Loop_engineers_external

Spares in the Loop rack at Nayland.

Wed, 2 Nov 2011 07:24:40 +1300

Here are the current spares in the Loop rack at Nayland. o AR 770 firewall o AR440S firewall o AR450 S firewall o Rapier (24 copper ports) o AT- 8550GB o AT874XL (16 port switch?) o Rapier G6 (6x gig copper ports) o FS-724l (small rack switch)

Upgrade NS1

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 09:22:21 +1300

As part of the Marlborough upgrade we have taken the opportunity to upgrade the Loop's main external DNS server. We have put this at NMIT with secondary DNS servers both at Nayland and soon at Marlborough. No client or network configurations will need to be touched at this stage.

KAREN Internet

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 07:45:24 +1300

KAREN have just released their latest Internet (and Google) updates.
Excellent reading.

SNAP mail relay now vailable

Mon, 3 Oct 2011 15:41:59 +1300

Just relay through smtp.snap.net.nz –
Note this will filter out SPAM (so that it does not get blocked itself) but uses Cisco Ironport so its pretty effective.

Picton Spanning tree.

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 20:20:01 +1200

Picton spanning tree. Spanning tree is the ability for traffic to be managed in a manner that ‘self repairs’ any loops or misconfigured networks. The spanning tree for the Picton Loop run is being problematic to the point that the spanning tree has been disabled for the present to stop any unplanned erratic traffic behaviour. If we need to manually redirect the traffic then QCC will be ask to re-enable the secondary link (that is plug it in). There will be a solution but the attention of Allied Telesis Labs and the Loop engineers is currently focused on the KAREN connection and establishing a high speed link to Marlborough.

Outage

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 06:19:10 +1200

On the afternoon of the 15 August 2011 Telecom had a significant outage resulting in the Nelson fibre feed becoming overloaded.
This had a roll effect on SNMAP which resulted in Loop Internet traffic becoming erratic.

Telecom resolved the problem rerouting traffic until repairs were made.

SNAP at Haven road

Fri, 5 Aug 2011 08:16:43 +1200

The new SNAP connection at Haven Road has been 'stood up' and is now being tested,. Just waiting for the filters before we can migrate to Haven road, the new Watchdog filters and KAREN.

Allied Telesis new warranty (1 August 2011)

Fri, 5 Aug 2011 08:13:09 +1200

This news link will take you to details of the new AT warranty scheme.
I am unsure whether everyone needs to register their new SNUP switches as part of this change ... and whether the Loop needs to 're-warranty' its gear. I will up up date this feed and the associated web page as we find out more.

If anyone has more information- could you let Geoff know.

Post Transition KAREN transition.

Sun, 31 Jul 2011 06:11:54 +1200

This is the checklist that schools should use when testing after The Loop joins KAREN.

The five key schools in green at the bottom will be tested straight away upon the the transition.
Schools will be expected to tests asap after that.

KAREN Internet update (July)

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 05:55:40 +1200

Note that this option is only available to KAREN members who have their own AS numbers.

Have Road POP FAQ.

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 05:46:52 +1200

The FAQ set for the Haven Road POP.

Haven Road Peering design

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 09:10:16 +1200

The Haven road peering design has been published.
This is password protected.

Loop server Farm IP schema

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 09:08:52 +1200

The latest Loop server farm IP schema has been published.
This is password protected.

Karen Outage (17/7/2011)

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 11:40:42 +1200

We have been advised of a maintenance window affecting our Sydney service between 6AM and 8AM New Zealand time on Sunday, 17 July. Any outage is planned to be less than 30 minutes. Regards David

Loop outage

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 05:26:09 +1200

Last night (3.45pm Wed 29 June 2011) a Loop edge switch was replaced at Picton school.
Spanning tree did not work on that switch and a 'loop' was formed.
It took a few hours to identify and fix this error.
In the meantime some schools had intermittent connections to the Loop.

Time source for Windows networks.

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 16:51:36 +1200

There is now a Windows time source at loopsvr1.theloop.local (10.255.6.11)

IAM June Newsletter

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 19:34:37 +1200

June- July timeline

Fri, 1 Jul 2011 11:39:50 +1200

The second revision of the June to July 2011 timeline (technical) has been published for editions.

Mail relay

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 11:28:00 +1200

The Loop has being operation a mail relay for several year now.

The relay is mailrelay.theloop.local

It is open to to all Loop schools.
A number of Loop school prefer to use their own selection of mail relays but the Loop one is available to those who choose.

Outage

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 09:24:39 +1200

About 1.30 last Friday (10 June 2011) the Loop dropped the BGP peering session with SNAP - both links.
This resulted in the link with SNAP going down. When peering was re-established it took web services about 30 mins to settle down.

The fault appeared to related to the recognised fault in the new Waimea Loop core router.

The fix is to move to the new Juniper router. Tim has completed the Juniper training and has made the high level design required.

