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Instructional & Research Information Systems

Network Failure report, Tuesday, March 20

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We were hit today with a massive failure of events that caused a major network outage this afternoon. I sincerely regret the inconvenience that I know you all felt. Most services were back up by about 7PM this evening.

Here are the details for those who want specifics:

It appears that our core router had a serious failure. We attempted to switch to the back-up management module. However, that too failed. No amount of poking and prodding would bring either of them back. We then attempted to put in our hot spare. However, that unit began smoking! At this point we did not dare install anything in the chassis and we decided that we needed to replace the entire unit. This is no easy task as it is large, very heavy and has many fiber and copper cables connected to it. Once we swapped the spare chassis and all the cards and cables, a seemingly new problem arose, our firewall cluster started misbehaving immediately followed by a failure of one of the Gigabit Fiber I/O cards(the last one is what I now believe led to the whole business). We managed to stabilize the firewall and swap the last blade and slowly, networks services have come back. Many thanks to all of those who helped! It truly was a team effort. Whew, this has been a day that I will not wish to live over again.

Thank you for your patience,
Fred

Lenovo Battery Recall

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Lenovo issued a recall of certain batteries shipped with some Thinkpads between November 2005 and February 2007, notably including the T60.

More information is posted on the [Lenovo web site][1].

[1]: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=BATT-LENOVO

Some details from that page:

On March 1, 2007, Lenovo voluntarily recalled approximately 205,000 9-cell lithium-ion batteries. These batteries were manufactured for use withThinkPad notebook computers that shipped worldwide between November 2005 and February 2007.

Lenovo sold the batteries with new notebook computers or as optional or replacement batteries on the models listed below.

* ThinkPad R60 and R60e Series
* ThinkPad T60 and T60p Series
* ThinkPad Z60m, Z61e, Z61m, and Z61p Series

These models may have shipped with either 6-cell or 9-cell batteries; only the 9-cell batteries with the part number FRU P/N **92P1131** are being recalled.

[See the above website for instructions on verifying the part number of your battery.]

Until a replacement for a recalled battery arrives, if you intend to transport your ThinkPad notebook PC or use it in a manner that may subject it to a strong external impact, you should turn off the system, remove the battery, and only power your ThinkPad by plugging in the AC adapter and power cord.

Tuesday’s AirBears Outage on EECS Networks

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EECS wireless network equipment also provides access to the campus AirBears wireless network.

During the afternoon of March 13, EECS wireless network equipment had problems with connectivity to the AirBears router, so that clients were unable to use the AirBears network within EECS areas. The problem was resolved just after 4pm.

Microsoft Patching Wed 3/14 3-5pm

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Microsoft will release their patches for the month on Tuesday, March 13, 2007.

HERMES, PRINT, RIS and WINSWW will be down for patching Wednesday, March 14, from 3:00p-5:00p.

macserver.eecs.berkeley.edu, which hosts the Mac software warehouse,
will be down for maintenance at this time as well.