of our networks and network programs.
A storm overnight caused the main server to powerdown after the power was off for a long period of time. The server had to be re-started manually. Services were restored before 8AM.
04/13/10
A problem with our AT&T internet line made the PGUSD.ORG and PG Email services unavailable for about 24 hours. AT&T completed repairs by 2PM today.
03/21/10
The webserver and email server were unavailable due to a power outage in Pacific Grove on Sunday. The servers were restarted and functioning by 5PM Sunday night when Susan Lozada came in to help get us back on track.
01/28/09
The webserver and email server were unavailable due to a power problem at the Adult Ed Center. System was unavailable from about 12:30 to 8:20 AM.
01/20/09
The webserver and email server were turn off following a storm-caused power outage Tuesday afternoon (1/19). This helped protect the equipment overnight. Services were restored by 6:30 AM this morning. Today is expected to be the worst of the week's weather and power outages are expected.
05/18/09
The webserver and exchange server suffered a poweroutage in their building and did not restart per normal. System was unavailable from about 7:30 - 10:15 PM. Systems were manually restarted and services manually reset as needed. Any email trying to go in or out would be held at their locations until our servers were running and then they would be re-sent. No messages should have been lost during the outage; at most there would be a delay while the sending server waited to try again.
11/16/08
The webserver had some Microsoft updates to perform on Sunday. The update was run about 2:30 PM. It refused to restart correctly until about 7PM after some tweaking of the network settings. More specifically, the server is supposed to point to itself as the authoritative DNS Server. However, during startup this can cause problems. Microsoft's knowlegebase reports that adding a second DNS (MCOE) could resolve the startup issue. As long as having the alternate DNS doesn't cause any additional problems, it will stay this way. Graph from Master.com shows the downtime.
01/05/08
The great storm of January '08 knocked out power for much of Pacific Grove. The schools that host the servers for "pgusd.org" and "pgpowerschool.org" were offline for about a day and a half. If school had been in session, we would have employed generators to keep up these servers which could provide a communication conduit for staff and families. Given that most of our families are within the present and future affected areas it is problematic whether or not many could see those messages. However, with the advent of web-enabled cell phones, a growing number of people will be able to access such resources during a power outage.
Both the powerschool and web/email servers were up and running by 3:30PM on 1/5/08.
Here is the availability graph for the outage--we don't get to see this much red during normal operations, thankfully...
(Information from master.com)
04/02/07
Late this morning the email server stopped sending messages. Following a restart of the server about 11:30 am, it seems to be working correctly.
03/10/07
We upgraded the email program and moved it to a larger Hard Drive. [Upgrade complete at 2:20 PM] The current users had almost filled up the original HDD. With the move we now offer a larger mailbox for all system users. Staff will still need to manage their mailboxes so as not to fill up this resource too. The most common problems are webmail users who delete messages but neglect to empty the "Deleted Items" folder. All messages count toward the total regardless of the folder in which they reside.
02/26/07
MCOE experienced some severe technical problems today which slowed or stopped internet access to all of our school sites and delayed email for much of the day. By afternoon the problems all seem to have been resolved.
12/28/06
Server down Wednesday (12/27) following two wind-related
power outages in Pacific Grove. All systems seem OK as of today.
12/18/06
Server received security updates from Microsoft and the
mailserver was sluggish, so the system was restarted before 9AM.
12/11-12/06
AT&T suffered an outage on its DS3 line connecting MCOE
and about 40 schools. Technicians from MCOE and ATT are working
on the problem. When it is repaired, MCOE will again be able to provide
us with our district internet connections.
10/23/06
We had a fussy email server today. From about 11AM to 3:30PM
it was collecting messages but not passing them on to you or your
intended receivers. It got stuck while updating it's own internal
anti-virus program and kept everything else from processing. Seems OK
now. We will monitor it closely in the next couple of days.
09/05/06
We have repaired the damaged user-file and things seem normal
as of 11PM. Some accounts for the newest users will be re-created and
any mail in their old folders will be copied to the new ones. Any newer
employees that are having trouble connecting to their email can contact
Bruce Cates at the Adult Ed Center.
09/05/06
We have advice from tech-support regarding the email and
webmail problems. The email system will be shut down tonight about 7PM
to run a repair and maintenance process. We will restore the user-file
from the last scheduled backup (about 2 weeks ago) and see if this
repairs the problem. In this case, the newest users will have to be
added again. If this doesn't work, the full email system backup will be
restored from that date and mail saved as of today will be added to
those mailboxes. In a worst-case scenario, all 400 user accounts will
be added by hand. Presently, those using regular email programs such as
Outlook, Netscape, etc, have been able to receive email. Webmail
remains offline until after tonight's repair.