Pete and barry are attending training in Wellington this Tuesday.

The next step is to ship the router to Nayland and set up and test the configuration. All this can be read in the related Google document.

To sumerise: It is recognised by the Loop and Allied Telesis that there is s critical bug in the X900 routing protocol in the Alliedware+ OS.
Allied Telesis has not yet developed a fix so the the only alternative we have is to move to the Juniper option asap.

NBC's new network manager.

Sun, 5 Jun 2011 11:35:44 +1200

Bob Casey is leaving Geni and becoming the full time network manager at NBC.
Congratulations to NBC on making such a good appointment.
The Loop engineers look forward to working with Bob.

Joining KAREN

Sat, 4 Jun 2011 15:32:27 +1200

The link below will lead to the KAREN connection time time line.

Upcoming Loop infrastructure changes

Wed, 1 Jun 2011 06:54:54 +1200

As part of the process of upgrading the Loop's infrastructure there are a number of further changes coming up ...

1: The Loop plans on joining KAREN on or by the 30 June 2011.

2: This will involve getting another AS number so as to be separate from NMIT.
3: NMIT and CoE will connect to KAREN through their own L2 connection. The current AT9924 will be recycled back into the Loop system.

4: The Loop will be using a Juniper X650 for routing peering traffic including KAREN and Internet. The configuration script is being planned at the moment.
5: The now has access to a separate gigabit L2 link to Marlborough. This link will need to be activated as part of the KAREN commissioning.
The donated 100 megabit Vlan kindly donated by NMIT will decommissioned at this point.
6: A physically redundant fibre between Haven road and Nayland will be commissioned at the same time.
This will mean that the Loop core will be using a physically separate fibre conduit.

7: The Loop's firewall is having performance issues as traffic volume rises. The Loop is negotiating for a contracted loop based filter system.

8: The Loop is renegotiating commodity Internet access. Purchasing just and Internet pipe (100mge+) dos resolve some issues. We are looking to purchase separate pipes for such services as national traffic and the Google cache.

The Google document link below will expand this plan.

Internet Outage on 30/5/2011

Wed, 1 Jun 2011 06:08:54 +1200

This afternoon the Loop’s core internet router reset itself for no apparent reason. The router did not come back online. Internet to the Loop stopped. The policy routes were taken off and the router restarted and internet returned. The policy routes manage content redirect filtering for smaller Loop schools to Watchdog.. This is a known fault with the Allied Telesis X900 router (identified by the Loop about a month ago) and Allied Telesis has confirmed the fault, tagged it as urgent and escalated the problem for resolution.. In the long term this policy routing will be done by the new Juniper X650 switch (currently being configured) and then this the X900 fault will be bypassed (not cured). It is also expected that AT will need to develop a fix for the fault on their X900 routers.

Loop weather map

Fri, 27 May 2011 06:00:12 +1200

The Loop now has a new weather map to help schools track their internet usage.
Expect this site to change as refinements are made.

RBI stakeholder's meeting for the TOS.

Fri, 27 May 2011 05:56:52 +1200

These two sets of notes are from the first 'Top of South ' Rural Broadband stakeholder's meeting.

This is the first meeting with RBI regional stakeholder's and was mainly focussed on regional planners but contains information of interest to all rural schools.

Meeting notes The PowerPoint used to present the concept.
There was also many discussion points arising from the PowerPoint that are summarised in the second document.

Karen Google report

Mon, 23 May 2011 16:57:39 +1200

The latest supplement to the KAREN Google report.

May 2011 KAREN Google report

Mon, 23 May 2011 13:38:50 +1200

The May 2011 report into how KAREN see the Google traffic problem.

IPV6

Sun, 15 May 2011 15:57:49 +1200

A full hour presentation on moving to IPV6 from a recent APNIC conference.

RBI guidelines

Fri, 6 May 2011 06:48:21 +1200

Telecom has released their guidelines for the RBI

May 2011 Newsletter

Tue, 3 May 2011 09:52:16 +1200

The Loop's may Newsletter

UPS manual

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 20:48:48 +1200

MGE Pulsar Evolution 1100 UPS manual

NEN service RFI

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 08:19:43 +1200

KAREN weather map

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 10:04:47 +1200

Note that Nelson KAREN connection now has a redundant link.

Spares

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 07:48:16 +1300

The Loop set of spare fibre patch leads, SFP's etc has now been returned to Nayland College.
The modules, media converters etc are in the locked wooden cabinet in the Nayland ICT help desk room.
Geoff, Diane , Vicky and Alex have the key.
The spare switches are mounted in the Loops rack in the Nayland old server room.
A detailed inventory can be found in the secure finance web site (standing costs- asset register).
Geoff is keeping any duplicates in Collingwood.

Motueka run

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 19:43:18 +1300

The config documentation for the Motueka run was updated.