2:00 PM. Network and phone services will initially remain unaffected. However, upon exhaustion of the backup power source, these services will be disrupted through the duration of the expected timeframe.

The remaining issue in the Course Proposal and Consultation System (CSCS) is now resolved. Thank you for your patience while ITS worked on these problems.

The long term fix (mentioned in the previous alerts update) has been distributed to our Refresh Servers. Macs will receive the fix as they refresh themselves early tomorrow morning. However, there are certain circumstances that prevent a Mac from refreshing, so if you're unable to log into a Mac, try moving to another available Mac. If there aren't any available Macs, please contact the CLC Hotline at: 8-777-0035 (On campus) or (814) 777-0035 (Off campus) and report the IP Address of the Mac that can't login.

We are back in production as of 7:08 PM.

At this point, all services known to be affected by this morning's network issue have been restored to service.

Note that some services related to the LDAP upgrade may still be unavailable. See for progress.

ITS will report on the root cause when it has been confirmed.

On 11/18/09, during the maintenance window, TNS will be upgrading hardware in the telecom9 router. Network connectivity to the Telecom9 router will be disrupted while the maintenance is in process. All services will be returned to normal before the end of the maintenance window.

Internet connectivity has been fully restored as of 5:30 pm.

OPP has advised that Electricity was restored to most buildings by 01:30 AM on today. Networking services were restored as power was restored to the respective buildings.