08/31/06
We are having problems with the mail server and
webmail. A large file was sent to everyone at a school site and
it filled up the server hard drive. In clearing up some space to
run the mail program the user-file was damaged. This is used to
verify logins for webmail and admin utilities. Email run through
regular email programs seems to be unaffected. The problem has
been reported to the software support team and we will repair this as
soon as possible.
05/12/06
MCOE has started a program to filter emails for spam and
virus messages. Once the settings are established over the next few
days, we should see a marked decrease in junk email. You can read more about it here.
04/10/06
MCOE has reestablished access to the Board Policy and Local
Authors databases. All security questions have been resolved.
03/08/06
MCOE has agreed to reopen access to the webmail and calendar
services on our website. They feel that access to the Board Policy
(Filemaker) database poses too great a security threat and will not
re-open that access until we setup the program in such a way that they
feel confident that we will not be exposing our network to any possible
attacks. It is unknown at this time how long this will take.
03/02/06
In an effort to increase security on our network, MCOE has
closed some access to our server. This has included our webmail,
district calendar, and board policy. We are working with their IT staff
to get those features restored and maintain that balance between what
we need open to the public and closing those ports which represent a
security problem. Please try later to access those features.
01/11/06
Things have been running fairly smoothly over the past few
months. We have occasionally been placed on some "open-relay" lists but
are working through the mail server settings and the need for access to
the server to balance out this problem. Our next test of the open relay
is not scheduled until Jan 27th, so if your email is being blocked by
some receivers, this is the next time to try messages. Graph below
shows accessibility for the last seven days.
(graph is WatchDog from www.master.com)
07/27/05
The web and mail server was mostly off-line from about 4:30
PM until just after 10:00 PM. Following a routine "windows
update" the server kept hanging up on restart. One of the
non-Microsoft services that worked before the upgrade failed to start
after and kept the system from fully starting. The solution was
to restart the server multiple times with a different set of services
activated until the problem service was identified and disabled.
Graph below shows accessibility for last seven days.
(graph is WatchDog from www.master.com)
07/26/05
The spam filer has been adjusted during the summer and is
blocking more and more unwanted emails. System users will be instructed
on methods to improve the filtering.
05/24/05
The email system is blocking some legitimate emails as it
believes they are "spam" messages. We will reduce the sentitivity of
the system for a while as we search for a solution with the email
program developers.
12/30/04
The network was knocked out by a small power outage during
the rain storm. System was offline from 1345 to 1420 Hrs. Uptime for
last seven days shown below:
(graph is WatchDog from www.master.com)
12/01/04
The network was intermittently slow today. There were
some delays in reaching the mail server and web page off and on.
Late in the afternoon SBC ran a test on the lines and cleaned up what
ever problems it found and the connection seems normal as of 5:00PM.
05/18/04
The network has been behaving pretty well lately. We upgraded
some internal equipment which seems to have improved the response times
to the server. We are hoping to see a general trend of faster reply
times. The graph below shows connection time to the server over the
past week. Red lines indicate down times. (graph is WatchDog from www.master.com)
04/01/04
The network has been sluggish the last couple of days. The
most common problem due to this was that email programs could
"time-out" before making contact with the email server. We have worked
with MCOE and our internal network to correct the situation. Traffic
seems normal at mid-day today. The graph below shows connection time to
the server over the past week. Red lines indicate down times. (graph is
WatchDog from www.master.com)
03/08/2004
Network connection has been up and down this afternoon. First
went out after 3PM and was restored about 6:45 PM and dropped again
about 7:40PM. This indicates that MCOE is aware of the problem and is
working to resolve it or that it the problem is further up the line.
This could affect your ability to see the district web page from the
outside, and outside mail servers trying to connect to deliver messages
will not see our mail server. In that case, the sending computer will
keep trying for several days to make the connection.
(graph is WatchDog from www.master.com)
11/26/2003
Anti-virus software that checks our email was
re-installed. This is an earlier version (2.5) which uses the
latest anti-virus files but that doesn't have as many spam-killing
features as version 3.1 does. The reason to use it is that it
will install on Windows Server 2003. The 3.1 installer looked to
see if we were server NT or 2000, but doesn't know about 2003 and so it
won't install on its own. Symantec has some work-around solutions
that we will try in the coming days. We do block messages with
questionable subject lines, so if you get something unsavory you can
email bcates@pgusd.org and we will add that title to the list.
Special note: there is a virus running around which sends out
emails pretending to be "admin@pgusd.org" so that you will be tricked
into running an attachment. Do not open these--we have an email
called "support@pgusd.org" but NOT "admin@pgusd.org".
