Disruptions to both campus power feeds took our internal and external networks offline starting at around 6:15pm. Power returned at around 9:30pm. Currently Oracleweb is offline, and network access from the residence halls is degraded. We are working to restore network and server access to all sections of the campus at this time. We expect all services to return shortly.

Update: Oracleweb is back online. XL, Corcoran & McGee Internet is back online. THV remains offline until tomorrow morning. KCPL will be performing additional work on the feeds to THV during the night. All other servers and network services should be fully operational.

Critical reminder to all students: On Monday, February 16, we will be converting student email accounts over from our locally hosted email servers to Microsoft Outlook Live/Exchange Labs. Currently students are limited to 30MB mailboxes. After the transition that limit will be expanded to 10GB. You will also be able to keep your new email address forever, instead of having it deleted after you graduate. However, your email address will change and you will access your account through a new location. Instead of YourUsername@rockhurst.edu your new address will be formatted as YourUsername@hawks.rockhurst.edu - we will forward any messages sent to your old address until June 1, 2009. Please see http://help.rockhurst.edu/mail/live for more information on Exchange Labs features.

Computer Services will begin the switchover on Sunday evening, February 15 at 9:00 p.m. We expect this process to take approximately five hours, so we should be done by 2:00 a.m. Please do not try to change your password and access your new account before 2:00 a.m., Monday, February 16.

Starting Monday morning, you will need to follow these steps to activate and access your account.

1. Change your Rockhurst network password. This can be done through our Password Reset Portal at https://accounts.rockhurst.edu or from any campus computer. Your account will not be accessable until you have done this. If you have trouble setting your new password please see our Passwords & Accounts Information page.
2. Visit https://email.hawks.rockhurst.edu to login to your newly created mailbox. Your username for Outlook Live/Exchange Labs is your new email address (YourUsername@hawks.rockhurst.edu) -- the password is the one you just created in step 1.
3. After you login, Microsoft will require some additional information from you. You'll need to re-enter the password you created in step 1 and used to login during step 2. You'll also need to create a secret question to protect your account, an alternate email address that can be used to contact you if you get locked out of your Outlook Live/Exchange Labs account, then your country and date of birth.
4. You'll then need to select your perferred timezone. Nearly all users will need to select "(GMT -06:00) Central Time (US & Canada)" 
5. After you have completed these steps, you now have full access to your mailbox. To return to your mailbox at a later date, simply visit https://email.hawks.rockhurst.edu and you'll be taken directly to your box after you login.

If you have any questions or problems accessing your account, please contact the Computer Services Help Desk at 816-501-4357.

A popular activity on Facebook right now is to post 25 things about yourself and then tag 25 of your friends in the hope that they do it too. Well, we decided to get in on the action. Those of you who are friends with our profile can read and comment to our post on Facebook, but for those of you who are not, we've decided to publish them here as well. Some are serious, some are humorous, and its all done in good fun. 

It has been reported that some members of the Student Senate Exchange Labs test group were having problems logging into their email accounts.  If you are experiencing problems logging in, please reset your password from the "Password & PIN Reset" link at the top of the Computer Services help page or by visiting https://accounts.rockhurst.edu/. Your new password will synchronize with Exchange Labs and allow you to log in.

Rockhurst University has teamed up with Microsoft to provide students with a better email experience. On Monday, February 16, 2009, Computer Services will migrate all student email accounts to the Microsoft Exchange Labs/Outlook Live service, giving you vastly expanded storage. Currently students are limited to 30MB mailboxes. After the transition that limit will be expanded to 10GB. You will also be able to keep your new email address forever, rather than having it deleted after you graduate.

After this transition, your email address will change from YourUsername@rockhurst.edu to YourUsername@hawks.rockhurst.edu. We will automatically forward any new emails that are sent to your old address between February 16, 2009 and June 1, 2009. If you have messages stored in your old account you would like to keep, you will need to save them before June 1. At this point your old account and forward will be deleted.

Computer Services would like to welcome students back to campus and we hope that you had a great holiday break. We look forward to rolling out some great new technology this semester to enhance your Rockhurst education. If you have any technology questions or concerns please contact our office at (816) 501-HELP (4357) or email us at helpdesk@rockhurst.edu and we will be glad to assist you!

A campus wide power surge disabled our digital phone system. Our telecom department is currently working to correct this problem. Access to Outlook Web Access has also been disabled, we are working on this problem as well.

Update: All systems are back online.

Monday & Tuesday, December 15 & 16
8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Wednesday - Friday, December 17 - 19
8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Saturday & Sunday, December 20 & 21
Closed

Monday & Tuesday, December 22 & 23
8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

December 24 through January 4
All University Offices Closed
(To report a network/systems emergency, please contact Security at x4010)

Our offices will reopen at 8:00 a.m., Monday, January 5, 2009.

Starting at approximately 2:00am on Wednesday, December 10, the student email server running Microsoft Exchange 2003 experienced a system crash. We were able to determine that the cause of the failure was that our McAfee Anti-Virus scanning system detected a virus in an essential Exchange log file and deleted the file while Exchange was still active. This caused the database to fail and prevented it from coming back online.

Unfortunately, after contacting McAfee support and attempting to restore the log file that had been removed, this did not allow us to reactivate the Exchange database. It was determined that the database was damaged by the failure and claimed to be missing two log files that did not exist. We then contacted Microsoft support shortly after noon on Wednesday and attempted to restore the database from a backup that was performed on Tuesday night. Because there was still damage to the Exchange system, we then were required to perform what is known as a "hard repair", defragmentation and then a low-level integrity check to fix any errors and make sure there was no longer any corruption on the system.

We are currently experiencing problems with our student mail server. It has been offline since approximately 7:30 this morning. Unfortunately, at this moment, we do not have an ETA on when the email will be available. Our technicians have been working all day and will continue to work non-stop through the night until the system is back online.

This downtime does not affect faculty/staff email system access, or students with access to our Microsoft Exchange Labs email system.

We apologize for this inconvenience and assure you that were working as quickly as possible to correct this issue.

Update - December 11, 2008 @ 9:10AM: After working through the night, we are continuing to make progress on this issue. We are running repair utilities on our Exchange databases and hope to complete those processes soon. We will update you as soon more information is available. All faculty & staff have been notified, via email, of this situation and will need to make adjustments to course requirements as needed.

Update - December 12, 2008 @ 7:20AM: We were able to successfully repair the Exchange database. This completed shortly after midnight this morning. Student email should be fully operational at this time.