NUS SoC Computing Facilities

NUS SoC Computing Facilities updated their website address.

There was a power trip in the backup power supply for our COM1 main wire centre, during a planned electrical maintenance activity. This caused numerous disruptions. We have since resumed the affected network services.

Heads up. We will have a DR Drill on 24 Sep 2017 from 8:00 am to 11:59 pm.

Fyi. Network outage in COM1, AS6 and I-Cube, due to power failure from water ingress at our COM1 main wire centre.

On the issue of NUS Wi-Fi authentication: Some of you may have learned about our interim NUSSOC SSID to workaround the problems on the NUS SSID. Note that this is an interim solution. We are still working with ComCen on the NUS SSID authentication problems which affect not just SoC but all of campus, and have noted some improvements since yesterday.

Some users may experience some difficulties authenticating with NUS Wi-Fi. The problem seems to be the backend authentication server at ComCen randomly returning a failure message. We are still working with ComCen on this matter.

Just a heads up: We will have a DR Drill on 19 Sep 2015 from 9am to 3pm. A variety of IT services will be down/unavailable. Details in: https://docs.comp.nus.edu.sg/node/2184 #21

We had a network anomaly this afternoon from about 3pm to 5:30pm, with random traffic streams being dropped. The network is now back to normal. We are investigating to find the root cause.

We are also aware of difficulties authenticating to the NUS wireless network. ComCen authentication servers are returning "password incorrect" errors to our wireless controllers. We have confirmed with them that the issue also affects other parts of NUS and they are working on resolving.

Our WebVPN (https://webvpn.comp.nus.edu.sg/) has been failing to authenticate users ("permission denied" error messages) last week. It is a problem with ComCen's LDAP servers. As there doesn't seem to be a fix in sight at the moment, we have decided to switch authentication to SoC accounts. As of right now, please use your SoC account (i.e. account used with sunfire/suna) to login. This change may not be permanent (i.e. we may revert). Please look at the login prompt to see which account to use, so that you know when we change.

webvpn.comp.nus.edu.sg

We are aware of some Internet connectivity problems. Typical symptoms include HTTPS connection resets, leading to problems such as inability to access sites like Facebook or Gmail. The problem is quite random, affecting different people/devices at different times. This affects only connections out of NUS, and does not affect normal HTTP web connections anywhere.

We have learnt the problem is due to technical difficulties at ComCen's Internet firewalls, and they are working on resolving the issues. We'll keep you updated as we learn more information.

We're aware of some slowness and difficulties accessing Internet sites from SoC network. Access to NUS sites is alright. We have escalated and are working with ComCen to troubleshoot this problem.

Our WebVPN does have a Linux client. For Linux users, if you're interested, check out this blog post for setup guidance!

Using the new SoC VPN on Linux NUS School of Computing (SoC) has been using OpenVPN for its Virtual Private Network (VPN) service. However, the last I tried, the service no longer works. One could connect to it, but none of the subnets behind the VPN was...

That whole lot of cables, still not including the earth wires, represent just one single incoming power source.

The size of a single live wire from temporary generator supporting our data centre during the switchgear maintenance yesterday.

Due to certificate changes done by NUS Computer Centre, you may find yourself having to authorise/accept a new certificate this morning when you authenticate to NUS wireless network.

Power shutdown at AS6 and COM1 on 7 Dec 2014 from 9am to 6pm. There will be no electricity supply, air-conditioning, network, etc. Refer to your earlier email announcements for more details.

Happy Halloween! Just an update for Android users of our webvpn service. We recently disabled SSLv3 support in our webvpn, and this broke the Android FortiClient VPN software. There is now an update in the Android Play store. Please remember to update, and enjoy the secure VPN connection to SoC network!

Our DR drill in progress.

Heads up, we have a Disaster Recovery Drill scheduled on 20th September 2014 from 10am to 3pm. Expect some disruptions to IT services. Thanks for your understanding.

For Mac users, article in TechN'US about using Mac in NUS.

Getting a Mac for School - TECHN'US The official blog and newsletter of NUS Computer Centre