11/24/2003
Over the weekend, the email system programmers examined our
email setup and
determined that there were some "orphan" messages that did not appear
in the email directory and thus were clogging the mailboxes of some
users during delivery. If this affected you, it was evident in a
message that said "Error has occured while getting messages from the
POP3 mail server." (in Outlook or Netscape) or a message "RETR command
did not succeed." (in the webmail
program) They have cleansed the message file folders and gave us
a tool to check occasionally for these errant messages. The
bottom line is that email service across the district should be
relatively error-free and any future problems should be reported to bcates@pgusd.org.
11/22/2003
Following some problems reported last week, the email service
was re-installed on 11/22. If you were trying to reach the server
from about 11:00 AM to about 2:30 PM, you may have recieved only
connection errors. Again, we are still evaluating this email
program and if problems persist, we will switch to another email server
program. Please report errors to bcates@pgusd.org.
11/19/2003
There are some reports of email users having trouble loading
a full set of messages, almost as though one of them was stuck like a
log jam. If you experience this, try logging into the webmail program to view the full list
of messages. Please send an email to bcates@pgusd.org
if you do have to do this--we are still evaluating this email program
and if the problems aren't resolved, we will switch to another program.
11/14/2003 UPDATE
There is a change you can make in your email program to allow
you to send messages to outside addresses by changing the outgoing
server (smtp) name in your "preferences".
In Netscape version 4.x you
will find this under:
EDIT/Preferences/Mail&Newsgroups/MailServers
After you click on Mail Servers on the left-hand column, you will see a
place on the right-side for OUTGOING MAIL SERVER.
Change this to read:
mail.monterey.k12.ca.us
Then click OK.
In Netscape version 7.x
you must first go to the mail window, as if you were going to
read your email, then select:
EDIT/Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings...
On the left-hand side you will find:
Outgoing Server (SMTP)
Click on this once, and then on the right-side you will find a place to
change the SERVER NAME to: mail.monterey.k12.ca.us
In the Outlook Express program
look for this setting under:
TOOLS/Accounts/MAIL (tab)
Click on the Account (most likely) called:
mail.pgusd.org
Then click on the Properties button on the far right.
Then click on the SERVERS tab.
Change the Outgoing mail (SMTP) to: mail.monterey.k12.ca.us
Most of you will be able to make this change, or know who on campus is
your local "techie" to ask. If you can't make this change, you
can always use:
http://mail.pgusd.org
11/14/2003
We have most of the issues related to the new email program and the new Windows 2003 server resolved. You should be able to receive messages again. There is a problem sending messages to email addresses outside of "pgusd.org" right now, but we are working on that.
If you need to send a message outside of the school system, you can use the new "webmail" part of this email system. This allows you to access your "pgusd.org" email from any computer using a regular browser like Internet Explorer or Netscape. Go to:
and you can login using your username and password. Right now you can use this to reach outsite accounts as well as look at and reply to your regular pg mail. When the problem is resolved, we will send out an announcement.
11/13/2003
The email server has been re-installed several times today, but not all parts are functioning. Messages to outside addresses are being prohibited, mail to pgusd.org addresses are being collected, but not sorted into your personal mail boxes. A few outside messages are getting in to where you can pick them up, but they are few in number. The authors of the program are going to log into the server and try to make the necessary repairs.
11/12/2003
The email server is off line as of this evening. The system was failing to deliver mail and so was transferred to the new Windows 2003 server. The normal installation process has not worked on this newer system, so the vendor has been contacted for support.
10/29/2003
The mail server acted up on 10/28. The anti-virus program was collecting emails, but not delivering them to the mail program. Both were given a "needs to improve" in the "plays well with others" category, some counseling and parameter adjustments. By 8PM the problem seemed to have resolved.
10/22/2003
The main web/mail server for the district suffered a catastrophic
failure including the hardware failure of its hard drives. Web and
email services are being migrated to another server. If you are looking
for email, just keep checking for messages periodically. The
email addresses have to be re-entered by hand.
12/9/2002-
MCOE activated a new firewall to protect the county schools from
outside
intruders. They are working on fine-tuning is as it has slowed the
overall
performance of the network. You can test the speed of your local
network
with a bandwidth performance program at:
http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest
5/21/2002-
Many of you have reported getting odd emails from people who have not
really sent them. There is a "virus" going around that seem to collect
addresses from your emails and sends itself to names found in your old
emails. It also has some ANTI Anti-virus properties. It is a form of a
KLEZ worm.
There is a free removal tool available from Symantec at:
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/FixKlez.com
If you think you are having problems with this virus, download the repair program to your DESKTOP and then shut down, wait 30 seconds, restart the computer in SAFE MODE*, run the repair program (FixKlez) and restart.
(*SAFE MODE= During startup, after the memory check, tap the F8 key a few times until a menu appears, then select Safe Mode.)
01/15/1996
The official start of PGUSD having a website!