Our "Computing Support" (EMWIDL) did some server maintenance last night and lo! this morning the home servers for staff and students are broken ... no login, no email, just web access (yay!) So, does anyone else think that the end of term, when all the years' results are being compiled and serious research is being attempted, is not the best time of year to be doing maintenance that might result in almost total system failure?! Hmmm...
Update: It turns out that the problems were an unfortunate concatenation of circumstances -- faulty network cabling (supposedly "tested" post-install) and a surprising number of dead "backup" switches! All-in-all the support people did well fixing the problems in less than 4 hours ;-)
[To the tune of the "Hornpipe" / "Drunken sailor"]

What shall we do with a working system?

What shall we do with a happy network?

What shall we do to support the users

... early in the morning?

 

Move the filesystems:

No-one'll notice!

Shift around the servers:

Nothing'll happen!

Plug in the fibre:

Nothing's working!

... early in the morning.

 

Oh look, the network's crashing!

Oh dear, the server's dying!

Oh no, I'm out of cables!

... early in the morning!

 

Now, what shall we do with a broken network?

What shall we do with crashing servers?

What shall we do with locked-out users?

... early in the morning.

 

Fix it bloody quick before the staff go mental!

Mend it really fast before meltdown happens!

Sort it out now or they'll send in the heavies

... early in the morning.

 

Ah well, there's no come-back!

Oh good, no-one's responsible!

Ha ha! Management don't care!

... because the buck never stops!

Frustrated ;->