Internet access restored, and scheduled outage tomorrow is cancelled

Internet access has been restored, many thanks to Jim and Chen from Wiscnet! All services are now operating normally. In the course of troubleshooting, we went ahead and migrated the circuits to a load-balancing configuration ahead of schedule, so tomorrow morning's scheduled Internet outage has been canceled.

Internet service problems

The district's Internet connection has had intermittent unreliability today. It is still unresolved, though we are working with WiscNet technicians to solve the problem. The issues are making it difficult for staff to check email, and Internet access from inside the district is largely unavailable. We will continue working tonight to get it resolved, and tomorrow's schedule outage from 8-9 AM is still on schedule, though we may need to use it to continue to resolve this issue.

Thanks for your patience. Hopefully you are cooking Turkey, not checking email.

Scheduled Internet Outage 11/24 8:00 - 8:30 AM

There will be a scheduled Internet outage from 8:00 - 9:00 AM on Wednesday, November 24, so that we can test a newly installed Internet connection circuit with BCN. This is in preparation to set up a redundant Internet link so we can maintain connectivity in the event of an outage.

There will likely be multiple short interruptions during the outage window. You can feel free to try to connect, but be aware that interruptions are likely, so be sure to save often!

New services coming to Google Apps!

Important changes are coming to your OSD (@oregonsd.net) Google Apps account. Your account will soon be converted and start working more like a full Google Account.

What this change will mean for you:

• Access to many more Google products. You'll soon be able to use many more Google services with your oregonsd.net account, such as Blogger, Picasa, Google Reader, and many more.
• New sign in option. You will be able to sign in to Google services from the regular sign-in pages (like http://mail.google.com). Your username is your full oregonsd.net email address.

Prepare yourself:

• For more information, we encourage you to review the Transition Checklist. The Help Center also has answers to many common questions (note that you won't be able to view the full Help Center until you've been transitioned).
• If you have other questions, please contact Jon (jst at oregonsd dot net) or the helpdesk.

We hope you enjoy your new improved Google Apps account!

Email error messages when sending to other staff

Some staff have reported that mail they sent to other staff this morning has been returned to them with an error message 550. After extensive investigation, here's my best guess of what is happening:

When Postini sees a spam attack, it blocks spam messages and sends back "ERROR 550 Mailbox not available" to the spam source to fool it into thinking that the mailbox doesn't exist.

Postini found a spam attack that originated from a Google server. It put a block in place. Email messages from our staff to other staff which happened to originate from the same IP address as the spam attack were blocked, and the 550 error was sent back to the original sender.

That's my guess. To test it, I changed the bounceback message in Postini to 571 "Spam source blocked." (The block is no longer in place, but could start up again.)

If you get a bounceback error message when you try to send a message to other staff, please do the following:

1. Click on the down arrow in the top right corner of the message and select "Show Original"
2. Copy the resulting text into an email message.
3. Send it to me.
4. If it bounces back to you, please fax it to me (x1309) or print it to our printer (it's called DSO_9)

Thanks!

Planned Internet outage Wednesday, 11/17, 4:00 - 4:30 PM

The District's Internet connectivity will be interrupted on Wednesday, November 17 between 4:00 and 4:30 PM to perform testing on our Internet router in preparation for installation of a redundant backup system.

If you attempt to use Internet resources during this time, you may experience an unexpected disconnection, which could lead to data loss. Please avoid using the Internet during this time.

Internet access is down...

UPDATE: Internet access has been restored.
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Network:           WiscNet
Type:              Unplanned Outage
Location:          Wisconsin
Ticket Number:     178461
Party:
Start Time:        11/5/2010 11:54 CDT
End Time:          Unknown
Description:       Widespread Charter Outage

Engineers:


Reporters:

Affected:
  Charter Customers

Notices:

Maria Accuardi @ 2010-11-05 12:22:04
  Multiple Charter sites around the state lost connectivity at 1154.
      Network Engineers are currently looking into the issue.

>>>

Internet access is down due to a wide spread charter issue in the Madison area.