(English translation. Original text in Finnish.)

Hi,

As the most keen eyed of you might already have noticed, we had some mysterious network problems through the night. During the early morning hours we've discovered the rare but simple cause for these problems.

Some of our network cabling has expired. Though we have already fixed this problem in the data centers and some wiring closets, the problems may persist through the day with our users, if they are still connected with expired cabling either at the workstation or wiring closet.

With running workstations we'll try to spot the problems by looking through the state information of our switches. An expires cable is shown on the switch with a status of exp-disabled, which prevents traffic through the port (See below a snippet of a switch connection log showing this status on port 1.4).

Cisco IOS Software, C3750 Software (C3750-IPBASE-M), Version 12.2(25)SEB4, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1) Copyright (c) 1986-2005 by Cisco Systems, Inc. Compiled Fri 01-Apr-05 13:37 by joker RKT1.4#show int status Port Name Status Vlan Duplex Speed Type F001/0/1 connected drunk a-fool a-1000 1000BaseX-D FTW F001/0/2 connected drunk a-fool a-1000 1000BaseX-D FTW F001/0/3 notconnect 1 auto auto 1000BaseX-D FTW F001/0/4 exp-disabled 1 auto auto 1000BaseX-D FTW F001/0/5 notconnect 1 auto auto 1000BaseX-D FTW F001/0/6 connected drunk a-fool a-1000 1000BaseX-D FTW F001/0/7 notconnect 1 auto auto 1000BaseX-D FTW F001/0/8 connected drunk a-fool a-1000 1000BaseX-D FTW F001/0/9 notconnect 1 auto auto Not Present F001/0/10 notconnect 1 auto auto Not Present F001/0/11 notconnect 1 auto auto Not Present F001/0/12 notconnect 1 auto auto Not Present

If you run into a workstation with networking problems, switch the connecting cable to a new one. To recognise an expired cable, see the expiration date printed on the sleeve of the cable (see attached picture).

IMPORTANT! At our eastern academy all cables need to be switched to Green Office certified, green networking cables. In addition to the green colour, these can be recognised by the different feel of the cable in hand. The sleeve on these cables is made of ecological rubber and feels rougher than the regular cables.

For more information and instructions, contact me. I'd keep this problem on the down low as it's somewhat emabarrasing and we would rather not have this on our reputation. Should the users enquire about the problem, I myself brushed it off while changing an early birds cable by saying that the current weather changes can cause condensation on the connectors and this is sure to make a fool of the line.

Without any further, try and have a good day with this extra foolishness to deal with.

—

Juho Kirjavainen

Notwork Special / NOC NOC

Whosthere, Artsy Universe

