Completion of Central Firewall System Upgrade

The upgrade of Central Firewall System was carried out in two phases on 6 Jul (Fri) 6pm-11pm and 21 Jul (Sat) 6pm-8:30pm respectively. This upgrade is to meet various systems needs in view of 3+3+4 education reform. And some campus-wide application systems have to be suspended during the upgrade period. Thank you for your understanding on this matter. The upgrade has been completed ahead of schedule.

1. Background of this Work
2. Frequently-Asked Questions

Last modified : 21 Jul 2012

I. Background of the Work

Internet connections attract all kinds of attacks such as viruses/worms, spam, hackers, etc. A firewall is therefore essential to protect our campus network (a trusted network) from Internet (a non-trusted network) attacks.

This upgrade is to enhance the current Central Firewall Systems so as to meet various system needs in view of 3+3+4 education reform. And all the campus network and campus-wide applications under firewall protection have to be suspended during the upgrade period.

We understand that the outage of our systems has definitely caused inconvenience to all our users. However, we must carry out this upgrade before the new semester. And when we choose the date, we have also put into consideration not to disrupt critical production runs of administrative systems and to avoid the peak of student course works as far as possible.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused and thank you for your understanding on this matter. The upgrade has been completed ahead of schedule.

For any enquiries regarding this outage, please contact ITSC HelpDesk at 3943 8845 or write to https://helpdesk.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/group/itsc-help

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II. Frequently-Asked Questions

1. Can my mailbox in my department or in the campus-wide email system receive emails during the outage?
2. Will junk mails and spams jam my mailbox after the campus-wide email system is back to normal?
3. Should I not send large jobs and terminate unfinished job before the suspension of the academic computing systems?
4. Where can I get up-to-date information during the outage of campus network services and centralized computer systems?

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1. Can my mailbox in my department or in the campus-wide email system receive emails during the outage?

No email will be delivered or received by the campus-wide email system (@cuhk.edu.hk or @mailserv.cuhk.edu.hk) during the outage because CWEM servers, Webmail system, LDAP servers (for mail alias resolution) and CADS servers (for user authentication) will all beinaccessible. 

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2. Will junk mails and spams jam my mailbox after the campus-wide email system is back to normal?

The chance is, you will find less spam and junk when CWEM comes back after maintenance. The reason is, most junk mails and spams are sent by specialized software, which do not retry if the destination (our CWEM) is down, whereas regular email servers do.

So, regular emails sent to us during the outage period are delayed, and flushed back to us once CWEM resumes; junk mails and spams that are delayed should not come back.

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3. Should I not send large jobs and terminate unfinished job before the suspension of the academic computing systems?

You are advised to terminate all unfinished jobs or not to send jobs that cannot be completed before the suspension period of the academic computing systems. They may be killed without further notification before the suspension of the academic computing systems.

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4. Where can I get up-to-date information during the outage of campus network services and campus-wide applications?

The ITSC Hotline, 39438845, will be operated during the outage. We will try our best to answer your enquiries.

Latest information on the status of the work will be published on a temporary CUHK homepage at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ .

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